The Handy &
Harman Story
Our
beginnings in precious metals
Handy
& Harman today is a widely diversified manufacturing company, fabricating
thousands of kinds of products for a broad spectrum of industrial users.
We
began our business life however, as a specialized, rather than diversified
company. Handy & Harman was founded in 1867 solely as a precious metals
company. And during our first century of activity virtually the whole of our
business was in precious metals. Today, even with our considerable
diversification, our precious metals operation remains a very substantial part
of our business.
Precious metals -and integrity
From
the very outset, our role as a precious metals company imposed special
standards of integrity on us, stemming from the exceptionally high value of
the materials we dealt in.
From
our founding in 1867 to the end of the 19th century, we operated as dealers in
bullion (gold and silver bars) and specie (gold and silver coins). Through
this activity we became proficient in the physical handling, evaluation,
safeguarding, storage and shipment of these high value metals-and built a
reputation as a competent and dependable precious metals company.
On
the basis of our experience and many business contacts in precious metals, we
began, in 1892, to issue a daily silver price as a service for American silver
producers. This price, based initially on conversion of the London price to
American terms, rapidly became the basis for virtually all silver transactions
throughout North America.
Handy
& Harman's daily silver price quotation has long since become independent
of London. Today it represents simply the lowest price at which, on any given
day, Handy & Harman can buy silver for its own needs. Yet, so strongly
established is our Company's reputation as a leader in precious metals, that
this price is accepted as a guide for silver transactions worldwide.
Another
evidence of our early leadership in precious metals is the publication of our
annual "Review of the Silver Market". This booklet, which reviewed
the 1916 silver market, was first published in 1917. Issued every year since,
it reports on key trends and activities in silver. It is widely utilized as a
reliable source of information on the silver market by the metals trade,
economists, financial analysts and government agencies.
The turn to
manufacturing
During
the late
1800s, in addition to our trading activity in bullion and specie, we acted as
a supplier of
gold and
silver bars to manufacturing jewelers and silversmiths (termed the
"arts" industry). These manufacturers alloyed gold and silver with
other metals to fabricate finished jewelry and silverware products. And, as an
important part of their operation, they reclaimed the precious metals hidden
in their manufacturing scrap-in wiping rags, bench fillings, lathe turnings
and floor sweeps.
With
the turn of the century, we undertook a major new step in our business. We
became precious
metal
fabricators and refiners. We established a silver plant in Bridgeport,
Connecticut, and a gold plant in New York City. In 1915 we centralized our
silver fabrication and our refining activities in a newly-built plant in
Fairfield, Connecticut, the largest and best equipped precious metals plant of
its day
Serving the
arts industry
As
a large-scale precious metals fabricator and refiner, we were able to render
valuable services to the arts industry.
Jewelry
manufacturers, for example, had long been concerned
with the
"karat integrity" of the products they made. When a manufacturer
stamped his product "14 Karat Gold" he had to stand behind it to
guarantee that it contained the legally specified percentage of gold.
Similarly, a silversmith who stamped his product "Sterling Silver"
had to guarantee that its silver content met government requirements.
These
conditions were not easily complied with. The manufacturer, with limited
equipment and metallurgical expertise, found it difficult to insure the
precious metal content of his products unless he added excess silver or gold
to his alloys -a costly procedure.
Handy
& Harman undertook to solve this problem. By fabricating silver and gold
alloys in modern centralized plants, with advanced equipment and processes and
under strict quality control conditions, we were able to guarantee the exact
precious metal content of our alloys. Manufacturers using these
alloys
could now be sure that their finished products would contain the
legally-required percentages of precious metal, with no costly excess.
New refining
techniques
Handy
& Harman broke
new ground, too, in precious metal refining.
In
the early 1900s the reclaiming of gold and silver from manufacturing scrap was
necessarily inefficient because of limited technology. Jewelers and
silversmiths would generally refine their own scrap and, because of their
relatively unsophisticated and small-scale equipment and procedures, would
often lose considerable gold and silver in the process.
With
newly-installed large-scale equipment and advanced procedures, we were able to
refine a manufacturer's scrap far more efficiently than he could do it
himself. And by developing new techniques for blending, sampling and assaying
a scrap lot, we were able to determine its precise precious metal content as a
basis for payment.
The
new fabricating and refining procedures instituted by Handy & Harman meant
that, for the first time, manufacturers could be sure of the quality,
consistency and karat integrity of the precious metal alloys that were their
raw materials. They could be sure, as well, of being paid for their precious
metal scrap on the basis of an accurate, scientific determination of its
value.
Handy
& Harman, a recognized leader in the silver market, now established a
reputation for integrity and customer service among industry users of precious
metals.
v
