The E-Sylum:  Volume 5, Number 18, April 28, 2002, Article 6

DISCOVERY OF JOSEPH J. MICKLEY'S 1852 DIARY

  Joel Orosz writes: "In 1980, George Frederick Kolbe
  excited numismatic bibliophiles by announcing he had found
  Joseph Mickley's diary, covering a span from August 1866
  to June 1869.   William Dubois had written in 1871 that
  Mickley kept a journal for most of his adult life.  Clearly there
  had been other volumes of the Mickley diary, but had they
  survived?

  During the 2000 ANA Anniversary Convention in
  Philadelphia,  I spent a couple of days at the Historical
  Society of Pennsylvania,  in search of numismatic source
  material.   I had last been there in 1983, doing research for
  my dissertation;  during that visit, I found materials on Pierre
  Eugene Du Simitiere that I used for my first numismatic book,
  The Eagle That Is Forgotten.  A few hours spent with the
  Society's old-fashioned card catalogue yielded some
  interesting tidbits, but I hit the jackpot when I looked up
  Joseph J. Mickley, and discovered that, under catalogue
  # AM1039, the Society owned the great collector's diary
  for 1852.

  The diary contains nothing that will change the course of
  numismatic history, but it does add a couple of names to the
  list of people who owned silver center cents (James Hall and
  Jacob Giles Morris), asserts that Christian Gobrecht, not
  James Kneass, designed the obverse of the 1838 pattern
  half (Pollock 77), and it sheds some light on Mickley's
  collecting habits and compatriots.

  I used some information from the diary in the article I wrote
  for the current issue of The Numismatist, "Jacob Giles Morris,
  Patrician Pioneer of Coin Collecting," and I will be sharing
  an annotated version of the diary with fellow numismatists in
  the future.  The next number of The American Journal of
  Numismatics will contain an article I have written containing
  a transcription of every numismatic reference from the diary
  and an explanatory annotation for most of the entries.  This
  experience makes me wonder -- how many other volumes of
  Mickley's diaries may be safely tucked away in archives and
  historical societies just waiting to be found? "

  [Joel's article is a must-read for all students of American
  numismatics and anyone with an interest in history.   One
  word:  Wow!  -Editor]

  Wayne Homren, Editor

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