Time to crank up the tungsten mines and smelters upstream of the gold plating shops
ASSAY OFFICES. The Assay Offices of the United States are part of the United States Treasury Department. They are responsible for the testing, melting, and refining of gold and silver bullion and foreign coins and recasting them into bars, ingots, or discs. Assaying is done at all the federal mints, but special plants were established at New York in 1853, at Boise, Idaho, in 1869, at Helena, Montana, in 1874, at Deadwood, South Dakota, at St. Louis, Missouri, in 1881, at Seattle, Washington, in 1898, and at Salt Lake City, Utah, in 1909. Other than the federal mints, there is now only one assay office. It is located in San Francisco.