California [resuelto]

Greetings,

Could we please add in these two ruling authority’s for California? 

Federal Military Administration (1848-1850)

State of California (1850-Present)

Thank you.

The State of California minted their own coins?

Well, that is a tricky question. Most California issues are semi-official pieces struck out of necessity with some support of government. 

California joined the Union in 1850. The US Constitution specifically prohibits states from coining money.  

Some coinage was issued by private entinities and circulated due to the lack of coinage. Other coinage, was technically issued under government jurisdiction, as they had a provisional branch mint, the United States Assay Office. Many fractional gold pices, denominations of a dollar or less, were used at first, but later were just jewelry. The US outlawed private coinage, I believe in 1883. Many numismatists believe the territorial and private gold coinage should be considered coins and not exonumia as they were extensively used as necessity coinage. Similar to necessity coinage of various European countries. 

We have a section for the California private and territorial gold in the coin section of the catalog, which recognizes the special place of this particular type of necessity coinage in U.S. numismatics, but need to look closely at any other areas before making more changes.

What about a compromise? We could add in the blanket option for period for Private and Territorial gold coins and leave it at that:

Federal Military Administration

Territroy of the United States

Though the more specific might be better.

As best I can tell, the few places in the Coin catalog where we have necessity money, we are not applying Ruling Authorities (since, by definition, these issues are not struck under the ruling authority).

So my tendency is to say that we do not need Ruling Authorities for the Private and Territorial issues.

Ok, I can agree to that on the private issues. However, what about semi-official territorial issues like the  US Assay office?

If you want to let it be for now, that is acceptable. 

Berkshire Collecting

Ok, I can agree to that on the private issues. However, what about semi-official territorial issues like the  US Assay office?

That would be an issuing entity, not a ruling authority, right?

Oops, my mistake. I should clarify, what about ruling authority for the United States Assay Office. Wouldn’t that be under Federal Republic? As they issued coins when California was a state.

Here is what I read in my Redbook:

“The stamped fifty-dollar and other gold coins, sometimes called ingots, but in coin form, were made by Augustus Humbert, the United States Assayer of Gold, but were not receivable at face value for government payments, despite the fact that Humbert was an official agent.”

and later…

"Augustus Humbert, … was appointed U.S. assayer, and he placed his name and the government stamp on the ingots of gold issued by Moffat & Co.  The assay office, a provisional government mint, was a temporary expedient to accomodate the Californians until the establishment of a permanent branch mint. 

The fifty-dollar gold piece was accepted by most banks and merchants as legal tender on a par with standard U.S. gold coins …"

and later still…

“The firm of Mffat & Co. was dissolved in 1852 and a newly reorganized company known as the United States Assay Office of Gold took over the contract.  Principals were Curtis, Perry and Ward.”

So, as I understand, the coins are being produced by private companies (Moffat, for example), and are being assayed/certified by individuals/companies employed by the U.S. government to do so (Humbert, and then his successor).

In general I thnk the idea of using Issuing Entity field for any/all of the Private/Territorial gold is a good idea.  It is only this small group of them where there is the idea of the U.S. Federal government being involved, but I could argue they are basically providing a service (an assay) to the issuer which is actually Moffat. 

Maybe at this point we don’t add ruling authorities or periods to the territorial or private issues. 

If we treat them like the other necessity coinage categories in the COins part of the catalog (Notgeld and Conders) I think that would be consistent.

I agree.