LOOSE CHANGE: NOVEMBER 27, 2022

To read the complete article, see:
Gordon McLendon (1921-1986) (https://coinsweekly.com/whoswho-sammler/mclendon-gordon-1921-1986/)

At the time of the Civil War, the country had only state-chartered banks, and these were the issuers of more than 8,000 different types of currency (typically issued as proceeds of loans) in the economy. There had been no national currency in the country, other than the brand-new 'greenbacks' first issued by the Treasury in 1861 as an expedient to help finance the war -- and which were expected to be removed from the system after the war (which did not happen until 1878). But Treasury Secretary Salmon Chase had a revolutionary idea to bring the system under more national control and at the same time help finance the war: The country would authorize the creation of national banks, which would be required to buy Treasury securities in an amount equal to a portion of their capital. State bank currency would soon come to be taxed, which effectively put them out of the currency-issuing business. Suddenly, banking in America had become a creature of the federal government:

"While Lincoln praised legal tender (his first public comment on the greenback), he nonetheless looked to a return to a gold basis at the earliest possible moment, presumably after the war. Paper money had proved a brilliant expedient, but it was still an expedient. Some more permanent currency was needed. Yet Lincoln, like Chase, knew there was no going back to the old mix of gold and silver coins plus Treasury and assorted state bank notes. With the postwar world coming into view, the President recommended Chase's long delayed banking reform. Indeed, Lincoln said, 'I know of none which promises so certain results [of] a safe and uniform currency.'

To read the complete article, see:
THE INVENTION OF NATIONAL BANKS -- 11/14/22 (https://www.delanceyplace.com/view-archives.php?4719)

For roughly 30 years, a 16th-century purchase order signed by the conquistador Hernán Cortés, who led the overthrow of the Aztec empire for the Spanish crown, had been missing from Mexico’s national archives and, instead, had made its way to private auction blocks across the United States.

The document from 1527 was stolen from the Archivo General de la Nación de Mexico in Mexico City sometime before 1993, according to a court filing by the U.S. attorney for Massachusetts.

The document belonged to the Fondo Hospital de Jesús at the Mexican archives. According to the Mexican authorities, the collection was declared national property and was cataloged in 1929. A manuscript that remains in the collection has a record showing that 12 pesos were used to buy pink sugar for the navy's pharmacy in connection with an expedition.

According to an F.B.I. investigation, the manuscript was purchased at an auction in the 1990s by the founder of the Museum of World Treasures in Wichita, Kan. His family consigned the document to Goldberg Coins and Collectibles in Los Angeles, and in 2019, a Florida resident purchased it at auction. That person then contracted with RR Auction in Massachusetts, where the document was put up for auction in June.

To read the complete article, see:
(https://www.nytimes.com/2022/11/23/us/cortes-manuscript-mexico-boston.html)

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