CaptHenway

I have been retired for many years.

I have seen people from southeast Asia come into the coin shop with heavy necklaces that tested out as 24kt. 

Fred Weinberg used to go to European banks to buy U.S. gold in the 1970's. Perhaps you could interview him.

If you have Dave Bowers book on hoards from about 20 years ago, read my contribution about the "Chicago Hoard" of $20s I did an appraisal on back in 1986. A lady called and asked if we bought gold coins. I said sure, bring them in. Se asked if I could come to the bank because they were too heavy to carry. I said yes. I met her at a bank and sat in a private room while she went off to get a vault attendant to help her with the box. When they came back the attendant was straining to push the cart. He just left the box on it and closed the door behind him. 

Just before the U.S. went off the gold standard, her grandmother, who was from "the old country" that was never specified, had decided to hoard some gold. She went to a variety of banks with cash and got $500 face in Double Eagles from each and went home and sewed the 25 coins into purple felt pads about 10 inches square, 5 x 5 with stitching between each coin. There were 43 such pads, or 1,075 coins. She handed me a pair of scissors and I got to take the first look at them by anybody in over 50 years.

One might happen to have 25 common circ. Libs or 25 common date circ. Saints. The next might have 25 Gem BU 1904's, or 1907-Ds, or 1911-Ds, or 1923-Ds or 1927s, or whatever the bank she went to happened to have an open bag of the day she went there. I am assuming that the circs came from solid bags of mixed circs sorted at the Fed by type, but I do not know this, and the BUs from original bags.

One pad was mixed BU Saints. I suspect that at the very end she could not get all that she wanted from the banks anymore, so she went to a coin dealer and bought some. As I was opening one pad, very carefully of course, I found, in random order with the other coins, a 1929, a 1930-S, a 1931, a 1931-D, and a 1932. With several squares to go I kept thinking "Holy (bleep)! Is this going to have a 1933 in it?" It did not.

We did buy the deal. We were never able to buy her two brothers' equal shares!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

TD

On 6/7/2022 at 9:37 AM, beaups1212 said:

https://auctions.stacksbowers.com/lots/view/3-7KR9H/undated-circa-1967-general-motors-roller-press-experimental-cent-judd-unlisted-pollock-4060-rarity-5-copper-plain-edge-control-c

this similar one

I don't think that this auction price is at all a typical price for the TYPE. I suspect that there are people out there collecting by die variety, and I have never, ever seen a piece with the "S" (whatever it stands for).

As to whether or not to slab it, I never bothered to slab the one I got back in the 1970's. Your mileage may vary.

I posted a few things ATS about this hub trial and the 1877 one.

On 6/3/2022 at 3:12 PM, Alex in PA. said:

After seeing those pictures one has to wonder what type of person it takes to work around all that gold, especially the bars, and still be honest?

I remember somebody once describing an old picture they (allegedly) saw of three Fort Knox workers on their lunch break sitting on stacks of gold bars playing poker for matchsticks!

Fascinating. I never knew that me favorite pattern was a prototype for a Centennial Dollar.

TD

On 4/10/2020 at 3:12 PM, Nouzillet said:

Hi Roger, I am looking at my notes. In 1933 or 1934 there was an enormous shipment of gold in the form of large ingots and double eagles. I think it originated in Japan and China and it was literally coming out of the windows at the SF Mint. It was loaded onto a train and shipped to the Denver Mint. The coin crates or wooden boxes each contained 10  $5,000 bags of DE’s

Years earlier in 1908-1909 millions of dollars in gold half eagles, eagles and double eagles were shipped from the SF Mint to the Denver Mint. 

Do you have any information on these shipments? Thanks. 
 

 

 

 

 

 
 

 

 

When I was working at ANACS in the late 70's and early 80's and taking Summer Seminar students up to the Denver Mint for a VIP tour, we started at the Superintendent's office and then walked past an open (but barred) vault with a large quantity of gold bars in it. No free samples. We then went down to the coining floor and, in some years, got to walk past running coin presses, blanking presses and upsetting mills, etc. No eye or ear protection, just a general warning "Keep your hands out of running machinery!"

On 4/10/2020 at 5:50 PM, RWB said:

PS: Standard US Mint shipping boxes for double eagles contained $40,000 in 8 bags, packed in two layers. Sawdust was used between bags and a single board between the layers. Boxes had two steel straps on length and width, and one on circumference. Strap ends were commonly embossed with lead seals, which sometimes fell off during handling. International shipment of standard fine bars from the NYAO and NY banks was commonly in small kegs holding 7 bars (2,800 T oz.) packed in pressed wet sawdust arranged with six standing vertically and the seventh in the center - but this varied with the consignee's requirements.

"Wet sawdust?" So that's where toning comes from!!!!!!

On 6/1/2022 at 8:14 PM, FlyingAl said:

This is very interesting! I can’t help but wonder why it doesn’t pop up again for quite some time, especially in noted pattern sales of the 1960s. I’ll have to change my info. Is there a link for this? 

https://archive.org/details/coincollectorsjo06n1coin/page/6/mode/2up

I don't have my copy of the Adams-Woodin pattern book handy. What does it say about the three patterns under discussion?

Woodin died in very late 1933. What became of his collection?

Start of the article. No byline, so presumably Wayte Raymond.

Curiously, the matching $10 was not called a Sailor Head.

You mean this one?

Thanks. Be sure to check the different 1942 auction records mentioned in the lot descriptions.

BTW, in the link cited the auction lots appear twice. Up front they appear normally after the title page. Those page numbers might be more useful to cite. In the section you are in, after a list of bidders by number, they cut out the lot listings and pasted them into a bid book that had blank lined paper opposite the cut lots. On the lined pages they entered bidder numbers and their bids prior to the sale. During the actual sale they could enter those bids into the bidding, and record who won and at what price. It looks as though all three lots were won by bidder #90, a Mr. Joseph C. Sabatasso. The name does not ring any bells.

The title page mentions Wormser and John J. Ford. Above Lot #1 there are many references you should check out. There is also a reference to research done by Breen. I checked with my old friend David T. Alexander, and he says that as he recalls Breen was no longer officially cataloguing for New Netherlands by 1970 due to his recurring legal problems, but he agreed that Breen MIGHT have been unofficially involved with the cataloguing of this sale. Thus, if you can find no earlier use of the term Sailor Head, you would be safe in saying that it was "probably" coined by Ford but "possibly" coined by Breen.

TD

On 6/1/2022 at 9:53 AM, FlyingAl said:

This could be some good evidence, as they seem to have been distinguished from the 1875 patterns clearly except for a brief mention of "similar". 

I also believe I found the first usage of "Sailor Head". It comes from a 1970 auction of the Jesse Taylor collection of US Pattern Coins by the New Netherlands Coin Company, and I am ecstatic to say it proves my point. On page 91, the 1875 patterns are described as "sailor head" patterns, while those of 1876 are described as "sailor like". It is of note that the 1877 dime pattern is also described as "sailor head", for unknown reasons as it is more similar to those of 1876. All nicknames are in quotations and this seems to point to their originality. At a minimum, I can positively rule out the dollar patterns of 1876.

Excellent! Does the catalogue say who the cataloguer was?

Do you have a link to the catalogue?

When you do write what you write, I think you should include some mention of the 1876 patterns if only to explain why they do not qualify as "Sailor Heads," which I assume will be that they do not have that "necktie" (not "collar" as you previously called it) that the 1875's have. The "burst of rays" at the front of the coronet remains an interesting novelty.

On 5/31/2022 at 6:26 PM, FlyingAl said:

Many would state it came form the sale of the 1891 Doughty sale by the New York Coin and Stamp Co., which created many of the names for the Morgan patterns. "Sailor Head" does not appear there, and I can provide a link to the auction here if you would like to see for yourself. The patterns of 1875 appear on page 21, where all "Sailor Head" patterns are listed without that name as lots 420 and 423. 

https://nnp.wustl.edu/library/auctionlots?AucCoId=26&AuctionId=513829&page=25

Interesting catalogue. I love the description of Lot 421!

I see that he called the 1876 versions of this head "Centennial Dollars."  That made up nickname does not seem to have caught on.

Just for the heck of it I checked Cornelius Vermeule’s “Numismatic Art in America.” The very brief section on Patterns of 1875 has nothing on the design in question.

A rousing discussion that I hope will continue! 

Roger, what do you think of the cavalier way in which uspatterns.com dismisses J-1457 et al with the comment "these are really trade dollar essais?" I don't know where they got that idea.

FlyingAl, Remember this example when reading source material in the future. Sometimes even the authority in a field is wrong about some things. The trick is to figure out which ones.

I do hope you figure out who coined the name "Sailor Head" for the 1875 versions of this design. I would guess it was some "Writer of the Purple Prose" auction cataloguer. Without ever really giving it much thought, I always just sort of assumed that it derived from the two ribbons at the back of the head, which may have looked like something on the caps worn by Royal Navy seamen. There is an old "urban legend" that British sailors in the 19th Century used to sew blades into the brims of their caps, and then when a fight broke out in a bar somewhere in the world with sailors from a different navy, the tars would grab the ribbons on their caps and swing them as offensive weapons.

And this is exactly the type of idle speculation you should be leery of! I read that in a story somewhere, and I have no idea if it is true or not! Can't remember where I read it.

But don't let that stop you from doing research on the styles of caps worn by British sailors. You might find those ribbons somewhere.

And yes I known that the Draped Bust design of the 1790's also had ribbons.

TD

I do have some 1922-D cents with a very weak "TRUST," but I have never seen a genuine Die Pair #2 that looks like this. Can you please email me the images you have?

Send to CapHenway(at)AOL.com

On 2/15/2021 at 2:25 PM, physics-fan3.14 said:

Does anyone have a link to this article? Sounds interesting, but I'm not a subscriber. 

It would be worth subscribing to the online editions just to read this article.

TD

Interesting in that it shows dollars dated 1803 being submitted to the Annual Assay for the coinage of 1804 and nobody cared about the actual date. This reinforces my claim that the one Standard Silver Dollar submitted to the Annual Assay by the San Francisco Mint during the Calendar Year 1873 was dated 1872, and that the mythical 1873-S Seated Liberty Silver Dollar was never struck.

TD

An interesting topic that was once of great personal interest, as for I while I was the one at ANACS who had to make that call. Sometimes it wasn't easy, as the quality of the Proofs varied considerably over time depending on who was making them.

An of course there are exceptions to every rule. In the early years of the Morgan Dollar series San Francisco obviously was giving every new die a splendiferous polishing that none of the other mints at the time did. Perhaps the Superintendent did not like that acid bath look that Roger mentions.

BTW, the condition of the planchet is not that important to a Proof-Like field on the coin. While I was at ANACS we certified a "clock" of 12 off-center silver dollars, many of which could be identified as to date and Mint. On each one you could see the coarseness of the original planchet in the unstruck areas, and the smooth to brilliant finishes of the struck fields. The coarse surfaces of the planchet were 100% obliterated by the quality of the fields on the dies, except on the typically weak-struck areas such as the ear or the eagle's breast. This was even so on an S-mint coin from the very early 1880's.

Will be back to discuss the Proofs at a later date.

TD

We are fortunate to have Roger Burdette on this forum.

3 hours ago, physics-fan3.14 said:

What did you miss? 

Tumbleweeds, mostly. 

From the other posts in this thread, I can see why.