THE 1879 WEYL WANT LIST

Heritage catalogers John Sculley, Zeke Wischer, and I want to thank you for the kind review of our Coin World article (July 18, 2016 edition) on the 1884 Adolph Weyl catalog and the Dexter 1804 dollar that appeared in the last issue of The E-Sylum. The E-Sylum  always goes to great lengths to get things right. In that spirit, I would like to say a little more about possible appearance of the 1804 dollar in a “group lot in an 1879 auction” mentioned in Mark Ferguson’s book as reviewed by Bill Eckberg.

Beginning on page 82 of his September 1879 auction catalog (Weyl Figure 1), after the main body of the sale, Weyl printed several pages of what appeared to be numbered bulk lots of coins from different countries, under the heading Kauf-Gesuche! (Weyl Figure 2). Lot 83 in the list, in the section on United States coins, appeared to be a remarkable gathering of U.S. silver dollars, including many rare dates, the 1804 among them (Weyl Figure 3). Non-German-speaking numismatists, including myself, were very excited about the discovery of this list, which we took to be some kind of addendum to the sale, probably added at the last minute. This seemed to push the first European appearance of an 1804 dollar back five years before the famous Weyl sale of October 1884, and the only likely candidate for such an appearance was the Dexter dollar, whose prior history was unknown before that offering.

Several important references have mentioned this “appearance” in recent years, but Heritage catalogers became suspicious of it when we studied these catalogs for our auction description of the Mickley 1804 dollar in our 8/2013 Chicago Signature. The fact that all the coins were scarce-to-rare issues and there was no physical description of any of them seemed strange. Checking further, we discovered the Kaufe-Gesuche! was reprinted in Weyl’s next auction catalog in October of 1879 (it may appear in some other contemporary publications, as well, but these have not been reported).

Finally, we enlisted the help of Dagmar Byers, the German-speaking Vice President of Finance & Accounting at Heritage. She informed us that Kaufe-Gesuche! translates very roughly as Want List! Weyl was advertising to buy these foreign coins after his phenomenal success with the Fonrobert Collection in 1878, not offering them for sale himself. Therefore, the October 1884 Adolph Weyl sale remains the first appearance of the Dexter dollar and its prior history remains a mystery.

Bill Eckberg adds:

To try Google Translate, see:
https://translate.google.com/

To read the earlier E-Sylum article, see:
THE RARE AND IMPORTANT 1884 WEYL CATALOG (www.coinbooks.org/esylum_v19n29a08.html)

Archives International Auctions, Part XXXIV

U.S. & Worldwide Banknotes, Scripophily, Coins
and Security Printing Ephemera

July 26, 2016

Click the links! Highlights include:

Lot 43: Deutsch-Asiatische Bank 1907 Peking Branch
Lot 44: Russo-Asiatic Bank, 1910 "Harbin Branch" Provisional Issue
Lot 405: Jefferson County Bank. Uniface Proof.
Lot 407: New York State War of 1812 Era Odd Denomination Scrip
Lot 434: C.S.A. 1864, $2, Vertical Half Sheet of 4 Notes.
Lot 481: Spanish-American War, $20, 3% Coupon Bond of 1898
Lot 645: Potomac Gold and Silver Mining Co., 1863 Stock Certificate.
Lot 789: American Bank Note Company, 1868 Stock Certificate
Live Internet Bidding
View the Virtual Catalog
Download the Catalog in PDF format

ARCHIVES INTERNATIONAL AUCTIONS, LLC
1580 Lemoine Avenue, Suite #7
Fort Lee, NJ 07024
Phone: 201-944-4800
Email: info@archivesinternational.com
WWW.ARCHIVESINTERNATIONAL.COM

	NBS (coinbooks.org) Web