Afternoon everyone …..
Catchy title eh….
Today I have something unusual to share with you today. It’s a vintage piece from the early 1970’s, from the Draper Mint. The round is called the “Swiss of America Rolo”.
The reason why it’s nicknamed the rolo, is because it nearly 3/8” thick and about the diameter of a US quarter. It’s like a tiny silver hockey puck.
There were two versions of this rolo produced. The one I’m going to share with you is the rarer one. There were less then 25,000 of these struck, and who knows how many have survived the smelters caldron.
This round is a “Golden West” “Teton” round. It was produced in 1974 and it’s cool as hell. I’ve been trying to complete a tube of these for a while now. I’m still 3 short.
Here is my round…
See how thick that bad boy is.
While I do own the other version of these rolos. I don’t currently have access to them. Here is a photo of one from an EBay seller.
This version has roughly 1000,000 struck.
Both are very cool, but I’m trying to finish the tube up. Hopefully someday.
Here is some info on the Draper Mint:
THE DRAPER MINT – This refiner includes SWISS of Utah, Swiss of America, AMERICAN, RMM Rocky Mountain Mint, KINGSMEN SILVER, and also enjoyed an affiliation with Handy & Harman. The Draper Mint was founded in 1960 by Loyd Hewitt in Draper, Utah.
Hewitt was born in 1924 in Ogden, Utah, grew up in St. George, Utah and lived many years in Sandy, Utah. He passed away in 2014. He served as an officer in the Army Air Corps during WWII. After his service, he used his GI Bill to study geo-physics at the University of Utah. He spent many years traveling North America surveying for mineral deposits.
After working for mining companies such as Twin Peaks Mining, American Smelting and Refining, and Newmont Mining, Hewitt founded his own company, Hewitt Enterprises. He began surveying the country for minerals using a new technology, which he was pioneering. He became known as the man with the magic black box, and performed geophysical surveys across much of North America. He hired several family members, personal friends and children of friends to assist his ongoing projects. After many years, there was a downturn within the mining industry in the United States, and he decided it was time to retire… sort of.
In his semi-retirement, Hewitt decided to start a new company entitled DRAPER MINT – Swiss of America, which provided access to gold and silver for the public. With this new company, he continued helping others by hiring those that sought employment. Hewitt was able to do something he always dreamed of during his term at Swiss of America. He acquired a soda pop machine that would allow him to provide soda pop for free. Draper Mint – Swiss of America was housed in an old Poultry Processing plant that was previously owned by Philo T. Farnsworth, the inventor of the Television. They refined silver, gold and platinum and minted silver and gold medallions.
In this section, we will honor the thin extruded bars produced in the 1960’s and early 1970’s, the first examples named SWISS of Utah, followed by Swiss of America, and several co-branded examples. Some of the early SWISS of Utah bars display Handy & Harman’s purity counterstamp on the reverse. Also included below are the more common DRAPER MINT Swiss of America rounds and ‘ROLO’ examples of the early 1970’s in associated weight class of 1oz, 2oz, 2.5oz and 5oz.
