Assay Office
Defined in 3 dictionaries — Cyclopedic (1922), Bouvier (1914), Black's (1910)
The Cyclopedic Law Dictionary
Walter A. Shumaker and George Foster Longsdorf; ed. James C. Cahill · 1922
An establishment, or department, in which the manipulations at tending the assay of bullion and coins are conducted. See "Assay." c. 12, who received and tested the bullion taken in for coining. Also called asaaya,tor regis. Cowell; Termes de la Ley. ASSECURARE (Lat.) To assure; to make secure by pledges, or any solemn interposition of faith. Spelman; Cowell.
Bouvier's Law Dictionary and Concise Encyclopedia
John Bouvier; revised by Francis Rawle · 1914
An establishment, or department, in which the manipulations attending the assay of bullion and coins are conducted. Assay offices are from time to time established by law at various points throughout the country, usually in connection with the branch mints, though the main assay office is in New York. R. S. § 3553 provides that the business of the assay office at New York shall be in all respects similar to that of the mints, except that bars only, and not coin, shall be manufactured therein; and no metals shall be purchased for minor coinage. All bullion intended by the depositor to be converted into coins of the United States, and silver bullion purchased for coinage, when assayed, parted, and refined, and its net value certified, shall be transferred to the mint at Philadelphia, under such directions as shall be made by the Secretary of the Treasury, at the expense of the contingent fund of the mint, and shall be there coined, and the proceeds returned to the assay office. Sec. 3558 provides that the business of the mint at Denver, while conducted as an assay office, that of the assay office at Boise City, and that of any other assay offices hereafter established, shall be confined to the receipt of gold and silver bullion, for melting and assaying, to be returned to depositors of the same, in bars, with the weight and fineness stamped thereon. The assay office is also subject to the laws and regulations applied to the mint; R. S. § 3562.
Black's Law Dictionary
Henry Campbell Black, M.A. · 1910
The staff of persons by whom (or the building in which) the process of assaying gold and silver, required by government, incidental to maintaining the coinage, is conducted.
Defined under Assay in Black's Law Dictionary.