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V11 2008 INDEX
E-SYLUM ARCHIVE
ARTICLE DISCUSSES COIN'S "TREASURE IN THE CELLAR" CONNECTION
An alert E-Sylum reader forwarded this October 19th
follow-up from the Baltimore Sun columnist who wrote about the Treasure
in the Cellar incident and book.
Weeks later, and I'm still
getting mail and phone calls about columns I wrote in September and
August.Readers are still fascinated with the tale of Theodore Jones and Henry Grob, poor Baltimore teens who unearthed gold coins in the basement of an Eden Street tenement in 1934.
What brought the story back from musty
newspaper and legal archives was the recent publication of Leonard
Augsburger's Treasure in the Cellar: A Tale of Gold in Depression-Era
Baltimore.Howard J. Sapp, 80, a retired Social Security Administration disability examiner, wrote me. He said that one of the boy's parents paid a debt to his grandfather, owner of a Caroline Street store, with a 2 1/2 -dollar gold piece from the stash.
After reading my story, Sapp remembered the gold coin - also known as a Quarter Eagle - and the story of the boys. He determined he would solve the mystery of the coin that had remained in his family for 74 years and report back to me.
"My sister, June Patz, is wearing it around her neck right now," Sapp said in a phone call.
In the official inventory of the gold coins, there were seven 2 1/2 -dollar gold pieces that dated to 1854, and the Sapp family piece was one of them.
"Some years ago, she took it to a jeweler who told her it was worth about $100 in gold and then offered her $600 for it," Sapp said. "She didn't sell it and instead had a necklace made out of it."
"So, it's happily around the neck of an 83-year-old widow who lives in Stevenson," he said.
To read the complete article, see: Gold coin and Rodgers Forge stories return (http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/local/bal-
id.backstory19oct19,0,5546589.column)
Wayne Homren, Editor
The Numismatic Bibliomania Society is a non-profit organization promoting numismatic literature. See our web site at coinbooks.org.
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