Democratic Sentinel, Volume 14, Number 8, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 14 March 1890 — A SPLIT GOLD COIN. [ARTICLE]

A SPLIT GOLD COIN.

On* of tho Product* of the Mint That Barely Get* Into Circulation. “Two tens for a twenty, please,” , said a gentleman to the cashier in the county treasurer’s office at San Francisco. The cashier took the twenty anti * rang it oh the counter. It had that' peculiar ring that characterizes { counterfeit coins. He rung it the second time and then inspected it critically. “Is it bogus?’’ asked the owner of the coin. “Oh, no,” answered the cashier. “It’s as good as wheat, but split.” Continuing, he said: “That is the first split twenty I ever ran across, The stamping-machine at the mint sometimes comes down too hard on the coins and splits them; but it is seldom the larger ooins split. It’s mostly fives that suffer. But they are Scareful at the mint and stop every coin they detect. Now, in the sands of dollars handled here every year I rarely find a split coin. I don’t think I’ve found more than four or five in a year, and, as 1 say, the coins were mostly |5 pieces.” The split S2O piece looked perfect, and, so far as the eye could dfitect, bore no flaw of any kind. The only fault with it was in the “ring,” and the split made it sound “dead” when