27.00 oz S. Dowling Silver Bar, Gold Hill, NV – Storey County – c1870s
A Discovery Ingot!
Front of ingot reads; No 5087 / Oz 27.00 / Cold 15 Fine / Silv 587 Fine / S.Dowling / Gold$ 8.36 / Silver $20.49 / Val $28.86. Measures: 4.5″ X .5″ X 2.25″.
Sam Dowling was a long term assayer on the Comstock. In 1865, he was working at the Ogden Mill at the bottom of the hill below Virginia City. It was owned independently by San Francisco banker W. C. Ralston, who incorporated it. Perhaps it was the first mill purchased by William Sharon on his road to own all the important mills for the Comstock. Born in Maine about 1832, Dowling worked for several mines before settling is as the key assistant to an aging Conrad Weigand. Dowling married a young lady about 1867 and had two children by 1870, according to census records.
Dowling took over or bought Wiegand’s business shortly after Wiegand died in 1880. He continued the Gold Hill Assay Office for a short time, perhaps just a year, getting contracts with several mining companies free of the politics that bogged down Weigand. Dowling sold out to Chris James late in 1880, who handed the business off to W. S. James within a few years. Dowling continued as an assayer for various mining companies, though he no longer ran his own company. In 1888, Dowling assayed some ore from Gold Hill News editor Alf Doten from the Keyes Mine dump, which assayed gold $62.35 and silver $176.00.
This is the first Dowling ingot to surface, coming out of the Comstock this past year. It is number 5087, which may be a continuation of Wiegand’s numbering system. 27.00 troy ounces, gold 15 fine, silver 587 fine, gold $8.37, silver $20.49, Total value $28.86. It is 2.25” x 4.25” x ½” thick. It is almost impossible to ascertain if Dowling used a private assayer’s stamp when he was working for other mining companies, which would have been unusual, because they generally used the company name on the ingot. If this is the case, then this ingot must date to 1880 only, during the short time Dowling actually owned Wiegand’s business.
[10/2010] https://www.icollector.com/Gold-Hill-NV-Storey-County-c1870s-S-Dowling-Silver-Bar-Discovery-Ingot_i9799923 ($24,600)