How would a 19th century numismatist hunt down all the top grade pieces?

[Prethen]

I'm starting to read the book about the Garrett collection. Garrett was a numismatist who started going after U.S. colonial, territorial, and regular issues in the 1860's.

 

How would one go about doing such a feat? The contact lines must take forever, plus you have to figure out who to deal with and who has the real connections. Also, there wasn't a whole lot of education back then as how to handle the coins. How did one communicate with dealers/collectors where you wanted not only great looking specimens but ones that weren't messed with? Or, did they care? Obviously, he got the right stuff for his collection.

 

He ended up getting unique items and top grade items for the collection. I think that's incredible given the times he did this in. With my luck, if I was avidly trying to do the same thing, I'd probably end up with bottom of the barrel dreck!

[physics-fan3.14]

You mean he couldn't just fire up the internet and have thousands of dealers right at his fingertips? And no chat boards where he could discuss his findings and post pictures? And no TPGs to tell him exactly what he got and what grade it was? How could he survive?

 

Seriously, though, he probably would have had to have great connections, most likely with actual people at the mint itself. I know there were dealers and auctions back then, so I'm sure he must have frequented those. I'm not entirely sure collectors cared so much about having things that weren't messed with. From what I've heard, it was pretty routine for alot of collectors to take out a tarnished coin and give it a wipe.

 

What book are you reading, by the way? Make sure you tell us how it was when you finish it.

[MunkyMan95]

I imagine that there was a lot of letter-writing and similar correspondence going on in order to obtain these pieces. There would have been a lot of legwork involved. Not a simple click-buy type of thing.

[James_OldeTowne]

Garrett had far less competition than collectors to today. I would guess that many dealers practically catered to him.

[Prethen]

On a recommendation from ATS, I bought The History Of United States Coinage: Illustrated by the Garrett Collection by Bowers. The book appears to be an incredible tome. I'm surprised I never heard about it. It's also available for a song all over the Net compared to it's girth. My edition is the 1988 edition with 2000 copies published.

[Conder101]

Garrett had far less competition than collectors to today. I would guess that many dealers practically catered to him.

There also weren't that many dealers either, so if someone had coins to sell especially really nice ones they pretty much went to that same small group of dealers. That hasn't changed too much today. Once a coin gets above a certain price level it doesn't get trotted to the local good ol boy dealer when it come time to sell, it gets set to either one of the big boys r to one of the handful of auction houses. That's why the op coins can be traced from collection to collection and sale to sale. The better and more expensive the coin or the higher the rarity the more likely they are to be concentrated into a very small number of hands when it comes time to sell.

 

Sure previously unknown specimens or new top quality pieces hat have not been on the market before may be found and sod into the smaller time dealer market by non-collectors and heirs of collectors, but once they are recognized for what they are they tend to migrate to the "majors".

[Oldtrader3]

If I remember correctly, Garrett had several dealers who worked on commission for him, seeking out coins from a want list wherever they could be found.

 

My dad, who was no Garrett, built a complete MS set of large Canadian cents back in the late 1970's, early 1980's and he had dealers scouring auctions for him all over the U.S. Dave Bowers found several of his large cents for him at auctions. Dad's set, by his own admission, was one of only (2) complete MS large Canadian cent sets in existance. He sold his coins when he retired.

[danno26]

I've read this book a couple times over the years. What I found especially interesting was the back and forth between Garrett and several dealers of his time. I believe it is all at the end of the book, taken from actual correspondence. I enjoyed the read.