In March of 1996, a major breakthrough was made in the study of western gold bars. In that month, the American Numismatic Society conferred its highest honor, the Huntington Medal, upon Professor Theodore V. Buttrey, Jr. of Cambridge University, in recognition of a lifetime of distinguished numismatic scholarship.
In his Huntington Medal lecture, Professor Buttrey produced evidence that showed a disturbingly skewed pattern in the emergence of the post-1950 western gold bars, which indicated that they are forgeries (Buttrey 1997); Michael Hodder later sought to rebut this (Rubin and Alexander 1999, Hodder 1999, Deisher 1999a). Since then vital comparanda have been made available through the publication of the unquestionably genuine bars from the Central America (Sotheby's 12/1999, Christie's 12/2000, Bowers 2002). Dan Owens published many useful documents about California assayers (Owens 2000). Fred Holabird pointed to the importance of additional sources on mining (Holabird 1999) and authenticated a Kellogg, Hewston & Co. gold bar and a San Francisco Assaying and Refining Works silver bar in the Smithsonian (Holabird 2001). (Much of the literature gives the partnership name as “Kellogg and Hewston”, but Owens shows that there was a third partner, J. H. Stearns, and that “Kellogg, Hewston & Co.” is the proper name of the firm [Owens 2000, 231-35].) The authentication of that Kellogg, Hewston & Co. bar confirms Professor Buttrey's arguments, for that bar has a provenance back to at least 1929 (Elder 12/1929:975), and is the only non-Moffat, non-Kohler gold bar in the Smithsonian with a pre-1950 pedigree; Professor Buttrey proposed 1950 as an approximate date for when the forger began work (Buttrey 1997, 100-4). Recently, Holabird, Robert Evans, and David Fitch have published extensive scientific data that led them to condemn the Smithsonian Justh & Hunter bar and to question the authenticity of the Smithsonian Parsons bar (Holabird, Evans & Fitch 2003a, b). Another researcher, Michael E. Marotta, has condemned the Smithsonian Blake & Co. double eagle in the Lilly Collection, which is a product of the same forgery group (Marotta 2000). Robert D. Leonard, too, has declared that there are so many inconsistent elements to another post-1950 gold bar, ostensibly issued by Blake & “Agnell,” that it can no longer be considered genuine (Leonard 2000a, b); John W. Adams attempted to refute this (Adams 2000). My own research examined two Kohler bars that came onto the market after 1950 (one of which is now in the Smithsonian), and condemned them both (Kleeberg 2000, 219-27). I have also published a study of three large groups of western gold bars, those ostensibly issued by F. G. Hoard, the Star Mining Company, and Knight & Co., and condemned them all as false (Kleeberg 2004).