2587

Conrad Wiegand Silver Ingot. ca. 1870 to 1885. A second

Currency:USD Category:Coins & Paper Money Start Price:2,500.00 USD Estimated At:10,000.00 - 20,000.00 USD
Conrad Wiegand Silver Ingot. ca. 1870 to 1885. A second
<B>Conrad Wiegand Silver Ingot.</B></I> ca. 1870 to 1885. A second Wiegand ingot. This larger, uniface piece shows all the usual Wiegand imprints but seen here in an expanded version. The imprints read from top to bottom: R / No 4007 (with rosette inside the second zero) / Ozs. 5.40 / GOLD 12 / SILV. 979 / FINE (punched in sideways) / C WIEGAND. / ASSAYER / GOLD $1.34 / SILV $6.83 / VAL $8.17. Medium-deep gray patina over the surfaces.<BR> Wiegand was a notorious assayer, who got his start at the U.S. Mint in San Francisco. His behavior was so disruptive, and assays of questionable quality (they often did not check or agree), that a mint employee once wrote to President Lincoln asking for his dismissal, and the letters are still on file in the Lincoln file in the national library in Washington, DC. He stayed at the branch mint through the early 1860s, before starting his own assay office in Virginia City. He briefly expanded and had two offices, the other in Gold Hill.<BR><I>From The Kagin Reference Collection of Frontier Ingots.</B></I>