BOOK REVIEW: SAINT PATRICK COINAGE

There are a few large series of coins related to – but not actually struck in – colonial North America that have long eluded the kind of systematic classification and research that all other series have long since had. Massachusetts silver, the various state coinages, Virginia halfpennies, Fugio coppers – even series “discovered” more recently like the Machin’s Mills/Atlee halfpence – have ALL had the benefit of extensive research and, more importantly to the collector, all have articles, monographs and books written on them that give attribution numbers and perhaps an idea of rarity.

The four major runs of coins that are part of the colonial series that have not received this kind of detailed attention throughout the 19th and 20th centuries are the St. Patrick’s (or “Newby”) coppers, the Rosa Americana coinage, the Hibernia coppers and the French Colonies pieces struck specifically for North America. These series baffled researchers for over a century. Some tried – and made valiant attempts. The late Bob Vlack did much research on the Hibernia coinage, had access to the Norweb collection (amongst others) and prepared a manuscript that listed die varieties, though it was unfortunately never published. Vlack also researched the large St. Patrick’s pieces (popularly called halfpennies, though they bear no denomination), and published this information in The Colonial Newsletter, though the smaller size (popularly called a farthing) was never done. John Griffee was at work for something similar for the small-sized St. Patrick series when he sadly passed away. Walter Breen made an effort to get the major types of each of these series looked at in his Encyclopedia and he listed some neat varieties, but could do little more than that. For all intents and purposes collectors gave up and were content to have just a couple type coins from each of these four areas – though a brave few did try to assemble as many varieties as they could find.

The colonial world needed something of a superhero to come to its rescue, and into the fray – picture his cape waving in the wind – jumped Sydney F. Martin. Syd tackled not just one of these “undiscovered” series, but ALL of them, culminating in the recent publication of his work on the St. Patrick issues, hot off the press (published by The Colonial Coin Collectors Club, or C4, this work is available from Charles Davis at numislit@aol.com for $95 plus postage). One is amazed that a single person could do – in a VERY short period of time – what numismatists couldn’t accomplish for a century and more, but then one looks at the author’s brief biography on dust jacket. Syd received his Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and went on to become an expert in systems analysis and worked in the defense industry. Ladies and gentlemen, we have discovered the exact kind of brain needed to make sense of these complex series, the kind that can see patterns in the chaos, link things together in ways that are easy to understand and to look closely at each and every die to find the things that make it different enough from other, similar dies, so that a logical system of attribution can be formulated and shared with collectors.

All this doesn’t mean that Syd’s books are dry recitations of attribution schemata, written in the language that one might imagine hearing the words “systems analysis.” Instead, every one of these four books give collectors everything they need to know about the coinage it covers. This begins with a thorough look at the history of the series, using all available documents and resources – and often discovering unpublished things along the way, correcting errors in our own basic understanding of some of these series. The Woods’ coinage books and the French Colonies work do this admirably, the latter even finding documents in French archives that Syd had translated and published for the first time.

The St. Patrick’s book, though, was far more difficult to write, for there is almost no evidence at all – anywhere! – about this mysterious coinage. This is simply amazing – a coinage that has nearly 200 individual die varieties, in two different sizes and three different metals (including silver and gold) has left almost no trace in the archival record, and not one peep about what they were intended to be or who made them – or when, why, where or how for that matter. We know a few things about them for certain – a large group were brought over to America in 1681 by Mark Newby to circulate in New Jersey, and that they must have been made by at least 1674 when they were first mentioned (this date further reinforced by one being found on The Royal Yacht Mary, which sank in 1675 and was recovered only in 1971). But that is pretty much all the actual evidence at hand, and the author wisely chooses to discuss some of the major theories on this coinage, both pro and con, and then puts forth a theory of his own – one that’s plausible for the What, When and How parts – the Who, Where and Why perhaps destined to remain a mystery, barring the chance discovery of some archival record: stranger things have happened, but until then, this theory will likely be considered the gold standard for the series.

The work goes on to discuss how the coins were made – the planchets, the added brass splashers, preparing the dies and the actual striking process, all based on direct examination of hundreds of examples of this coinage – sometimes the coins themselves can tell just as much as any sort of documentation, if one only figures out how to listen to what the coins are saying. The author goes into the circulation of the St. Patrick pieces in colonial North America, and then gets into the meat of the book – the actual die varieties. Syd not only gives detailed descriptions of each die, he actually groups them together in ways that suggest distinct production groups. The smaller size pieces are covered first, with the larger size ones after, the latter retaining their original Vlack designations, while the small size ones have the familiar Martin attribution system that looks complicated at first but is both logical and easy enough to master with a few tries.

Unlike the three previous titles published by C4, this one uses full color photographs for the varieties, certainly adding to the cost of production – but a good choice here since the coins literally pop off the page, and one can more clearly see the brass splashers and the tiny symbols on the King David side than if the coins had all been printed in black and white. The book itself is just over 500 pages long – with hundreds of full color photographs, and clearly the $95 price tag is a generous discount from what the book is actually worth.

For this reader, one of the more enjoyable attributes of Syd’s books are the appendices where he discusses error strikes, copies, counterstamps and other curiosities within a series – as well as more practical matters such as grading, rarity ratings, metallurgical analysis and other related areas. The current volume has some fun surprises in these areas, including what is likely a contemporary counterfeit, as well as some intriguing and deceptive modern copies.

Syd, who not only collects the colonial series in-depth, also served a long stint as the editor of The C4 Newsletter (making it one of the best club journals in all of numismatics in the process) and is currently the President of The American Numismatic Society. His quartette of books certainly raises the bar for any reference work yet to be published, and the quality of research is matched by the quality of photographs, the overall utility of the work to the collector, and the books are all well-printed and attractive. This work should, of course, be of interest to every collector of colonial coinages as well as Irish coinage, but it should also earn a place on the shelf of any bibliophile who simply appreciates a job well done.

To read the earlier E-Sylum article, see:
NEW BOOK: SAINT PATRICK COINAGE (http://www.coinbooks.org/v21/esylum_v21n21a05.html)

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