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Gold Hill,NV - Storey County - Nov. 1st, 1869 - Gallagher-Butsch Silver Presentation Ingot :

Currency:USD Category:Coins & Paper Money / Bullion Start Price:7,500.00 USD Estimated At:15,000.00 - 25,000.00 USD
Gold Hill,NV - Storey County - Nov. 1st, 1869 - Gallagher-Butsch Silver Presentation Ingot :
Obverse reads: From Tho’s. Gallagher Gold Hill / To L.C. Butsch Lancaster OHIO; Reverse reads: No 25. / Ozs. 5.02 / Gold 41 fine / Silv 954 fine / C. Wiegand / Assayer / Gold $4.25 / Silv $6.19 / Val. $10.44; Side reads: Nov. 1st 1869. Measures: 2 1/2” x 1” x 3/8”

This silver ingot made by Gold Hill Assayer Conrad Weigand is a presentation piece meant as a fancy keepsake for two longtime friends. Thomas Gallagher was the proprietor of the Gold Hill Express and also owned a wood and coal yard. Valentine Butsch was his watchman who lived just down the road near the Leviathan Mine just below Gold Hill. Gallagher appears to have sent this specially made ingot to Butsch’s relative (daughter?) back home in Lancaster, Ohio as a present on November 1, 1869, which may have been her birthday. (We were unable to find L. C. Butsch in Census records, which is probably due to the unusual surname.)This is one of a very few classic presentation bars made by Weigand for others. Gold Hills News editor Alf Doten remarked about the Butsch sisters at a dance in Gold Hill in 1865. The Gallaghers (and Randalls) were great friends of Dotens. Doten mentioned them quite a bit in his Journals (1973, UNR Press), and noted that Thomas and family often went to McKinney’s at Tahoe for short trips. The friendship dropped off a bit when Gallagher didn’t pay his advertising bill with Doten in the early 1880’s, but the two worked it out, and Doten got paid.