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The E-Sylum:  Volume 4, Number 23, June 3, 2001, Article 9

MINT RECORDS SAVED FROM DESTRUCTION 

   Andrew W. Pollock III writes: "Pursuant to information on 
   the destruction of mint records mentioned in the last two 
   issues of E-Sylum is the following: 

   Perhaps the most important article to be published in Coin 
   World in the last 20 years was titled:  "Dealer retrieves 700 
   volumes of Treasury records," by William T. Gibbs.  The 
   article appeared in the May 18, 1983 issue, and reports on 
   the purchase of important historical documents by coin 
   dealers from a scrap paper dealer who had been contracted 
   by the Treasury Department to recycle the records. 

   I have not seen any information on this subject in many years, 
   except for that which just appeared in your e-journal." 

   Michael Schmidt, commenting on the Coin World article, 
   adds: "To the best of my recollection the story went that the 
   Mint sent a large number of old records and correspondence 
   files to the landfill.  At the landfill they were found and diverted 
   to a paper recycler.   The recycler recognized the documents 
   as being valuable and potentially having historical significance. 
   (It was probably the correspondence files that tipped him off, 
   letters signed by people such as George Washington, John 
   Adams, Thomas Jefferson, etc.)  The paper recycler took the 
   records to a coin dealer who bought them. 

   When the dealer traced the records back to their source, the 
   government tried to force the dealer to give the records back. 
   It was determined though that he held good title to the records 
   since the governments claim was relinquished when they sent 
   the records to the landfill for disposal.  The final outcome was 
   the dealer got to keep the records and the government issued 
   new directives that all records were to be shredded before 
   being sent to the landfill." 

  Wayne Homren, Editor

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