Where did the silver & gold for early American coinage come from?

Sometimes the more you dig into the origins of gold, the more you realize how tainted this metal is. Take for instance California gold rush and Perry expedition.

Gold is one metal that I personally do not like hanging onto for various ethical reasons. Blood is one, environmental damage is another.

 

Log in or Sign up to hide this ad.

Your question is a bit ambiguous so let me answer the most literal part of the question first: "Where did the MINT get the gold and silver to mint coins?"

The answer is that all the gold and silver used to mint early US coins came from private persons and banks/trading companies. The U.S. Treasury had not funds nor statutory authority to purchase gold and silver supplies for the purpose of minting coinage. In fact, the early statutes laid out specifics for how the Mint was supposed to provide coinage in exchange for bullion deposits.

The second aspect of your question has been largely already addressed by prior posters - basically, the gold and silver came from every imaginable source between mine and commerce.

 

Out of the ground. Where else does gold and silver come from? Actually a lot of the gold and silver was traded for. And the metals were also found in the US.

 

"The story is told of the power of gold
And its lure on the unsuspecting
It glitters and shines
It badgers and blinds
And constantly needs protecting"

- Dan Fogelberg

 

Jerry Harrison put out a CD called Casual Gods.
The cover artwork shows an interesting way of getting gold from the ground.



.

 

Ouch! I’m feeling bad owning gold.
But the pain will pass

 

Rustlers Rhapsody with Tom Berenger had a cool dancing horse in it wasn't the Carson City mint opened cause of the Comstock load ? And San Francisco because of the 49er gold rush ?

 

It has long been rumored that Martha Washington’s silverware was donated toward the making of the 1792 half disme.

 

Pick a year and read the mint director's report - it shows what they bought in and often the sources.

Before California and the Yukon, Gold came from the Carolinas and Georgia - that's why they opened mints in Charlotte and Dalonega.

 

Dup, so...

The story about Martha Washington's silver has been thoroughly debunked. Not a milligram of truth.

The silver came from Thomas Jefferson. The Mint was one of the ancillary responsibilities that Washington divided up among the cabinet and TJ got the mint.

The reason nobody had found the proof until recently turns out because the mint wasn't very important. Thomas noted the deposit of the 175 Spanish (probably Mexican) Silver dollars in his daybook (of accounts).

He picked them up and departed for an 11 day trip to Monticello and noted spending the first that night as a tip for the porter at the inn. It has to be at least one of the half dismes because there's no way he could have tipped 30 cents using Spanish 1, 2, 4 or 8 reales and cut up bits of same. Would have been 25c or 37 1/2c.

 

Didn't that have something to do with why we have quarters something about the division of the pieces of eight

 

Yes. If you didn't have the smaller coins, the larger one could be cut up.

8 reales = $1

4 reales = 50c

2 reales = 25c

1 reale = 12.5c (also called a bit)

1/2 reale = 6.25c

1/4 reale = 3.125c

Thus the half dismes at 5c were an innovation.


Very few of the cut up coins are genuine- they were melted and turned into Federal coinage over the years.

It's not unti the coinage act of 1857 that the Treasury was stopped from paying foreign coins back out.

That law also mandated the director of the mint report yearly on the coins and fineness still in circulation. So those reports give a view into what was money before it all became US coins.

 

This the expression 2 bits for quarter,,,,,,,,,makes me wanna get a shave and a hair cut lol!!!

 

Yeah alot of silver was mined in mexico and other spanish colonies. The us used reales as for a time before 1857

 

Most came from foreign and mostly mexican coins.

 

I’m hoping for a definitive answer But. Not sure if all your gonna get is a guess

 

Any good women would give up material things for her man. You guys know that.

 

How you feel about diamonds

 

Not sure I got that?