Q. David Bowers
Nevada Silver to San Francisco
Most of the silver from the Comstock Lode was not coined at Carson City but was sent to San Francisco, noted the Annual Report of the Director of the Mint, 1887:
"It will be shown that the mint at Carson has at no period of its history received considerable deposits from the mines of the Comstock Lode, their product having continued to be sent to San Francisco for coinage, the same as before the establishment of that mint.
"It will appear, indeed, that very important considerations, now affected by the cost of transportation of bullion, specie, and currency to and from Carson, are most unfavorable to the operations of coinage at the mint, and even to the minor operations of an assay office now carried on that institution.
"The Mint at Carson was opened for business January 8, 1870. Carson is on the line of the Virginia and Truckee Railroad, 34 miles from Reno, on the Central Pacific Railroad, and 300 from San Francisco, and some 14 miles from Virginia City-the location of the great mines of the Comstock Lode. Its population as given by census for 1880 was then 4,229.
"Substantially the whole product of these mines, instead of being transported south this short distance to Carson for parting and refining and coinage, or in the case of silver at present for conversion into bars, has always been shipped directly to San Francisco for parting and refining, for coinage of all gold, and for as much of the silver as required by considerable, and often large, demands from the mint at that city for the 'coinage of dollars ....
"The above statements [shown in a chart] of production of gold and silver in the same section of country in relation to which the city of Carson is centrally located, taken in comparison with the returns from the mint at that city, sufficiently indicate the small importance of this institution to the mining and milling industries of Nevada either during so much of the period of their prosperity as this mint was open, or during the more recent period of their decline.
"The fact above indicated is in general terms due to the geographical location of the mint, which, although near a great mining center, has proved to be far from a bullion center in the strict or commercial sense of that term. That it has never been able to divert from San Francisco, Comstock and other bullion, reduced from the native product, to the extent of its working capacity, is principally due to ordinary considerations of expediency on the part of the local producer, and to the broad fact that an immediate disposition of large values of gold or silver in coin or bars could at all times be made at San Francisco to greater advantage than at Carson. *
"*[Footnote: Notwithstanding the fact that the mint at Carson City is located but a short distance from the productive mines of the Comstock Lode, higher prices were demanded for bullion deliverable at Carson than at San Francisco, and, in addition, the rates charged by the express company for transportation of silver dollars were higher from Carson than from San Francisco Annual Report of the Director of the Mint, fiscal year 1879, p. 8]
"The expediency to the large producer of gold bullion in Nevada, as between the alternative of depositing at the mint at San Francisco or at the mint at Carson, closer at hand, is determined, first, by the cost of transportation, usually by express. Expediency is further in favor of the mint at San Francisco from the circumstance that returns by draft are at once available for supplies and general use, and from the circumstance that San Francisco has always offered superior facilities for parting by the private refineries as well as by the mint at that city. One of the most important of such facilities is a ready market for silver bars over and above the limited demand for coinage.
"The depositor at Carson is, on the other hand, called upon to transport his bullion to that point and to receive back, usually by express, the value in coin, the excess of which over his local requirements has, as a rule, by a separate transaction, to be forwarded to banks at San Francisco for general use as capital. Or, again, silver bars in excess of coinage requirements at Carson, and in such case not purchased by that mint, are returned in kind to the depositor, when, as a rule, their immediate disposition is transportation to market at San Francisco.
"It is here proper to remark that, as a matter of fact, during the period of greatest activity at the mint at Carson the purposes and wishes of the depositor were regarded as far as practicable by payment in cash at his option in draft on San Francisco or N ew York for silver bullion purchased. Valuable concessions of this kind to the depositor of bullion in Nevada have been made from time to time for the benefit of the mint at Carson.
"On the part of the government the expediency of coinage at the mint at San Francisco as compared with the mint at Carson is determined
"First, by the excess in cost of material laid down at Carson corresponding to the cost of transportation over and above the cost at San Francisco.
"Second, by the greater cost of transfer of coin to the United States Treasury or its branches, and by actual cost of transfer of other public moneys to the extent that United States Treasury drafts are drawn in payment of deposits, for the reason that coin at the mint not returned to the depositor is ultimately transferred at the cost of the government to the United States Treasury, a subtreasury, or public depository.
"The requirements for silver coin on the part of regular depositors at the mint at Carson have been practically limited to local purposes, or mainly to what was paid out in cash for labor-and in most cases much less than the labor accounts of mines and mills, for the reason that large proportions of these accounts have as elsewhere been settled in goods, bought in the East or San Francisco and paid for by draftthrough San Francisco.
"This is still the only regular local requirement for coin, and the practical limit of distribution of either gold or silver coin from the mint at Carson. Under the existing conditions of the mining and milling industries of that section of the country, the local requirements for coin have become so greatly diminished that but little gold can be expected of deposit, inasmuch as the availability of silver partings from gold bullion, likewise purchased for coinage by all mints and assay offices, tend equally with payments for gold, to meet local requirements for disbursements of coin.
"The express charges for transporting silver coin from the mint at Carson to points cast of the Rocky Mountains have been from $10 to $14 per $1,000, except in the case of a special contract for the transfer of some three million silver dollars to the United States Treasury at Washington in 1885.
"The following statement exhibits the value of silver dollars coined at the mint at Carson from 1878 to the suspension of coinage in 1885, together with the value of the silver dollars actually paid out, and so distributed.