2204

Nevada Territory. Unionville. Undated Blake and Co., Assayers Silver Ingot. No. 319. 4.15 ounces. .7

Currency:USD Category:Coins & Paper Money / Ingots Start Price:8,400.00 USD Estimated At:25,300.00 - 30,000.00 USD
Nevada Territory. Unionville. Undated Blake and Co., Assayers Silver Ingot. No. 319. 4.15 ounces. .7
SOLD
15,000.00USD+ (2,625.00) buyer's premium + applicable fees & taxes.
This item SOLD at 2017 Sep 15 @ 23:47UTC-7 : PDT/MST
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An earlier and basically unimprovable catalog description for this lot reads: “Northwest corner of top face and southwest corner of base truncated for additional assay. Top face stamped ‘Blake & C. / Assayers’ with one prepared punch, UNIONVILLE below in another. Base shows IRS revenue stamp, used only 1863-1867. Serial number on left face, No. 319, weight stamped on right face, silver fineness on north face, value $3.88 on south face. Even, deep silver gray tone on smooth, attractive surfaces. Some natural roughness, as made, at VIL of UNIONVILLE. Three depressions on base below and beside revenue stamp, which remains bold at center and nearly complete at periphery. Only minor evidence of handling. This attractive and readily datable ingot was produced before Gorham Blake, best known as the Blake who produced 34 of the ingots found on the 1857 wreck of the S.S. Central America, left the business about 1866. It is no coincidence that this ingot resembles those so closely. Needless to say, the ingots produced by cousins Gorham and Francis W. Blake in Unionville, Nevada Territory are far rarer than the related ingots from the S.S. Central America. Indeed, the two Blake and Co. Unionville ingots from the Ford Collection (of which this is one) represent perhaps 2/3 of the entire population of Blake's surviving ingots from Unionville, Nevada Territory. They were issued in perhaps the ultimate Western mining setting—the mining camp (and, now, ghost town) that inspired Mark Twain's “Roughing It,” and as such represent an ideal tangible manifestation of the Old West.”
Ex: Stacks Sale of the John J. Ford, Jr. Collection, Part XXI, October 2007, Lot 3504; Stack’s sale of July, 2009, Lot 1199.