QUERY: NEW ENGLAND NUMISMATIC AND ARCHAEOLOGICAL SOCIETY PRLS

Sylvester Crosby was a leading member of the New England Numismatic and Archaeological Society. The Society planned to write a book on The Early Coins of America, and a committee was formed with Crosby as the chairman. But it did not turn out that way. He received little or no help from the rest of the committee. Crosby later wrote that had he known that all the work of the book would fall upon him, he never would have started the project. Perhaps strained relations over this led to the end of the society.

The Society's logo lists the states of New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut and Maine, but it seems most meetings were held in Boston. The American Journal of Numismatics published reports of some of their meetings. I believe that they disbanded in the late 1870's, but I am not sure when.

I have a set of List of Prices (Realized ) of New York coin sales issued by the New England Numismatic & Archaeological Society, with their logo on page one. I have numbers 1 thru 7. Is this a complete set, or are there more? Could any of the E-Sylum readers help me with this?

The PRL's that I have are

• #1 Cauffman sale 5/3/1871,
• #2 B. Betts sale 6/1/1871,
• #3 Nexsen sale 10/5/1871,
• #4 Clay sale 12/5/1871 (this one was priced at 75 cents, higher than their usual 25 cents)
• #5 Furman sale 12/12/1872
• #6 Haseltine 12/18/1872,
• #7 Bangs Leveridge sale 1/28/1873.

I believe the reason for these was that dealers at that time did not usually issue PRL's. You had to pay them to price a catalog for you. I think this was an attempt to supply sale results at a more reasonable price.

	NBS (coinbooks.org) Web