Cache of old dies found in New Orleans Mint 0

[RWB]

Sometimes, things just get pushed under the rug or to the back of the refrigerator, or maybe in a box in a corner storeroom. Where wherever they were found, about 1,000 lbs (80 to 90 individual coinage dies) were found at the New Orleans Mint in late 1884. At present we don't have an inventory of the dies, but we know what happened to them. Smash. Bang, Crush.

The red margin note is probably contemporary with the letter.

Edited February 6, 2020 by RWB

[kbbpll]

Hmm, looks like they were allowed to retain "fit for use" reverse dies for 1882-1884, and nothing was said about obverse dies 1882-1884. Why did they want the unfit 1882-1884 reverse dies shipped back to Philadelphia?

[RWB]

3 hours ago, kbbpll said:

Hmm, looks like they were allowed to retain "fit for use" reverse dies for 1882-1884, and nothing was said about obverse dies 1882-1884. Why did they want the unfit 1882-1884 reverse dies shipped back to Philadelphia?

The Engraver held the master list of record of all dies. Returning old dies to Philadelphia allowed Charles Barber to confirm that no dies were missing and to determine if reverse dies were is satisfactory condition for reissue.

[Just Bob]

I wonder what they did with the obverse dies for '82-'84.

[DWLange]

These undoubtedly were destroyed a few years later, but it's odd that the Director didn't order the destruction of all dated dies prior to 1885. They clearly served no further purpose.

[kbbpll]

15 hours ago, RWB said:

The Engraver held the master list of record of all dies. Returning old dies to Philadelphia allowed Charles Barber to confirm that no dies were missing and to determine if reverse dies were is satisfactory condition for reissue.

My understanding has been that all dies were returned to Philadelphia for destruction, or in the case of reverse dies, deciding on reverse dies being "fit for reuse". So what caught my attention was that Philadelphia only wanted the unfit reverse dies returned, and New Orleans was allowed to decide themselves which reverse dies were still OK. This relates to my pondering regarding how San Francisco was able to continue producing Reverse 2 (thin ribbon) dimes from 1902-1905 when no other mint did - where did those reverse dies come from? If a branch mint was allowed to keep "fit for use" reverse dies without passing them back through Philadelphia, that would be another avenue for my pondering.

Of course, this may have been a special case for New Orleans. 1000 pounds worth of dies seems like a lot to ship. Perhaps Barber had a specific reason for wanting to see the "unfit" reverse dies from those years.

This letter could be a tidbit for the Morgan VAM collectors - is there a reverse VAM for 1882-1884 that appears again for 1885+? Evidence that they reused one of those dies in a later year might be interesting.

[RWB]

SF was the "#2 Mint" in that era and had excellent quality machinists and foremen. The level of trust seems to have been greater for SF than the other mints. New Orleans was the "poor step sister" mint - it got hand-me-downs from Carson, excessive silver dollar demands, and seemingly persistent local "drama." The weather made things worse as did a long "sick season" suspension every year.

[Kirt]

I noticed that just prior to this there was some drama about unauthorized expenses - stationary, of all things. It did seem like there was little trust for New Orleans operations.

[kbbpll]

On 2/7/2020 at 6:43 PM, RWB said:

seemingly persistent local "drama."

Speaking of which... Mr. Stokey

[thisistheshow]

6 hours ago, kbbpll said:

Speaking of which... Mr. Stokey

...wow...fascinating to read this. It is written so 'matter of fact'. 

[DWLange]

It would be interesting to know whether the requested five die pairs included the O/CC dies that had been returned to Philly from Nevada the previous year and then over-punched with the O mintmark.

[Alex in PA.]

Insane Asylum?  Working at the Mint must have been really stressful! 

Great and very informative post, thanks.

[RWB]

5 hours ago, DWLange said:

It would be interesting to know whether the requested five die pairs included the O/CC dies that had been returned to Philly from Nevada the previous year and then over-punched with the O mintmark.

When were they returned? Is there a paper trail? Additional requests for dollar dies occur throughout the rest of 1900.

Thanks!

Edited February 10, 2020 by RWB

[RWB]

....and now, the follow-up to Mr. Stokey's job performance:

Edited February 11, 2020 by RWB

[thisistheshow]

Roger, 

I love your contributions. I haven't frequented here often, usually ATS, but I remembered you are here and your posts are a "must see".

[DWLange]

When were they returned? Is there a paper trail? Additional requests for dollar dies occur throughout the rest of 1900.

Rusty Goe's book, The Mint on Carson Street, reads "Later in 1899, [Superintendent] Colcord supervised the transfer of Carson City's coin presses and other related coinage material to Treasury offices as ordered by the Director of the Mint, along with the leftover silver dollar dies mentioned earlier."

I was not able to find the earlier mention in his book, which has a fairly basic index. You may want to contact him about it.

[RWB]

Mr. Lange - Thanks for the lead; I'll check. The 1899 inventory and shipping records I've seen say nothing about dies. I have doubts that any leftover Carson dies would have been permitted to remain in Carson after the end of 1893. That is, standard procedure required accounting of previous year's dies during early January of the following year - in this case 1894. The decision to close Carson as a mint was made in 1893, so there should have been particular awareness of high-security items (dies, collars, etc.) from both Mint HQ and the Engraver.

[RWB]

19 minutes ago, thisistheshow said:

Roger, 

I love your contributions. I haven't frequented here often, usually ATS, but I remembered you are here and your posts are a "must see".

Wow! Thanks, I appreciate your interest. There is a large (and growing) amount of documentary information available for free on the Newman Numismatic Portal (NNP). You might find it interesting to browse through some of the material.

Feel free to let other collectors know about the information.

[kbbpll]

19 minutes ago, RWB said:

You might find it interesting to browse through some of the material.

Whenever you post something here, I check if it's from a new box that I haven't seen yet. This stuff is a gold mine!

[RWB]

E-229 Boxes 114 and 115 were posted on NNP yesterday and today.

E-235 Vols 34 and 37 were posted last week.

E-1 (General Correspondence) many new boxes have been posted recently.

[kbbpll]

Perhaps tangentially related, here's one where Philly specifically retained a New Orleans previous year's obverse die "for future use".