Evening Republican, Volume 20, Number 280, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 22 November 1916 — JEWELERS USED GOLD COINS [ARTICLE]

JEWELERS USED GOLD COINS

How Government Stopped Practice of Converting Money Into Articles of Adornment. New York—There are few things more interesting to the average student of business matters than the odds and ends that often crop up in conversation with veterans of the manufacturing or wholesaling trades when found in a reminiscent mood. It was in such a mood that a reporter found Julius "Wodiska the other afternoon. Mr. Wodiska, who is a manufacturer of jewelry, is widely known in the trfldOw It may have been the recent rise in iridium or it may have been the recent heavy shipment of gold to this country, or both, that caused Mr. Wodiska to tell how the United States government stopped some forty-odd years ago the melting up of S2O gold pieces in order to use the metal in the manufacture of gold jewelry. In those days it was the custom of many of the jewelry makers to use these coins instead of buying fine gold, as a matter of convenience. So they went to a bank and got S2O gold pieces enough, or $lO ones, for that matter, to supply the sufficient metal for the work in hand. The gold pieces being 22 karats fine, 24 karats being absolutely pure gold, it was not difficult for the jewelers to melt them up and add the necessary alloys to produce the degree of fineness desired for the jewelry they were going to make. “However,” related Mr. Wodiska, “it was not long after this practice became more or less general that the government authorities began to wonder what was becoming of the S2O gold coins. They began missing the $lO ones, too, but the’ disappearance of the former was by far the more rapid. The officials did not think that the people of the country were hoarding the gold, becahse most of the smaller coins remained in circulation. So a quiet investigation was s>egun, and it was not long before it was discovered that the makers of gold jewelry were melting them up’for trade purposes. “Having found the cause, it was not difficult for the officials to effect a cure. They did it by ‘peppering’ the S2O coins with iridium. Now iridium, which is not altogether unlike black emery in the crude state, requires a heat of 3,542 degrees Fahrenheit to melt it. In the degree of heat required for this purpose it is only seconds to rhodium, which needs a temperature of 3,632 degrees Fahrenheit to redu re it to a liquid state. Gold, on tie other hand, can be melted at 1,913 c egrees Fahrenheit. From this it is ea iy to see that the unsuspecting manufacturer, melting up’gold pieces at the temperature required, got a number of unmelted specks of iridium in his metal when he let it cool. This made trouble when the metal was worked up. “At the time this was being done there was a great vogue of fine Etruscan work in solid gold, which required a perfectly smooth surface in order to be produced properly. Imagine the dismay of the jewelers, therefore, when they found the much-needed smooth surface dotted here and there with little pepperlike specks of iridium. To leave them in meant that the decorative work could not be done properly, and to take them out meant leaving the piece pockmarked with tiny holes. It was not long before the gold pieces, whether they contained iridium or not, were eyed with suspicion by the manufacturers, who then secured their metal from other sources.”