Although reportedly withdrawn on separate dates, the May 20th withdrawal of $750,000 may have included National City Bank's May 19, $250,000 withdrawal. However, one can deduce from the newspaper descriptions of gold purchases that at least $1,300,000 to possibly the entire amount of the May 19th, $1,500,739, engagement was available in the form of gold bars for shipment to France. New York Assay Office reports for May gold bar exports are summarized as follows:
Assay office records indicate that $690,565.41 in gold bars formed the gold bar component of the May 19th engagement. One purchase of bars that is contained within Assay Office records, however, - the May 15th $142,942.20 purchase - was not reported within newspaper accounts. The Assay Office total for gold bars that comprised the May 19th engagement, $690,565.41, compares quite favorably to the U.S. Customs report of $690,739, EXCEPT that Assay Office bars were not the only gold bars exported. Newspaper accounts clearly document other gold bar purchases. The May 19th, $250,000 gold bar purchase by Lazard Frères "secured...[from] the sub-treasury," [Article 10] and (if not the same) another $250,000 "not obtained in the United States assay office, but from other sources in New York" [Article 11]. Still another additional $230,000 to $250,000 purchase may be included within the "$750,000 of gold withdrawn from the assay office" [Articles 16 and 18] but is not indicated within the Assay Office records. Gold bars were also frequently purchased from the Assay Office for "domestic use." Surviving Assay Office reports document only gold bar purchases for export. It is possible that, in order to evade the premium required on gold bar exports, bars purchased ostensibly for domestic use were diverted and exported. [The exporting banker] ...must pay the Treasury a premium of four hundred dollars for each million [in gold bars] taken. ... Harpers Weekly, February 6, 09, 30:3 ... There is not much profit in shipping gold as might be thought, a thousand dollars on each million being considered quite enough of an inducement to make banking houses go in for transactions of this kind. ... Bankers Magazine, June, 1910, Pg. 924. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
FOOTNOTES1Ibid. 279 568. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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