Mar 21, 2019 - Sale 2502

Sale 2502 - Lot 14

Price Realized: $ 12,500
?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 4,000 - $ 6,000
COVERING COSTS OF THE NEW U.S. MINT HAMILTON, ALEXANDER. Letter Signed, "Alex Hamilton," as Secretary of the Treasury, to the President and Directors of the Bank of the U.S., with three lines in holograph, explaining that the Bank may expect an appropriation of $10,000 to cover its advances to the U.S. Mint. 1 page, 4to, with (detached) address leaf; minor smudging to signature, minor ink burn to paraph, some chipping at edges with tissue repair to tear at upper edge, marginal discoloration from prior matting, folds, address leaf inlaid. "Treasury Department" [Philadelphia], 16 December 1793
Set Alert for Similar Items

Additional Details

"For the purpose of obtaining a final settlement at the Treasury of the bills drawn on Amsterdam, I have this day issued a warrant on You in favor of the Treasurer of the United States for ten thousand Dollars, being the amount of the bills furnished by you to the Director of the Mint. I have therefore to request that until an appropriation be made for the purpose (a circumstance which will shortly take place), you will be pleased to consider the said 10,000 Dollars as an advance on account of the Mint."
The last lines in holograph: "I have directed a warrant to cover all your advances heretofore to that establishment except of two sums for the purchase of copper which must also want an appropriation."
On April 2, 1792, Congress passed the Coinage Act, making the silver dollar the unit of U.S. currency and establishing the U.S. Mint, which began striking coins in March of the following year.