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Kellogg & Richter Bullion Receipt, of Kellogg & Co. $20 Private Gold Coins [169409]

Currency:USD Category:Coins & Paper Money Start Price:4,000.00 USD Estimated At:8,000.00 - 12,500.00 USD
Kellogg & Richter Bullion Receipt, of Kellogg & Co. $20 Private Gold Coins    [169409]

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Kellogg & Richter Memoranda of Gold Bullion, San Francisco, 1854. Exceptionally rare California Gold Rush assayers and minters of private coinage. No. 355, deposited by Adams & Co. on February 1st, 1854 (just two months before the San Francisco Mint opened). 1,470 ounces of gold dust, 869 fineness. Total value $1,245.19. 6 x 8.5” Hole on left side, rough right side with many tears.
The Adams Express Company was founded in 1854/1855. Adams & Company of California had been organized in 1850 and offered express service throughout the Pacific Coast. The enterprise was led by Isaiah C. Woods. Not being under Adams' personal management, Woods badly handled it, and it failed on February 23, 1855, with the collapse of Page, Bacon & Company.
This assay firm was composed of John G. Kellogg and G.F. Richter. The pair were cashier and assayer for Joseph R. Curtis, Philo H. Perry, and Samuel H. Ward, operators of the US Assay office at San Francisco. The latter three were partners with John Little Moffat when they were contracted by the US Assay Office in 1851 to melt down gold and strike gold coins in San Francisco to help meet the demand caused by the influx of gold from the Gold Rush.

The US Assay office ceased operations on Dec. 14, 1853 (with the SF Mint’s opening imminent). With gold bullion still coming into San Francisco and no place for it be coined into money, Kellogg and Richter were implored by California bankers to open their own assay office to melt and assay gold. They soon opened that operation on 106 Montgomery Street with Kellogg operating his assay lab in the basement.
The firm issued its private gold coins on February 9, 1854. These were $20 pieces which Kellogg claimed his firm could issue at the rate of $20,000 worth per day. The dies for the coins, which greatly resembled those of the United States issues, probably were cut by Kuner.
When the United States Branch Mint finally opened on April 3, 1854, its operations were erratic. Owing to constant shortages of alloy and parting acids, it ceased production several times. As a result, the coining business of Kellogg & Richter soon assumed very large proportions with about $6 million of the $20 pieces being issued.
Later that year, the partnership split up with Kellogg forming a new assay operation with John Hewston Jr. and later Augustus Humbert. (Kellogg & Humbert would go on to produce gold ingots recovered on the SS Central America shipwreck). The Kellogg & Richter private firm had only lasted about 4 months.
Kellogg & Richter assay receipts are among the rarest and most desirable of all the Gold Rush bullion receipts. Less than five are known.
Franklin Collection