ALL THAT GLITTERS PART 2

     While it was one thing to hit pay dirt, it was another thing to transform it into the precious stuff itself.  And these early gold diggers had to depend on the integrity of gold buyers to evaluate their findings.  So these early gold diggers depended on analysis, or assaying to determine the purity.

     Everywhere the miners saw the sign "Gold Dust Bought", they knew they could sell their new-found wealth.  They had to sell it. Because raw "placer" gold, though valuable, was of undetermined worth.  It was not legal tender for debts, nor would the Federal Government accept it for custom duties.  Merchants would accept gold dust -- but only at a discount.  And they were a little loose in their evaluation of the dust.  The phrase "How much can you raise in a pinch?" dates back to the time when storekeepers sold goods priced at "a pinch of dust."  Plump fingers were an asset in those days.

So, miners had to unload their dust 

     But often at a price below its real worth.  When they were cheated and hoodwinked by the crooked gold buyers, confidence men, thieves, bounders, scoundrels and rascals who preyed on the early mining towns.  Fortunately, the Wells Fargo agents were cut from a different cloth.  They bought miners' gold dust with easily-handled United States gold coins.  And they were known far and wide for always paying a fair price.

     F Agents of the young banking and express company -- then known as Wells, Fargo & Co. -- set up shop in gold towns throughout the state.  These agents were truly the resident experts in the precious metal.  One agent alone knew of a hundred varieties of gold -- each with a different value -- around one small town.

     To truly determine its purity and worth, Wells Fargo agents had to analyze, or assay, the raw gold.  The process was "textbook chemistry."  Pure gold had a grading of 1.000.  California gold varied in purity from .630 to .930.  Agents took gold dust, or ground up gold-bearing quartz, and melted it along with other powders in a clay crucible.  The metal separated, and was again heated in a small bone dust cupel to draw off impurities.  Nitric acid removed the silver, and what was left was - eureka! - pure gold.  The percentage of gold compared to the weight of the sample gave purity -- or the amount of gold in a ton of ore.

No springs, honest weight

     When it came to totaling up the value of a miner's tote, how did Wells Fargo agents earn their gold stars for accuracy?  By scrupulous use of one the world's finest weighing device -- the famous Gold Standard Balances made by Howard and Davis of Boston.  Wherever agents went, these gleaming brass scales went with them.  Said to be as accurate as the Scales of Justice -- or possibly even more so -- these balances had jeweled bearings and were mounted on a marble slab.  Legend has it that these scales were so sensitive that they could weigh a short signature made with a lead pencil!

     Since every fraction of an ounce mattered, miners watched anxiously as their gold dust was carefully placed on one side of the scales and calculated weights placed on the other.  And when the agents announced the measured amount and its value, there was no question that they were correct.  "Pay no more for dust than it is worth, nor make no arrangements with anyone to pay less," a Wells Fargo manager wrote in 1857 to the company's agent in the mining town of Colombia.  And added, "This is the only true motto to do any kind of business on.  It is the course we pursue."  Words that were good as gold to a miner.

(Story is used courtesy of Wells Fargo.com)