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The E-Sylum:  Volume 4, Number 48, November 25, 2001, Article 8

GREAT BALLS OF SPECIE

  In response to Dick Johnson's query about Panamint balls of
  silver, Dave Bowers writes: "In doing research for my book on
  the California Gold Rush and its numismatic aspects I encountered
  multiple mentions of the practice of casting gold and silver into
  very large ingots to be transported by animal-back over remote
  areas. The shipments were not of California gold, but were of
  metal from South American mines.

  Mule trains with valuable bullion, crossing the Isthmus of
  Panama from the Pacific to the Atlantic side in the era before
  the Gold Rush, were often lightly guarded with only two or three
  men.  The theory was that if the trains were robbed, the thieves
  could not transport the bullion easily.  A flaw in this logic might
  be that the animals themselves might be captured along with
  their load  -- but this was not addressed in the narratives I read.

  Some later historians confused these earlier Spanish-American
  heavy gold ingots with California gold shipments, but I  have
  found no record whatever of such a procedure being used for
  California Gold Rush (1848 and later) metal."

  Jan Monroe writes: "For my friend Dick Johnson I provide the
  following:

  During the Nevada Centennial a publicity stunt was arranged
  and that was to send a Panamint Ball from Nevada to the U.S.
  Mint.  The ball weighed 629.25 pounds and was scheduled to
  be shipped from Nevada via eleven state capitols, and plaques
  were to be presented to each governor made from titanium
  and mounted on old Comstock Mine timber.  Unfortunately
  President Kennedy was assassinated when the exhibit was at
  the Utah state capitol and the rest of the events were canceled.
  The Panamint Ball did reach the U.S. Mint in Philadelphia so
  that the Nevada State Centennial Medals could be minted.

  As some know from Turner's articles, 20,000 medals were
  minted at the Philadelphia Mint but what many do not know is
  that 5,000 of these were proofs.

  This publicity event was based on historical fact.  Senators
  William Morris Stewart and John P. Jones of Nevada used
  the Panamint Ball to deter bandits.   I do not have information
  on the first reference to the Panamint ball in numismatic literature
  but the Final Report of the Nevada Centennial Commission pages
  46 and 47 contain more information on the 1964 Nevada
  Centennial publicity event.

  John P. Jones is mentioned in Wells Fargo an Illustrated History,
  (Noel Loomis, 1968) as the co-owner of the Crown Point Mine
  in 1870 which earned he and his partner $30 million. (p.214.)"

  Wayne Homren, Editor

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