Reporter's Statement of the Case 94 C. Cls. of the United States, payable to its account at Crocker First National Bank of San Francisco, for $434,613.91 submitted in connection with a shipment of gold recovered by the undersigned from natural resources in the United States, and tendered and delivered to you and said Mint on September 18, 1933, for the purpose of consignment and sale under the provisions of the Presidential Executive Order of August 29, 1933, relating to the sale and export of gold and the regulations thereunder. The undersigned does hereby refuse to accept said check in full payment for its said consignment, but accepts said check and the amount thereof under duress, and only to be applied on account of the total indebtedness due for said shipment, the undersigned being entitled to the world price for said gold, and the amount of said check representing a lesser and arbitrary price, fixed and sought to be imposed upon the undersigned by the Government of the United States, and not representing the fair or market value for said gold or just compensation therefor. The undersigned protests against your taking and seizing said gold without payment of such world price and does hereby refer to its Notice of Protest, dated September 16, 1933, served upon you by our agents, the said Crocker First National Bank of San Francisco, on September 18, 1933, and incorporates and makes the same a part hereof. The undersigned further reserves all claims, causes of action, and demands arising or accruing to it by reason of the circumstances aforesaid. The sum of $434,613.91 was obtained at the rate of $20.671825 per fine ounce for the gold content and $1,287.54 in payment for the silver content of bars numbered 1195 to 1212, inclusive, less proper mint charges. 9. The following table sets forth in column 1 the numbers of the respective bars, numbered 1195 to 1212, inclusive; column 2, the fineness of each of such bars as determined by the Mint; column 3, the gold content of each of the bars in fine ounces; column 4, the period during which plaintiff mined and extracted the ore from which the metallic content of the respective bars was obtained; column 5, the date on which the respective bars were melted and cast; column 6, the date on which the respective bars were shipped by plaintiff from Alaska; column 7, the date on which the bars arrived and were received by plaintiff in San Francisco; column 8, the date on which the bars were received for de 15 Reporter's Statement of the Case posit at the Mint; column 9, the amount paid for the bars by the United States (not including the amount paid for the silver content thereof); and, in column 10, the number of the receipt issued by the Mint when the bars were delivered. Reporter's Statement of the Case 94 C. Cls 10. Prior to August 29, 1933, it was plaintiff's uniform business practice to sell all its gold bars cast by it, as hereinabove stated, to the United States Mint or in the domestic market. Plaintiff did not export its gold bars nor act as agent for an exporter of gold. During the period April 5 to September 20, 1933, plaintiff did not apply for or at any time have a license permitting it to acquire, hold, retain, earmark, or export gold in bar form or any other form. None of the gold bars here involved was ever earmarked or held in trust for a recognized foreign government, foreign central bank, or the Bank for International Settlements; none of the bars was imported for reexport; none of the bars was required by plaintiff for the fulfillment of any contract entered into by plaintiff prior to April 20, 1933. 11. On March 10, 1933, the President of the United States issued an Executive Order (No. 6073), of which Exhibit 1 attached to the stipulation filed herein on August 12, 1936, is a true copy. April 5, 1933, the President issued Executive Order No. 6102, of which Exhibit 2 attached to the stipulation filed herein August 12, 1936, is a true copy. April 20, 1933, the President issued Executive Order No. 6111, of which Exhibit 3 attached to the stipulation filed herein August 12, 1936, is a true copy. April 29, 1933, the Secretary of the Treasury, issued and prescribed certain "Regulations relating to Licensing the Purchase and Export of Gold," of which Exhibit 4 attached to the stipulation of August 12, 1936, is a true copy. The exhibits in this finding are made a part hereof by reference. 12. The provisions of the foregoing Executive orders and regulations by the Secretary of the Treasury requiring delivery of gold bullion to a Federal Reserve Bank or branch or agency, or to any member bank of the Federal Reserve System, were construed in practice by the Department of the Treasury as not exclusive of delivery to a United States Mint or Assay Office. The Secretary of the Treasury furthermore construed said Executive orders and said reg 15 Reporter's Statement of the Case ulations as applying to and covering newly mined gold in the hands of the miners producing and mining the same (finding 14). 13. Each of the gold bars hereinbefore referred to, numbered 1176–1212, inclusive, was at all times the property of plaintiff until tendered to the United States. For more than fifty years the United States Mints and Assay Offices in administering Federal monetary laws have consistently regarded gold bars of the type involved in this suit as bullion. The "Regulations for the Transaction of Business at the Mints and Assay Offices of the United States," which became effective in 1918, in dealing with deposits eligible for receipt by the Mints and Assay Offices provided, at page 6, in part, that "Bullion containing 800 or more parts in 1,000, by assay, of base metals, shall be refused. Bullion containing one part in 1,000, by assay, of gold, shall be classed as gold bullion." Such provisions in such regulations were in effect throughout 1933. The gold-mining industry in general consistently used the term "bullion" when referring to gold bars of the character involved in this suit. The term "bullion" as administratively applied by the Federal Reserve Board on and after October 6, 1917, in administering the provisions of section 5 (b) of the "Trading with the Enemy Act" (40 Stat. 411) relating to "the export, hoarding, melting, or earmarking of gold or silver coin or bullion" included newly mined gold or silver melted into bars of the character here involved, gold rings, broken gold jewelry, dental gold, dentist's gold plate, liquid gold, and rolled gold plate. For more than fifty years practically all the gold produced in the United States has flowed into and become a part of the monetary stocks of the United States. For many years the bulk of the monetary stocks of the United States has been in the form of bullion. Plaintiff's bars of gold, numbered 1176-1212, inclusive, involved in this suit, were gold bullion within the meaning of the act of March 9, 1933, 48 Stat. 1, and subsequent acts and joint resolutions relating to the same subject, the Executive order of April 5, 1933, and subsequent Executive Reporter's Statement of the Case 94 C. Cls. orders relating to gold bullion issued under and pursuant to acts of Congress upon the subject, and the regulations and rulings made and issued by the Secretary of the Treasury pursuant to acts of Congress and Executive orders relating to gold and gold bullion. 14. June 10, 1933, the Secretary of the Treasury wired the Superintendent of the Mint at San Francisco as follows: In connection with the consideration being given to requests of the producers of gold that the Executive Order of April 20, 1933, forbidding the export of gold, be modified to permit the export of newly mined gold in the interests of increasing the production of gold, it has come to the attention of the Treasury Department that certain mining and refining companies are under the impression that they are not required to deliver under the Executive Order of April 5, 1933, gold bullion produced by them. The Executive Order of April 5, 1933, requires the delivery of all such gold except "Stocks of gold in reasonable amounts for the usual trade requirements of owners mining and refining such gold." Please advise all domestic miners and refiners with whom you have had regular dealings that they must deliver all gold bullion in the continental United States now owned by them except such "reasonable amounts," not to exceed the amounts which prior to April 5, 1933, it was their practice to maintain in stock. The provisions of such Executive Order requiring delivery to a Federal Reserve Bank, etc., are not construed to exclude delivery to a United States Mint or Assay Office. The plaintiff received a copy of the foregoing telegram of June 10 on or before June 12, 1933. 15. August 12, 1933, there was announced and made public an opinion by the Attorney General of the United States rendered July 20, 1933, that Executive Orders of March 10, April 5, and April 20, 1933, with reference to hoarding and exportation of gold did not apply to gold concentrates, precipitates or amalgams; and on August 19, 1933, the Bureau of Customs sent out its circular letter No. 1028 to collectors of customs advising that gold ores, concentrates, precipitates, and unretorted amalgams might be exported. Prior to this ruling by the Attorney General, it had never been the practice of the mining industry in the |