The E-Sylum:  Volume 8, Number 48, November 13, 2005, Article 18

ANOTHER UNUSUAL GOLD COIN FIND

Fred Schwan writes: “Regarding circulating gold coins I
have one good story. A few years after I started collecting,
my father showed me (and later gave me) a coin that he had.
It was a VF 1851 gold dollar. The interesting part is where
he got it.

Dad (and his extended family) was in the dry cleaning business
(both his brother and brother in law also had dry cleaning
establishments; dad learned the trade from the former and
taught it to the latter). He started his own business in
1938 (still run by my brother) and started working in the
business in the late 1920s.

The subject dollar was found in a lint trap of a dry cleaning
machine.  If he told me when he found it, I do not recall
specifically, but believe that it was in the early 1930s. A
dry cleaning machine lint filter is much like the lint filter
on a current home dryer--they both have the job of catching
lint.

Anyway, that is where he found it and since there was no way
to determine the rightful owner, he kept it until the 1960s
when I got it. Of course I still have and cherish it and I
have more than a little interest in gold dollars.

Now it would be a stretch to say that this dollar was a
circulating coin, but it is also a little hard to imagine
that someone was carrying a $1 gold piece as a pocket piece.”

  Wayne Homren, Editor

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