Assay Offices

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ASSAY OFFICES

ASSAY OFFICES. The Assay Offices of the United States are part of the United States Treasury Department. They are responsible for the testing, melting, and refining of gold and silver bullion and foreign coins and recasting them into bars, ingots, or discs. Assaying is done at all the federal mints, but special plants were established at New York in 1853, at Boise, Idaho, in 1869, at Helena, Montana, in 1874, at Deadwood, South Dakota, at St. Louis, Missouri, in 1881, at Seattle, Washington, in 1898, and at Salt Lake City, Utah, in 1909. Other than the federal mints, there is now only one assay office. It is located in San Francisco.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Taxay, Don. The United States Mint and Coinage: An Illustrated History from 1776 to the Present. New York: Arco, 1966.

Watson, Jesse P. The Bureau of the Mint: Its History, Activities, and Organization. Baltimore, Md.: Johns Hopkins University, 1926.

Meg GreeneMalvasi

See alsoTreasury, Department of the .

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Assay Offices

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