The E-Sylum:  Volume 8, Number 17, April 24, 2005, Article 3

MINT OFFICIAL KENNETH M. FAILOR DEAD AT 95

Subscriber Pete Morelewicz of the Squished Penny Museum,
in Washington, DC pointed out this April 18th article in the
Washington Post:

"Kenneth Merle Failor, 95, a man who watched over the nation's
nickels and dimes for many years as an official with the U.S. Mint,
died March 26 at the Life Care Center in Scottsdale, Ariz."

"In fall 1941, shortly before receiving his commission in the Navy,
Mr. Failor was dispatched by the Treasury on a confidential
mission to Nome, Alaska, to take delivery of gold from the Russians
as part of President Franklin Roosevelt's lend-lease arrangement.
Earlier, the Russian government had tried to ship the $6 million
worth of gold on a British cruiser from Murmansk, but the Nazis
sunk the cruiser. The Russians asked for an additional 90 days to
get the gold to the United States via Alaska.

When the Russian ship docked at Nome, as Lowell Thomas
reported in 1945, "not a man on board could speak English. But
they had the gold on the ship. It was up in the bow, covered
over with a lot of garbage."

Mr. Failor took possession of the precious cargo and arranged
for three planes to fly it to Washington; only he knew what was
in the unmarked boxes. When the planes had trouble taking off
because of the gold's great weight, the pilots suggested dumping
some of the boxes overboard. Mr. Failor suggested not."

"In 1937, Mr. Failor took a job as an auditor with the Mint,
where his first assignment was to administer the government's
purchase of newly mined domestic silver at premium prices
ranging from 64 cents to 77 cents an ounce.

Mr. Failor received his undergraduate degree from George
Washington University in 1937 and began preparing for
medical school, but World War II intervened."

Returning to the Mint in 1945, his initial postwar assignment
was to head the Treasury's licensing program. The Gold
Reserve Act of 1934 had limited the use of gold to industrial,
professional and artistic use, so his duties involved oversight
of an elaborate system of reporting, as well as investigations
to prevent gold hoarding by the general public."

"In 1964, it was Mr. Failor's task to work out an equitable
system of distributing coins to the Federal Reserve banks
and branches .."

"After the Coin Shortage Hearings, Mr. Failor was deeply
involved in congressional hearings leading to enactment of the
Coinage Act of 1965... From 1965 until his retirement in
1968, he was executive director of the Joint Commission on
the Coinage."

To read the full obituary, see Full Story

[The article also notes a Washington Post article in 1959, where
Mr. Failor noted "that New York always had more 50-cent pieces
in circulation and Baltimore more nickels. Washingtonians, he said,
favored pennies."

Failor is known to numismatic bibliophiles for his 1969 work
(revised in 1972), "Medals of the United States Mint" -Editor]

  Wayne Homren, Editor

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