1881 excursion in Washington DC

[Robert]

You may recall that the Treasury (I believe) provides a service whereby if you send in burnt/damaged currency they will reassemble the notes as best they can and replace the damaged notes with new ones. As long as they can faithfully identify/reproduce 51% of the note.

In doing some othe reasearch, I ran into this contemporary account of a tourist (1881) visiting the Treasury. I thought some of you would like to hear this.

http://www.rbhayes.org/mssfind/excurbaltimore.htm

"Wednesday afternoon [ January 26], Fan and I accompanied by Mr. [George A.] Gustin,17 the President’s private secretary, went to the Bureau of Engraving and Printing, where paper money is made. We saw all the processes - the engraving, transferring, &c. The building is some way from the White House off beyond the Washington Monument."

"We then went to the Treasury. I enjoyed this "lion," I think, the most of any I have seen. We saw many interesting things. Went into the vaults and saw heaps and bags of gold and silver. One huge vault contains the Government bonds in big envelopes. In one room where few were allowed we all saw four women - experts - at work, detecting from burnt notes - burnt to a crisp, the amount, etc., and then redeeming the amount. In this way thousands of dollars are redeemed. The women would slice off the notes, and even build up the notes from the ashes. It was wonderful."


As I read the entire article, it gave me the impression that those were indeed very different times.