THE BALDENHOFER-NORWEB 1797 HALF DOLLAR

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V17 2014 INDEX E-SYLUM ARCHIVE

The E-Sylum: Volume 17, Number 29, July 13, 2014, Article 10

My current article may be of particular interest to you and to the readers of The E-Sylum. Yes, I realize that most of your readers may not care about the fact that the Norweb 1797 half will be auctioned at the upcoming ANA Convention. This coin, however, was previously in the Stack’s sale of the “Farish Baldenhofer Collection” in 1955.

I devote a large section of this article to a discussion of that sale. I repeatedly and mostly favorably cite an article on Baldenhofer, which was written by W. David Perkins and published in The Asylum in 2007. I disagree with Perkins’ approach to interpreting that auction. Indeed, I put forth my own hypothesis regarding this 1797 half and the Baldenhofer consignment, which is supported by information found by Perkins, by evidence I found myself, and by my prior knowledge of the history of coin auctions. The Baldenhofer Collection and this specific auction in 1955 are of great importance, much more so than readers of Perkins’ article may realize.

The Norweb 1797 Draped Bust, Small Eagle Half Dollar is, indisputably, the second finest known 1797 half dollar. It is certainly among the five finest coins of the entire Draped Bust, Small Eagle design type of half dollars. The Norweb 1797 will be auctioned in August by Heritage at the ANA Convention near Chicago.

This 1797 half was previously in two auctions of great importance. The first epic auction that I ever attended was the Norweb III sale in Nov. 1988. This half dollar was one of the highlights. I now remember being stunned by it. I was startled that it even existed. No one I knew then had knowledge of the superior Rogers 1797, except Ed Milas who had yet to tell me about the Rogers 1797. Many experts were then under the impression that a MS-64+ or higher grade 1797 half did not exist!

The Norweb 1797 was the best 1796 or 1797 half that almost all the people in attendance, at the Norweb III sale, had ever seen. Earlier, this same Norweb 1797 half had been auctioned by Stack’s on Nov. 11, 1955 in the sale titled the “Farish Baldenhofer Collection.”

Although not every coin in the Baldenhofer sale was consigned by the same person, this half dollar, in my estimation, was very likely to have been in the “Baldenhofer Collection.” This auction featured many important rarities and is often overlooked by those who research pedigrees or study the history of coin collecting.

W. David Perkins has investigated the identity of “Farish Baldenhofer” and his article on this topic was published in The Asylum, the physical ‘print’ journal of the NBS (Vol. 25: No. 2; Spring 2007). Perkins seems to suggest the possibility that Baldenhofer may have consigned just a small number of the coins in the sale. My interpretation of this auction in 1955 is different from that of Perkins.

Perkins’ findings regarding Baldenhofer himself are fascinating. For example, Perkins found that Baldenhofer was planning to co-author a book on early silver dollars with a leading researcher in the 1950s.

Perkins discovered that this collector’s real name was William G. Baldenhofer, not “Farish Baldenhofer.” It seems that Baldenhofer wished to be a semi-anonymous consignor and chose, as a false first name, the last name of a good friend of his, Richard Farish, who was an “honorary pallbearer” at Baldenhofer’s funeral in 1980.

David became interested in Baldenhofer because Baldenhofer was a serious collector of die varieties of early silver dollars. Perkins is best known as the foremost researcher of die varieties of early silver dollars. Perkins was delighted to learn that Alfred Ostheimer and his wife acquired Baldenhofer’s early silver dollars through leading dealer and author M. H. Bolender, in 1959. Ostheimer is a legend among collectors of early silver dollars.