Idaho County free press. [volume] (Grangeville, Idaho Territory) 1886-current, 1916-12-14
OUR COLD PIECES
They Once Figured In an Odd
Way In the Jewelry Trade.
WENT INTO THE MELTING POT.
Their Common Use For Manufacturing
Purposes Alarmed Uncle Sam, and
He Quickly Cured the Evil BY "Psp-
pe~inq" tho Coins With Iridium.


tells how the United States govern
ment stopped some forty odd years ago
the melting up Of twenty dollar gold
pieces by persons who wished to use
the metal In the manufacture of gold
jewelry.
In those days it was the custom OF
many of the jewelry makers to use
these coins instead of buying fine gold,
as a matter of convenience. So they
went to a bank and got twenty dollar
gold pieces enough, or ten dollar ones, for
that matter, to supply sufficient metal
for the work in hand. The gold pieces
being % carats fine. "a carats being
absolutely pure gold, it was not diff
cult for the jewelers. to melt them up
and add the necessary alloys to pro-
duce the degree of fineness desired for
the jewelry they were going to make.
However" says the jeweler, ut
was not long after this practice be-
came more or less general that the
government authorities began to won
der what was becoming of the twenty
dollar gold coins. They began missing
the ten dollar ones, too, but the dis
appearance of the former was by far
the more rapid. The officials did not
were boarding the gold, because most
of the smaller coins remained in cir
culation. So quiet investigation was
begun. and it was not long before 1t
was discovered that the makers of
gold jewelry were melting them up
for trade purposes.
Having found the cause, it was not
difficult for the officials to effect cure.
They did 1t by peppering' the twenty
dollar coins with iridium, which is
not altogether unlike black emery In
the crude state. requiring heat Of
3,542 degrees F. to melt It, Gold, OH
the other hand, can be melted at 1913
degrees F. From this it is easy to see
that the unsuspecting manufactures,
melting up gold pieces at the temper
ature required. got number of I'M
melted specks Of iridium in his metal
when he let 1t cool This made trouble
when the metal was worked up.
AT the time this was being done
there was great vogue for fine Etrus-
can work in solid gold, which required
a perfectly smooth surface in order to
be produced properly. Imagine the dis
may of the jewelers., therefore, when
they found the much needed smooth
surface dotted here and there with lit,
tie pepper-like specks of iridium. To
leave them in meant that the decora-
tive work could not be done properly
and to take them out meant leaving
the piece pockmarked with tiny holes.
1t was not long before the gold pieces.
whether they contained iridium or not.
were eyed with suspicion by the man
ufacturers. who then secured their
metal from other sources.
Another way in which iridium caus-
ed some trouble for the gold jewelry
trade had its birth i'm the assay office.
While 1t was not often the case 1t was
not rare thing up until about ten
years ago to find sprinking of iri-
dunn In the fine gold purchased from
the government assayer. While this
might possibly have been avoided by
little more care on the part of the per-
sons who had charge of preparing the
scrap metal for refining, 1t was gener-
ally regarded in the trade as acciden-
tai. 1t happened because the clips and
filings that were turned In for refining
by the makers of gold pens contained
tiny bits of iridium. which because OF
its hardness is used for tipping the
pens. This does not happen any more
Twenty dollar gold pieces figured In
another interesting way in the old days
in the jewelry trade. but in a way that
affected the trade much more indirect.
ly than directly. Knowing that good
price could be had for scrap gold from
the refiners. the gold probably finding
an ultimate purchaser in the jewelry
trade, INSCRIPTIONS persons had sew
eral ways Of obtaining this scrap and
still leaving enough of the coins to pass
them on unsuspecting tradesmen and
banks that were not careful enough to
weigh them when they were rendered.
''One way Of doing this was to strip
q coin by putting 1t into an electro.
chemical bath, getting thereby slight
residue Of gold on a copper plate, which
was afterward melted and the metals
separated. This method was not very
popular. as 1t had tendency to dis
color the coin af
"One of the most successful schemes
was the use OF specially prepared
male and female die The iametor of
the die was about one one-thousandth
of an inch smaller than the diameter
Of the coin. and it was so made that
after the resultant rim Of metal was
cut of the milled edges remained. The
gold thus obtained from single TWEEN.
ty dollar coin was probably worth
about 30 cents, and the coin itself, to
all appearances, had not been tam
pered with. When the practice was
discovered the banks installed scales
on which they weighed gold coins
l.