10479

Knight & Co. Silver Ingot, Unionville, Nevada. Th

Currency:USD Category:Coins & Paper Money / US Coins Start Price:18,000.00 USD Estimated At:1.00 - 1,000,000.00 USD
Knight & Co. Silver Ingot, Unionville, Nevada. Th
<B>Knight & Co. Silver Ingot, Unionville, Nevada.</B></I> The recent discovery and subsequent research and testing of a David Knight Marysville, California assayer ingot, circa 1863-1865, held by a member of the Marysville Knight family for more than 135 years sheds new light on the western assayer business, inter-mining camp business transitions, and the need to promote the mines of Nevada Territory and California to the world just a few years after the discovery of the Comstock Lode. A professional paper was recently published by Fred Holabird regarding the testing and analysis of this ingot.<BR> Knight formed a partnership with experienced California and Nevada assayer H. Harris in Marysville. Knight's early work in Unionville, Nevada Territory, gave him the experience necessary to run his own assay business, and he bought Harris' Marysville Pioneer Assay Office in 1863 after spending part of a year in Unionville. Harris went on to establish assay offices in Carson City, Aurora, Silver City, and Gold Hill.<BR> The Knight ingot possesses an anomaly in that only one of the customary two precious metal values is reported on the ingot's face. Other attributes of the ingot conform exactly to standards set by custom over a several hundred-year period, particularly the many decades of and after the California Gold Rush, as illustrated by the ingots of the <I>SS Central America.</B></I> Scientific analysis of the ingot, coupled with an exact match of the assay data in the published historical record of the 1867 Paris Exposition, indicate that this ingot was made in Unionville. Historical records further indicate that the ingot may have been made for and on display at the great Paris International Exhibition of 1867. The ingot was found to have a trace amount nickel-cobalt anomaly typical of and unique to Unionville area silver ores. Light gray overall with deeper gray patina in the more recessed areas, including the devices. Only one side of the ingot has an imprint, the top side. It reads: No 8267 / KNIGHT & Co / ASSAYERS / OZ 12.83 / .016 FINE / $0.26. As referred to above, only one precious metal is indicated on this ingot, the gold content. It's a curious way of stating the silver content, that is, by inference, and perhaps that is the reason it was not done on other ingots.<BR><I>From The Alan Bingel Collection.</B></I>