The Bennington evening banner. (Bennington, Vt.) 19??-1961, 1916-11-23

Their Common Use FOR Manufacturing
,aurposns Alarmed Uncle Sam, and
tis Quickly Cured the Evil 81 "Pep-
pering" the Coins With Iridium.
An old time manufacturing jeweler
tells how the United States govern
ment stopped some forty odd years ago
tie melting up of twenty dollar gold
pieces iy-persons who wished 10 use
he metal In the manufacture OF gold
jeweiy.
In those days 1t was the custom Of
many Of the jcwelry 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
goldpicces enough. or ten doilar0nes, for
that matter, TO supply sufficient metal
for the work in hand. The gold pieces
being 30 carats fine. "a carats being
absolutely pure gold, 1t was not diff
cult for the jewelers. 10 melt them up
and add the necessary alloys TO pro-
duce the degree Of flneness desired for
! the jewelry they were going to make.
However" says the jeweler. lit
vas 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
think that the people Of the country
were boarding the gold, because most
OF the smaller coins remained In cir
cuati0n. So n quiet investigation was
begun. and Il was not long before II
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 peppeIing' the twenty
dollar coins with iridium, which Is
,iat altogether unlike black emery Il,
TIE crude state, requiring heat of
SOP degrees f. to melt It. Gold. on
the other hand. can he melted at 1913
degrees T. From this IL is easy TO see
that the unsuspecting manufactures.
melting up gold pieces at the temper
allure required, got number of un-
melted specks of iridium in his metal
/ when he let II cool This made trouble
when the metal was worked M.
AT the time this was being done
there was u great vogue for fine Etrus-
can work in solid gold, which required
a perfectly smooth surface in order 10
be produced properly. Imagine the dis
may of the jewelers., therefore, when
they found the much needed smooth
surface dotted here and there with X
tie pepper-like spcelSs 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.
Ii 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-
cd some trouble for the gold jewelry
trade had its birth in the assay Office.
W me il WIS litt Nilti tIt tdNt, IL WIS
not a rare thing M until about ten
years aga "a find sprinkling OF iri-
dium In the fpc sold purchased from
the government assayer. While this
might possibly have been avoided by a
little more care on the part of the per
sons who had charge of preparing the
scrap metal for refining. it was gener-
ally regarded in the trade as accidcn.
tai II 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 tho jewclry trade. but in way thai
affected the trade much more indirect.
~ than directly. Knowing that a good
price could lie had for scrap gold from
the reflners the gold probably finding
an ultimate purchaser in the jewelry
trGde, Inscriptions persons had sex
eral ways Of obtaining this scrap and
still leaving enough of the coins to pass
tiem ON UIisuspecting tralesnen ana
,Anks that were not careful enough Ia
Weigh them when they were rendered.
"0ae way of doing this was TO strip
!. coin by putting ii into an electro.
chemical bath, getting thereby slight
residue of gold on . copper plate, which
was afterward melted aud the metals
separated This methc1 was not very
popular, rs it had Il tendency to dis
color the coin.
"One OF the most successful schemen
was the use Of n specially prepared
male and female die. The diameter OF
the die was about one one-thousandtll
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 milicd cllgcs remained. Ths
gold thus obtained from a single twep-
ty dollar coin was probably worth
about 30 ccntS. and the coin itself, to
all appearances. had not been tam
pered with W-aoa the practice was
discovered the banks installed scales
Jn which they weighed gold coins
before accepting them."-New Yors;
Times