Hodder has introduced into the debate the term “unparted bars.” Hodder believes that unparted means “mixed metal” bars. Hodder believes that a bar may be described as a silver bar; or a gold bar; or an unparted bar (Hodder 1999, 86-87 n. 2). As was pointed in our Coin World article, Hodder is wrong (Kleeberg 2004).
The language shows that “unparted” is an adjective that further modifies the adjective “gold” or “silver;” it is not a substitute for those terms. The term that has been in long use in the bullion trade to refer to mixed gold and silver bars is “doré bullion.”“Unparted,” which Hodder himself admits was a new term when first used (Hodder 1999, 86-87), could not have been invented as a redundancy when a perfectly good term was already in use. Normally the Mint produced bars to the two finenesses that were in the most widespread use in the international bullion trade: “fine,” which is 916 2/3 fine, the standard used by the British and by the United States before 1834; and “standard,” which is 900 fine, the standard used by the French and by the United States after 1834. If the Mint did not refine bars to a specific standard, they were then characterized as “unparted.” The proper term for bars of mixed gold and silver is “doré bullion.”
Since Hodder incorrectly believed that “unparted” could substitute for the adjectives gold and silver, he grouped all the silver bars he could find with the gold bars. Buttrey had pointed out that the gold bars that emerged onto the market in the 1950s had no pedigrees before then. Hodder scoured the literature for pre-1950 appearances of gold bars. He found only two gold bars that Buttrey had not included. Hodder's misconstruction of the term “unparted” allowed him to include twenty-two silver bars (Hodder 1999, 109-13). Hodder's few gold bars hide in the sea of silver bars because Hodder mischaracterizes them all as “unparted.”
Hodder used proton induced x-ray emission analysis of the contents of the bars. He claimed that this showed that they were authentic. But if one looks at the figures he published, the questionable bars were beyond the range of the bars that are accepted as genuine. Hodder refused to address these issues, other than occasional evasive euphemisms that the gold content was “higher than expected” or the difference was the “largest measured” (Hodder 1999, 128-30).
Hodder's article is undermined by egregious errors in math: “one in three western assay bars...weighed less than a pound” (Hodder 1999, 117). The correct figure is not “one in three” but “three.” On the same page, Hodder confuses the troy and the avoirdupois systems, using pounds that contain sixteen ounces - troy pounds have twelve ounces, not sixteen. Hodder misreads his sources: he asserts that Moffat was endorsed by the Secretary of the Treasury (Hodder 1999, 102); but the Secretary's endorsement applied to Moffat's referees, not to Moffat himself (Adams 1913, 14). Hodder claims that the United States Mint did not have to affix the Internal Revenue Commission's tax stamp to its bars under the 1864 law (Hodder 1999, 127), but this is directly contrary to the language of the statute. Act of June 30, 1864, 13 Stat. 223 (1866). On the same page Hodder says it is “interesting” that the Wells, Fargo employee Charles Blake does not mention the Internal Revenue stamp being affixed to the bars that he bought. Charles Blake wrote his letter in 1861 (Owens 2000, 57); the law requiring the Internal Revenue stamp was not passed until 1864.
Hodder asserted that all deposits of “bars” at the United States Mint were deposits of “assay bars.” In California, gold was panned from rivers or mined from quartz. The gold dust was refined to eliminate impurities - the quartz would be pulverized in stamping mills and the gold refined out. To batch these deposits, the gold would be melted into bars. But these bars had no assayer's markings on them. The Mint listed these unmarked bars, because some were debased, and they wanted to guard themselves against complaints when the depositors got back less coin than they had expected. So the Mint would list something on most deposits that would explain possible losses: “stony,” “dirty” (often abbreviated S+D for stony and dirty), “mixed with amalgam,” “bar,” “lumps,” “6 pieces California coin $20” (Register 1855-56). Hodder only found one single deposit of an actual assayed bar in all his search through the Weigh Clerk's Register - Drexel, Sather & Church's deposit of an assayed bar No. 48, and this deposit was rejected (Hodder 1999, 116).
Among his alleged bars, Hodder notes that on May 17, 1854 A. J. Horton deposited “Bidwell's Bar” (Hodder 1999, 116). “Bidwell's Bar,” however, is not an object, but a geographical location - a mining camp on the Feather River (see map in Kagin 1981, 46). There were many such mining camps - Sailor's Bar, Murderer's Bar, Wisconsin Bar - for gold placers accumulate on the barriers in a river.
Hodder accuses Buttrey of using “guilt by association” when Buttrey condemns the Western gold bars because they are associated with the Mexican gold bar forgeries and the Tubac ingot (Hodder 1999, 113). “Guilt by association” was a slogan raised by those who defended against Smith Act prosecutions. The Smith Act of 1940 made it a criminal offense to be a member of the Communist Party. These advocates contended that since freedom of association is guaranteed by the First Amendment, one cannot criminalize mere association. Hodder picked up this slogan from the left liberal Walter Breen and brandishes it about, ignorant of its meaning.
Those who defended Communists in the 1950s asserted people's freedom of association. Michael Hodder has taken constitutional rights to their furthest extreme, for he is claiming constitutional rights for minerals.
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