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Wiegand Silver Ingot No. 458 NV - Virginia City,Storey County - c1870-5 - 2012aug - Numismatic

Currency:USD Category:Coins & Paper Money / Bullion Start Price:7,500.00 USD Estimated At:15,000.00 - 25,000.00 USD
Wiegand Silver Ingot No. 458 NV - Virginia City,Storey County - c1870-5 - 2012aug - Numismatic
Invoicing and lot pick up will NOT be available at the live auction.
This 1.50 troy ounce silver ingot is a typical Comstock ingot of silver fineness .957 and gold .0335. The ingot measures approximately 1.5" long x 0.75" wide x .25" tall. It is characteristic of Conrad Wiegand in nearly every way, typically marked with punches in an orderly fashion on the face. The other attribute of this ingot that is normal for Wiegand is the reverse, where a pattern has been punched around the edge. This was clearly made for the purpose of engraving something within the rectangle so that the ingot could be used as a presentation piece. The ingot was probably purchased from Wiegand for a fee from his assay office, though it was never engraved, as were a few of others seen in private collections today. From the John J. Ford, Jr. Collection.

Provenance: HKA The Rush For Gold 2008 & Stack's 2007. Conrad Wiegand was a boisterous man who was born in Philadelphia, worked for the US Mint, and came to the California Gold Rush in the early 1850’s. He went to work for the US Branch Mint in San Francisco at or near its inception in 1854. Wiegand was small in stature, but big in ideas, and even stronger still in his opinions. He was a devoutly religious person who saw such injustice in the world that he undertook the publishing of his own newspaper – two of them, in fact. His other passion was the metals question, particularly his political stance generally held by most miners that money should be in the form of circulating hard specie – gold and silver coinage and ingots. Wiegand’s outspoken nature repeatedly got him into trouble, especially during his life on the Comstock. He was severely physically assaulted and beaten twice, which endeared him to the likes of Sam Clemens. As he advanced in age, his mental troubles worsened. Ultimately, his life ended in a hangman’s noose at the age of 50 in Virginia City. A number of his precious metal ingots exist today as testimony of his work as a mainstream western assayer. These include nearly every phase of gold, silver and copper bullion in which Wiegand worked, as well as examples of items used to promote monetary specie. [Ref: Fred Holabird] -49142