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 Replies: 14 / Views: 1,631 |
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Pillar of the Community
Canada
2516 Posts |
I'm outlining an occult detective story plot set in 1892 San Francisco, and trying to work out if this scenario is going to make sense. Some voodoo shenanigans would be going on, and some brand new New Orleans mint coins would be a plot point in tracking down the culprit. The year was picked specifically because O mint gold coins were at a lower mintage than S mint coins that year. How many months into the year would it be before the year's coinage would appear locally, at the minimum? First for exchange at the bank, and then in general circulation? The ideal situation would be that the culprit exchanges for these coins at a bank in New Orleans before the year's coinage would be widely in circulation, and carry them all the way to San Francisco to pay an accomplice in mixed gold coin (hence why they are all mint state despite the coins being from New Orleans and maybe the occasional double eagle from Philadelphia) because for whatever reason that I still need to figure out, he doesn't want to show his face at a bank in San Francisco. Therefore the detective in San Francisco would notice mint state 1892O coinage appear even before 1892S coinage is widely in circulation, which raises flags as the usual New Orleans coinage he sees would be circulated older dates. What sort of money would people use for gambling? I've never seen people gamble with paper money in Westerns, but this is set a few decades after that. Would paper money be widely accepted by then, or were people still untrusting? What sort of paper money would be used, the US Treasury's gold and silver certificates, or were chartered banknotes still dominant? Since silver dollars are out of the picture when it comes to coins, gold coinage seems to be the next best bet (according to my Red Book "the silver dollar had not circulated to any great extent in the United States after 1803... for various reasons such as exportation, melting, and holding in bank vaults, the dollar was virtually an unknown coin"). A scene where some people are gambling in a saloon and throwing down O mint gold $10 or $5 pieces would be a convenient scene to introduce these coins into the plot. And since that was a lot money back then, it could also be used to indicate an accomplice's just had a payday. Large denominations would be more sensible than hauling halves, quarters, and dimes across the country, although it's always possible that the culprit has some in his pockets anyway for normal transactions. Since the Barber design just came out that year, it could be what prompts the detective to take a closer look at the coins and notices the mintmarks (unless newspapers reported about the design change, then I guess not since he would be expecting to see Barber coinage anyway - still need to look up if it made news or not). I still need to figure out travel times between those two cities too, but since railroads to the west have been a thing for a decade or two, I don't imagine it would still take long gruelling months of travel. I just need to find some old timetables to get an idea. I realise that's a text wall, so thank you if got this far. Not sure how much I should let realism get in the way, rather than making up something that works in-universe but looks like plot holes to people who know about things. |
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Moderator
 United States
34393 Posts |
"If you climb a good tree, you get a push."
-----Ghanaian proverb
"The danger we all now face is distinguishing between what is authentic and what is performed."
-----King Adz
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Pillar of the Community
 Canada
2516 Posts |
Well, that's a lot less reliable than I thought. Though I'm sure it still faster and beats going on horseback, especially when lugging along, say several thousand dollars in gold. I still have to figure out what's a decent amount to pay an accomplice in crime in those days...
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Valued Member
United States
277 Posts |
Did coins from all mints circulate widely across the US back in the 19th and early 20th century, or were they more regional based on the closest mint? For example, coins circulating in the West Coast were predominantly from Carson city and San Francisco, while coins in the South were from New Orleans, and coins in the East / Midwest were predominantly from Philadelphia?
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Pillar of the Community
Canada
2516 Posts |
I assumed it would be like today where coins would circulate mostly regionally. I've been to New York and it's mostly Philly coins that I see with Denver being less common.
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Moderator
United States
34393 Posts |
I agree with @alraria that the circulating coinage would have been regional, likely more so than it is currently.
"If you climb a good tree, you get a push."
-----Ghanaian proverb
"The danger we all now face is distinguishing between what is authentic and what is performed."
-----King Adz
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Pillar of the Community
United States
1613 Posts |
I agree with the regional circulation, which plays in your favor as to the detective noticing the coins. Particularly bright, new examples. On the other point of how early they were minted, available, I would think by mid to late February if the dies from Philadelphia arrived early enough. Second, back then it was common to walk into the mint branches and buy them direct, or through exchange, from the Mint Casher.
ANA member - PAN Member - BCCS Member There are no problems only solutions - the late, great John Lennon
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Bedrock of the Community
United States
17884 Posts |
Philadelphia tried to make sure the branch mints had dies for the new year available at the start of the year, but that doesn't necessarily mean that the new coinage would begin immediately. But that doesn't mean that it did. Silver was coined on the governments account and if it wasn't needed immediately locally it wasn't coined. Gold still enjoyed free coinage privileges and anyone could bring gold into the mint and have it coined so it is possible possibly likely that it would start early in the year.
The information you want would be found in the monthly reports from the MNew Orleans Mint to the Director. Thesse are in the national archives, but I have no idea which depository they would be in, they may be uploaded to the Newman Numismatic Portal, or Roger Burdette may have copies.
As for the paper money question, I would suspect most of the paper currency would be issues of the regional National Banks, The gold ans silver certificates with printed back east and probably pretty much stayed in the east. Private banknotes had disappeared in the early 1860's (after the Federal government levied a 10% tax on them making them no longer profitable to issue.) National Bank note though were issued all over the country by the local banks that had received charters from the Federal Government as National Banks. their paper issues were respected because they did have at least some guarantee behind them from the Federal Governement. If a private bank had failed its notes would be worthless, but if a National Bank failed its notes after liquidation of the banks assets, would be made good by the rest of the National Banks.
One problem you may have is that gold coins, if not need locally, were more likely to be shipped East than West. Even a lot of San Francisco's gold coinage was shipped east. So that would make New Orleans coinage showing up in California unusual. But then the question is, who it be noticed? At the time even most collectors didn't pay any attention to mintmarks, so would a layperson notice the O mintmark?
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Pillar of the Community
Canada
2516 Posts |
Very interesting Conder101, thanks for pointing me in the right direction! I wasn't aware those archives exist. Time to dig in... and maybe make some assumptions when I can't find what I'm looking for. Is Roger Burdette a member of this forum?
Mint marks weren't something people used to pay attention to? Did collectors simply not care yet at that point in time, or were most people unaware about mint marks? Eh, it's going to sound contrived in the first place with someone paying someone else in coin that they toted across the continent. What's one more?
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Bedrock of the Community
United States
17884 Posts |
For the most part there was almost no interest in mintmarks until Augustus Heaton published his treatus "Mint Marks" in 1893, and even then they didn't really become popularly collected until after the introduction of coin boards in the 1930's. Before that most collectors were satisfied with one coin of each date, the mintmark didn't matter. Most collectors lived in the East and simply wrote to the Philadelphia mint each year and ordered whatever coin they collected and enclosed postage stamps to pay for it or a banknote and stamps if the total was over a dollar.
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Pillar of the Community
United States
4233 Posts |
The monthly coinage records are here. https://archive.org/details/Rg104en...ol4/mode/2upIt will probably inform your story to look closely at them. Gold coins were not minted in New Orleans until August 1892, but lots of DE gold was minted in SF right away. I doubt anybody in SF would know which month NO started minting gold coins. I don't know where you get the idea silver dollars were not circulating or used for gambling. Did you pick 1892 on purpose? The Barber coins were introduced in 1892, and the dies would have been delivered in December 1891, and coinage would have been very early - NO minted 27,000 half dollars in January 1892, and SF minted 60,000. Maybe use a half dollar? I would have to guess that they were widely used, probably in gambling, and a half dollar was a lot of money in 1892. Any of the new Barber coins might have received extra scrutiny, which could play into your story. @RWB posts regularly on the NGC forum lately. I'm sure he would provide useful information. Edited by kbbpll
06/26/2020 8:01 pm
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Pillar of the Community
Canada
2516 Posts |
Huh, one year too early. 1892 was picked on purpose but I suppose I could push the date back one year, to mid 1893 (Heaton's manuscript was printed in May), not that it's very consequential in the big picture. Although Barber coins would face less scrutiny that they've been circulating for a year now. And man, I keep missing the right keywords when searching. Thanks for linking that resource for me kbbpll. Instead of the detective being an expert in coins, he's got a friend who is, and we know too well the habit of asking someone to keep an eye out when there's something new. He brings them to him later after winning some card game against the culprit's accomplices. My Red Book says "the dollar was virtually an unknown coin" because reasons, although it's over 40 years old so I don't know if the info in the introduction part has changed. I guess half dollars could be used for smaller bets, and gold when they were more cocky. |
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Pillar of the Community
United States
3342 Posts |
What game are they playing? Faro Bank? https://www.historynet.com/faro-fav...frontier.htmTable play used "checks", not money. Players were into it for hundreds to thousands of dollars, buying checks from the banker. All on a fairly simple high card game with very little house edge and rampant cheating. The game was practically designed to encourage violence. The only person handling money was the banker. Given the stakes and the regular use of gold coins for transactions in California, he would have been handling mostly gold coin. Westerns usually show a poker game with a big pile of money in the middle of the table. By the time westerns were invented no one was playing faro anymore, and people had forgotten how the most popular Old West card game even worked. This site shows pictures of a reenactment, similar to what a small-time faro "snap" would have looked like. http://www.picopistolero.com/engagements.htmI found one reference to faro play in San Francisco in the 1850's, and at that time gold and silver were played on the table. In 1890 the game had become more sophisticated. The presence of New Orleans gold coins in San Francisco would have been exceptionally odd in 1892. A large transaction by an out-of-stater buying a business or land would be a possibility. "Two minutes ago I would have sold my chances for a tired dime." Fred Astaire
Edited by thq
06/27/2020 7:12 pm
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Pillar of the Community
 United States
4587 Posts |
If you are going to be totally accurate you need to find the 1892 New Orleans coiner's day book to figure out when coins were even minted.
-----Burton 50+ year / Life / Emeritus ANA member (joined 12/1/1973) Life member: Numismatics International, CONECA Member: TNA, FtWCC, NETCC, EveryCountry (online) coin club Owned by three cats and a wife of 40+ years (joined 1983) Author: 3rd Edition of the Sample Slabs book, https://www.sampleslabs.info/ |
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Pillar of the Community
Canada
2516 Posts |
I haven't decided what card game yet they'll be playing, but it has to be something that people play against one another and not against the house. It's something that was going on in the back of a saloon/bar/pub (whatever the terminology was, I still need to certain it by combing through old photos and maps - just another one of the crazy specific questions when setting in the real life past...) and the detective (an independent guy, not a cop) got roped into playing along. Gambling had been outlawed a few years ago but I'm sure no one really cared to enforce it on a small scale like that.
Okay, coiner's day book. Another piece of the archive that needs to be checked out that I wasn't aware existed.
Edited by Altaira
06/27/2020 7:18 pm
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Replies: 14 / Views: 1,631 |
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Posted 06/23/2020 10:07 pm
