Conrad Wiegand’s ingots are probably the most popular of them all. This is due in part to the fact that there seem to be enough of them in collectors’ hands that one or two come on the market in any given year. Their popularity is also explainable by their appearance. Much like Francis Blake’s bars, which exhibit a pleasing and regular layout of the information stamped on his bars, Wiegand’s also are remarkably regular in this same regard. In fact, a Wiegand bar that has been damaged and no longer shows the assayer’s name can still be identified as one of Wiegand’s, just by the way the stamps on the bar are laid out. And perhaps more importantly, some of Wiegand’s bars are more gold than silver.

Wiegand’s bars are also the most popular because many of them are dated, their presentation or dedicatory inscriptions bearing year and sometimes even day dates. Blake’s bars do, too, of course, but there are more Wiegand bars around and more of them are dated than are Blake’s. Among Wiegand’s bars the commonest date is 1866. The date is usually found directly underneath the Office of Internal Revenue’s stamp and we suspect Wiegand dated the 1866 bars in that place to satisfy some tax regulation with which we are not familiar but that was probably part of the July 12, 1866 tax law that established a structure of licensing fees payable by assayers. Interestingly, Wiegand’s dated bars usually do not have bar numbers whereas the undated bars are all numbered.

The San Francisco Mint payroll for the third quarter of 1855 indicates that Conrad Wiegand occupied the post of assayer from May 9th of that year, apparently succeeding Agostin Haraszthy to the position. In 1856 he gave a talk about the Vigilance Committee, a private group formed to protect citizens of San Francisco from criminal activities which seemingly were overlooked by local police. The lecture was described as "rambling and incoherent" by a listener.

Wiegand was the publisher of a small newspaper, the People's Tribune, in which he attacked various prominent people from time to time.

For a short period in the mid 1860s Wiegand was superintendent of assaying at the Gould & Curry Mill in Virginia City. A listing for Edwards & Wiegand, trading as the "Gold Hill Assay Office," appears in the Pacific Coast Business Directory, 1867 issue. The listing is changed to Wiegand & Co. in the 1871-1873 edition. A directory published by another firm places him in Virginia City in 1874. In an 1877 directory
the Virginia Assay Office & Chemical Laboratory, operated by C. Wiegand & Co., at 38 North C Street, Virginia City, is listed, as is the Silver Note Bank (sic) Company at the same address. By 1880 he was also known as the agent and superintendent of the Nevada Amalgam Refining Company and as a partner in Wiegand, Perkins & Company, bullion brokers and purchasing agents, as well as a partner in Wiegand, Taylor & Company, dealers in crucibles, assaying goods, glassware, chemical reagents, printed matter for assayers, mills and mines, etc.

The several gold ingots known to exist and the mixed metal ingots, many of which were acquired from varying sources, indicate that his production must have been extensive.

A Timeline of Conrad Wiegand's Happenings, according to local records and documents:

1856

Conrad Wiegand assayer USBM Resides at First between Folsom and Harrison
Colville’s San Francisco Directory for the Year Commencing October 1856

1861-1863

Conrad Wiegand assayer USBM Dwells at 525 Union
Langley’s San Francisco Directory for the Year Commencing September 1861
Langley’s San Francisco Directory for the Year Commencing September 1862
Langley’s San Francisco Directory for the Year Commencing October 1863

1865

[To be Opened June First.] Bullion And Ores Assayed, At Gold Hill... Storey County, Nevada, By Conrad Wiegand Formerly Supervising Assayer, At The United States Mint, San Francisco, Cal., And Late Superintendent of Assaying At The Gould & Curry Mill, Virginia City, Nevada Gold And Silver Bullion Melted a nd Assayed, at San Francisco rates.

Returns in Bars are as speedily rendered as is compatible with a critical ascertainment of Value. The values stamped are guaranteed to be those which the U.S. Mint (or its Branches) will declare, if deposited for coinage.

Ore assays carefully made at rates reasonably correspondent with the number and character of Assays desired, and with the amount and form of sample furnished. Specific and detailed circulars furnished on application personally at the office, or by mail to Conrad Wiegand, East side of Main Street, near and below Wells Fargo & Co.’s, Gold Hill.
Gold Hill Daily News, May 27, 1865 (in part)

Gold Hill Assay Office And Analytical Laboratory...Chemical and Analytical Department, (Rickard & Wiegand, Proprietors). Wm. T. Rickard, F.C.S., Formerly Assayer and Analytical Chemist by special appointment of the Government of Chile, and late of Mitchell & Rickard, London.
Gold Hill Daily News, September 1865

1866

Gold Hill Assay Office Re-Opened! Edwards & Wiegand Proprietors
Territorial Enterprise

1867

Dissolution. The Partnership Heretofore Existing between A.S. Edwards and Conrad Wiegand, in the business of assaying at Gold Hill, under the firm names of Edwards & Wiegand and Wiegand & Co., is this day dissolved in accordance with the terms of copartnership agreement. All claims against the late firm now outstanding should be presented for settlement to C. Wiegand & Co., successors to Wiegand & Co. and all dues of the firms dissolved are also payable to C. Wiegand & Co. Edwards & Wiegand and Wiegand & Co.
Territorial Enterprise, August 31, 1867

1868

Wiegand’s Virginia Assay Office. Today this new assay office opens for business on C Street, next door north of Gillig, Mott & Co.’s. The Gold Hill Assay Office will continue to do business as heretofore, but the new establishment is opened as a convenience to the patrons of Mr. Wiegand in this city and neighborhood. The new receiving room is in Frederick’s jewelry store.
Territorial Enterprise, August 1, 1868

1870

Publisher Conrad Wiegand
Newspaper-Peoples Tribune (Gold Hill, Nevada) January 1870-June 1870

C. Wiegand, Age: 40, Occupation: Assayer, Real Estate: $1,000, Birthplace: Pennsylvania M.D.; Wiegand, Age: 40, Occupation: Keeping House, Birthplace: New Jersey; E.A. Wiegand, Female, Age: 13, Birthplace: California.
1870 Ninth Federal Census, Gold Hill, Nevada, Storey County

1871-1872

A. Soderling (c/o Wiegand & Co.) Resides at 37 South B Virginia; Wiegand & Co. assayers 36 South C Virginia; C. Wiegand. C. Wiegand & Co. Resides at 37 South B Virginia
Storey, Ormsby, Washoe and Lyon Counties Directory for 1871-1872, H.S. Crocker & Co., 1871

If there ever was a harmless man, it is Conrad Wiegand, of Gold Hill, Nevada. If ever there was a gentle spirit that thought itself unfired gunpowder and latent ruin, it is Conrad Wiegand. If ever there was an oyster that fancied itself a whale; or a jack-o-lantern, confined to a swamp, that fancied itself a planet with a billion-mile orbit; or a summer zephyr that deemed itself a hurricane, it is Conrad Wiegand. Therefore, what wonder is it that when he says a thing, he thinks the world listens; that when he does a thing the world stands still to look; and that when he suffers, there is a convulsion of nature? When I met Conrad, he was “Superintendent of the Gold Hill Assay Office” and he was not only its Superintendent, but its entire force. And he was a street preacher, too, with a mongrel religion of his own invention, whereby he expected to regenerate the universe. This was years ago. Here latterly he has entered journalism; and his journalism is what might be expected to be; colossal to ear, but pigmy to eye. It is extravagant grandioloquence confined to a newspaper about the size of a double letter sheet. He doubtless edits, sets the type, and prints his paper, all alone; but he delights to speak of the concern as if it occupied a block and employs a thousand men...Something less than two years ago, Conrad assailed several people mercilessly in his little “People’s Tribune.”
Roughing It, Mark Twain (1872)

1877

Wiegand & Co. Virginia Assay office and chemical Lab 38 North C.; C.A. Wiegand Manager Silver Note Bank Co. 38 North C.
A Business Directory of San Francisco and the Principal Towns of California and Nevada, L.M. McKenney.

1880

Death of Conrad Wiegand.

He Commits Suicide by Hanging.

Yesterday morning our people were shocked and saddened by the news that Conrad Wiegand, the well-known assayer, had committed suicide by hanging himself in a room in the basement of his establishment on North C Street. Such news was quite unexpected, as he had within the last two or three years passed bravely through very severe family afflictions, and had during his career as a business man frequently sustained heavy financial losses.

...For a long time past Mr. Wiegand has had spells of nervousness, during which it was impossible for him to obtain sound and healthful sleep. At such times he frequently arose and busied himself in his library, or with the books in his office. In order not to disturb his wife with his restlessness, he was in the habit of sleeping on a lounge, and getting up and lying down, as the humor inclined him.

Of late he had been working very hard in his assay office, and was very nervous and restless. His financial affairs were not in a condition which was satisfactory to himself, though they were by no means desperate, and would have given most men little uneasiness. However, he worried not a little about matters connected with his business.

Last Sunday evening he complained of feeling unwell and went to rest on his lounge. About 7 o’clock yesterday morning, when breakfast was ready, Mrs. Wiegand went to the office (the family residence being in the same building as the assay office) to call her husband. Not finding him there she went down to the library, which was situated on the ground floor at the rear of the house, but he was not among his books, and (when Mrs. Wiegand turned to go upstairs she saw her husband.)

...He probably had not an enemy in the world.

Of late Mr. Wiegand’s nervous affliction seemed to increase upon him, and he found it almost impossible to shake it off, though he took long walks for the purpose and tried all manner of remedies. The prevailing opinion is that this condition of mind became suddenly aggravated into positive insanity, during which he took his life.

The death of his only daughter, nearly three years ago, was a severe blow to Mr. Wiegand, from which he never fully recovered. She was married to Thomas Dunn and lived happily with him, but died a few weeks after giving birth to her first child. Not long afterward the bereaved husband was taken sick and died at Mr. Wiegand’s house, leaving the little girl to the care of her grandparents, with whom she has since lived. Mr. Wiegand was strongly attached to the child, and was constantly regretting that he could not provide for her future as he would have like to. Besides these family troubles that seemed to prey on his mind, Mr. Wiegand met with many business reverses, and worried continually because he was compelled to incur debt. Some years ago he was obliged to go through bankruptcy, but he afterwards paid every cent of his liabilities, although not legally bound to do so. Since that time, he had been struggling against the ebb tide of his fortunes to place his family in such a position as to guarantee them a competency, but all his efforts appear to have been in vain, none of his projects terminating successfully.

As his debts amount to but $5,000 or $6,000, they would not have given a less sensitive person placed in his situation any great deal of uneasiness, for he was possessed of property to almost, if not quite that value.

The statement that nothing was paid him for the use of his patent process for the refining of bullion now in use on the Comstock, is incorrect. His process is in use at the Omega mill, at the Woodworth and at the Morgan, and from these three mills the royalty paid him amounted to about $300 per month. Thus it will be seen that with this income, and what he was able to make in his assay office, his affairs were in no very bad condition.

Conrad Wiegand was born in Pennsylvania...and was educated in the East as a chemist. He came to California in the early days, and for a number of years was chief assayer in the United States Mint. In 1863 he left San Francisco to accept a position as assayer at the Gould and Curry works, where he remained two years. He then opened an assay office in Gold Hill and carried on quite an extensive business, but although he was one of the best assayers on the Comstock and thoroughly scientific, his generous eccentricities always kept him embarrassed financially. Perhaps no man in the country better understood the silver question than Conrad Wiegand, and it is well known that Senator Jones and others who have become prominent in the discussions of this subject in Congress obtained many of their ideas from him. The plan of issuing silver certificates originated in his brain and was often discussed by him long before it made its appearance in Congress. Mr. Wiegand was a prolific writer upon financial questions, and although his style was peculiar and reflected his eccentricities, his ideas were generally sound.

By the death of Conrad Wiegand, the community loses one of its worthiest members, and one who was universally respected. He was strictly honorable in every relation of life and liberal to a fault. When he had money it was next to impossible for him to keep it if he saw persons who were in any kind of distress that coin would relieve. He not unfrequently gave money to persons who were undeserving of his charity, and was doubtless more imposed upon in this respect than anyone knows or will ever know, for he believed even the lowest and most vicious capable of reform, and was always ready to put his hand in his pocket when such persons talked reformation to him.

An inquest was commenced before Acting Coroner Justice Moses last evening at 6 o’clock and five witnesses were examined. On account of the opinion held by some that it was not a suicide...

At 3:30 o’clock this afternoon there will be funeral services at the late residence of the deceased, but only intimate friends of the family will be present. The remains will not be buried here, but will be placed in a vault, there to be kept until it is convenient to transfer them to California, where they will find their last resting place, by the side of his daughter and son-in-law, Mr. and Mrs. Thomas W. Dunn.
Territorial Enterprise, June 15, 1880

The Suicide of Conrad Wiegand. The Coroner's Inquest:

Principal Points of the Testimony Taken. The Verdict.

...Martha Wiegand. wife of the deceased, was the next witness called, and testified as follows: Am the wife of Conrad Wiegand. Deceased was born in Philadelphia, and was fifty years old last March... (Last night) we talked for some time about his affairs, and discussed the necessity of retrenching our household expenses. He was very much depressed in spirits and I tried to encourage him, telling him that I could do my own work and help him with his books. ..Mr. Wiegand was the kindest and best husband that ever lived. He was much troubled about money matters, and sometimes spoke of a burning sensation in his head.

I went with him to the hospital for a walk on Sunday afternoon, and noticing upon our return that his eyes did not look natural, I tried to cheer him up...

...Francis E. Mills had been in Mr. Wiegand’s employ a year... Talked with the deceased several times on Sunday, and found him more dejected than he had ever been before seen him. Mr. Wiegand remarked more than once during the last week that his life would end in an insane asylum, or something to that effect. Mr. Wiegand’s financial circumstances were in a more desperate condition than witness had ever before known them.

The verdict of the Coroner’s jury, was that deceased came to his death, by his own hand while laboring under a temporary fit of insanity.
Territorial Enterprise, June 16, 1880.