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

Most of the precious metal circulating in the country was Spanish silver and Portuguese gold with additional stuff from the Netherlands, France and other countries. People turned them in by weight as metal to get US coins. The Mint melted them down and coined them into US coins. It was a huge money-loser for the Mint involving lots of labor and losses at ever step that had to be borne by the Mint.

 

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That has been disproved. The metal for most of the 1793 half dismes came from Thomas Jefferson.

 

See post #29 above Where did the silver & gold for early American coinage come from?

TJ's 175 "Spanish" Silver Dollars made the entire 1792 mintage. There were no 1793 coins.

 

Thanks for the education everyone, lesson learned.

 

There is a typo in that, it should be 75 Spanish dollars not 175.

 

Yep...

 

The coinage act of 1792 authorized the Mint to produce copper, silver, and gold coins for circulation. The Act specified that the government must buy the copper needed to coin half cents and cents (as raw material or as blank coins already the appropriate size for coining). But depositors such as banks and individuals provided the silver and gold. The silver and gold were either in the form of foreign coins or bullion that the Mint melted down and refined to the appropriate fineness for coining.

The Coinage Act allowed any person to have silver or gold bullion coined at the mint free of charge, or exchange it for the equivalent value of the coin, less a charge of one-half percent of the weight of pure bullion presented. The Mint Act established quality control measures for the assaying of coins that would remain in effect until 1980 when the United States Assay Commission was abolished. The law also established a penalty of death for the debasement of gold or silver coins or the embezzlement of the same by the officers of the mint. You can read up more on it if you like but I think this answers the question and leaves a crumb trail for further research without going way too deep into it. for the most part gold and silver was melted reprocessed from silver and gold from other countries from American depositors to U.S. coinage.

 

Agreed, but then the question becomes, how would they do it?

 

They can't do it immediately because they have to assay. Melt the deposit stir it up real good and assay it when it cools.

I suppose they could pay you out at that point, note the clause about uneconomical to separate gold or silver.

That's probably a get out of jail card for the whole process... Since we no longer do this for our own production we have to send it out & that would cost taxpayers money - makes the whole thing uneconomical.

The large print giveth and the small print taketh away

 

There are US Mint reports from 1795 on at the Newman Numismatic Portal:
https://nnp.wustl.edu/library/book/516123

The Newman links to the Chicago Coin Club for this 1797 US Mint report:
http://www.chicagocoinclub.org/lib/us/asp/cl03.finance/v1/n118.html

Here is a page from the 1797 report, notice the deposits of Spanish dollars, French crowns, and Ingots.
On June 17, 1797 Thomas Jefferson deposited $300 worth of Spanish dollars.

When received. By whom deposited. Description of bullion. Standard weight. Value. 1797. Ounces. dwts. grs. Dolls. cts. ms.
Jan. 9 Nathaniel Thomas, Ingots. 204 5 0 235 67 0
Feb. 16 John S. Sherborne, Sp. dollars. 390 0 0 450 0 0
March 10 John B. Wallace, Fr. crowns. 866 13 8 1,000 0 0
April 19 Nathaniel Thomas, Sp. dollars. 433 6 0 499 96 0
28 John B. Wallace, Fr. crowns. 866 13 8 1,000 0 0
May 2 Do. do. Ditto. 866 13 8 1,000 0 0
11 Nathaniel Thomas, Sp. dollars. 390 0 0 450 0 0
15 Bank of Pennsylvania, Fr. crowns. 866 13 8 1,000 0 0
19 Joseph Richardson, Ingots. 423 7 12 488 50 5
June 5 John E. Van Alen, Sp. dollars. 656 10 0 757 50 0
9 John Foley, Ingots. 3,494 4 0 4,031 76 5
Joseph Richardson, Ditto. 230 14 12 266 22 0
17 Do. do. Ditto. 208 9 0 240 52 0
Thomas Jefferson, Sp. dollars. 260 0 0 300 0 0
July 29 John Carrell, Ingots. 347 7 0 400 78 5
Joseph Richardson, Ditto. 557 1 0 642 75 0
Bank of the United States, Ditto. 946 14 0 1,092 34 5
Aug. 17 David Ott, Ditto. 375 14 0 433 50 0
Nov. 29 Bank of the United States, Ditto. 1,800 2 0 2,077 3 5
Bank of North America, Fr. crowns. 25,915 3 0 29,902 9 5
Dec. 12 Bank of the United States, Ingots. 2,051 10 0 2,367 11 5


Spanish dollar 1770 Mexico mint

 

I believe Jefferson was later paid back in newly minted half dimes.

 

@chascat You are confusing 1792 with later.

The 1792 deposit of *75* silver dollars by Jefferson was the first.

The initial mint was an informal responsibility of a cabinet officer. Obviously it had not been organized yet under the 1794 act.

It took several years after 1794 for even that because of the initally sky high bonds required .

By 1797 the mint was robustly accepting deposits and returned coins - although not enough to support the commerce of an entire country.

 

(del)dup

 

Hhuuhh

 

seigniorage (cool word) I had never heard it uttered before

 

Thanks!

I recently read an article in Numismatic news and had my years wrong. Chascat.

 

Apologies for the typo. I meant 1792.

 

The Mint was organized in 1792 and began striking copper coins for circulation in early 1793. The required bonds were covered in 1794, and silver coins were struck that year. Gold coins were struck beginning in 1795. In the earliest years, the mint was under the State Department, so its director reported to Edmund Randolph, Secretary of State after Thomas Jefferson's resignation in 1793.