[AT] OT -- Fort Knox & gold

[Larry D Goss]

And to think that I got all that information for the price of a cup of 
senior coffee at McDonalds.  I wish I could convince Rolla to write his 
memoirs while he is still able.  He turns 85 this year.  He was employed at 
the gold repository when he was around 18 years old, but by that time he was 
a seasoned jeweler and watchmaker.  When his father died, he was apprenticed 
at age 10 to a jeweler in Elizabethtown, Kentucky.

Larry

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "John Hall" <jthall at worldnet.att.net>
To: "Antique tractor email discussion group" <at at lists.antique-tractor.com>
Sent: Friday, April 27, 2007 7:48 PM
Subject: Re: [AT] OT -- Fort Knox & gold


> Great story!!
>
> John
>
> ----- Original Message ----- 
> From: "Larry D Goss" <rlgoss at evansville.net>
> To: "Antique tractor email discussion group" 
> <at at lists.antique-tractor.com>
> Sent: Friday, April 27, 2007 5:35 PM
> Subject: [AT] OT -- Fort Knox & gold
>
>
>>I had a long discussion with Rolla today about life at the gold 
>>respository
>> at Fort Knox.  He was one of better than 20 stackers who were working
>> there
>> back in the 1930's.  I asked him specifically about the French gold.  He
>> said that was the only country that did not use the purest gold they 
>> could
>> get. Theirs was alloyed and never had a better purity than 87%.  He 
>> thinks
>> it was alloyed with cadmium, and it was not only a definite pink color,
>> but
>> it also was much harder than the US and British gold.  It had a ring to 
>> it
>> when you plunked it down in a stack and if you didn't watch it, it would
>> bounce.  All the other gold was malleable and the bars would 
>> friction-bond
>> together when being stacked.  The stackers got used to stacking the pure
>> gold (which didn't bounce) and flying gold bricks in the French gold
>> caused
>> a number of injuries among the stackers.  He says only he and Bill
>> Harrison
>> got through with stacking French gold without getting broken legs, 
>> crushed
>> hands, or cracked ribs.  Rolla and Bill were both tall slim kids at that
>> time and they got the job of stacking when the gold got close to the
>> ceiling.  He moved $26 million in just over 9 months time.  At that time,
>> that would have been 26 tons of gold.  Rolla said Bill sang dirty songs
>> the
>> whole time they were working.  He bought them from a peddler who came
>> through Elizabethtown by the name of Chief Cody.  Apparently some of 
>> Chief
>> Cody's best "sellers" were dirty songs and French postcards.
>>
>> Rolla said his main job was to maintain the three bullion scales at the
>> vault.  Each beam scale had pans on either side that were about two feet
>> in
>> diameter and the fulcrum for the scale was about seven feet off the 
>> floor.
>> When the scales started showing sensitivity problems, it was Rolla's job
>> to
>> lap both the knife edge and the flat steel plate it rested on back into
>> perfectly smooth condition once again.  The steel plate was about seven
>> inches square and the knife edge was the same length.  The scales had to
>> be
>> lapped (polished absolutely smooth and flat) once again about every three
>> months.
>>
>> Now I understand why Rolla  expressed absolute shock when I complained to
>> him a week ago that a local jeweler said it was impossible to polish out
>> an
>> engraving that we needed removed so that corrected information could be
>> put
>> in its place.  The jeweler said he couldn't do it because it was 
>> stainless
>> steel instead of silver.  Rolla had lots of experience at polishing out
>> the
>> grooves in the Fort Knox scales caused by the weight of the gold and
>> poises
>> on the scales.
>>
>> The man amazes me sometimes.
>>
>> Larry
>>
>>
>
>
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