GOLD RUSH COINERS BOOK

In the "ephemera" portion of my library is an audio tape I made at last year's ANA Convention in Portland, of John J. Ford's talk on Western Assay Bars. He mentioned the Central America recovery and described a gentlemen who became intrigued with the history of the makers of the pioneer gold coins and bars discovered on the shipwreck.

Using a magnifying glass, he studied the assayer's names on bars pictured in a magazine profile of the wreck. Then he went to the library. While poring through microfilms of contemporary newspapers, he began to assemble information on each of the assayers, then looked for any other documentary evidence he could find. Gradually, he gathered much heretofore unpublished information on these pioneer coiners.

The man's name is Dan Owen, and as Ford announced last year, his work is being published cooperatively by Stack's and Bowers and Merena. As noted by Dan in the Summer 1999 issue of The Brasher Bulletin, published by the Society of Private and Pioneer Numismatics (SPPN):

"An Encyclopedia of California Coiners and Assayers Related to Numismatics" represents my in-depth research project on the numismatic history of the California Gold Rush. The text is several hundred pages in length, and contains a wealth of information which cannot be found in any other single source. Several chapters in my book will be devoted to the assaying firms who made the gold ingots recovered from the wreck of the S.S. Central America."

The book will be available this year. So, you think all the good numismatic research projects have already been done to death? Here's one that a non-numismatist picked up and made his own, discovering several stones left unturned by previous researchers. What other topics are ripe for a re-examination?

Wayne Homren, Editor

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The E-Sylum: Volume 02, Number 32, August 8, 1999, Article 5

GOLD RUSH COINERS BOOK

Wayne Homren, Editor