Doing your own National Archive research

With more US Mint Bureau documents becoming available on-line through the NewmanNumismatic Portal (NNP), it seems a good time to give those doing numismatic research a littleguidance. This will show how various groups of documents are connected and suggest whichfiles to search for letters relating to specific events or persons.

The information will help researchers look through thousands of documents without have tospend weeks at NARA locations thumbing through thick volumes and overstuffed file boxes.

What you will find: Connections between archive files. Transcriptions of some documents.
What you will not find: Transcriptions of everything.

Access: All materials are available for free via NNP to read or download.

Basic files in Record Group 104 U.S. Mint --

For letters from 1873 to 1900 the overall search flow is:

1. Start with Entry 1. These are in chronological order and many are transcribed. Search by subject or approximate date.

2. Once something of interest is found, go to E-235 and look for the volumes covering the date on your item. Look both before and after this date. There is also an index by author for many of these volumes, but it is useless for subjects.

3. Next look in Entry 6 around the date of your item and see if there are any letters between Mint Departments that relate to your subject. Do the same with Entry 17.

4. Go to Entry 229 and search it in the same manner.

These entries have documents that are frequently interconnected, such as a letter sent and its reply, or private comment on a subject by the Coiner or Secretary of Treasury. By searching through the 4 steps, above, users should be able to locate about 80% of extant materials relating to an individual, situation or subject.

For earlier letters and subjects up to 1873 the overall flow is less well defined.

1. Start with Entry 1. These are in chronological order and a few are transcribed. Search by subject or approximate date.

2. Once something of interest is found, go to Entry 3, 215, 216 and 217 depending on items date.

For coinage quantities look in Entry 271 for reported quantities and especially for any condemned deliveries. Use Entry 330 for exact delivery dates and quantities from about 1916 forward to 1947. The latter has large gaps, which will gradually be filled as time permits.

Coinage, die use and many other subjects are mixed into the entries mentioned. Also the Entry 3 journals include copies of annual reports and letters in their original form that are not available elsewhere.

To access NARA records on NNP, see:
https://nnp.wustl.edu/Library/Archives?searchLetter=U