I have been scanning through the various invoices. They list classic rarities, much on Gobrecht dollars and gold patterns and the occasional Indian and Lincoln cent in gold (struck on quarter eagle planchets). I sent the Mint State CC silver coinage information on to Rusty Goe.

In many cases you will see the same coin apparently being consigned to one dealer, then sent to another and so on, so users need to be careful when reading through these.

Invoices with RED or where items are noted as RED are Col. Green coins. Be careful not to confuse RED with RET (i.e. returned).

It is interesting to note coins that ended up in Eric Newman’s collection were offered for sale to others including the Newcomer-Green Continental dollars, the 1841 no drapery proof dime and others.

There are coins on the invoices including the Dewitt Smith-Brand Pacific Company $10 in gold which, not only did not sell at the time but ended up staying in the Brand family until sold in the Bower & Merena Brand II sale.

With regard to the 1822 Half Eagle, here are the entries I have found in the B.G. Johnson invoices. My guess is H.M.F. Schulman would have offered it to Farouk but, I guess, even he had limits !!

With regard to the invoices, I have looked at Boyd, Dr Judd, Kelly, Kosoff, Macallister, Mehl, Stacks, Schulman and maybe a handful of others related to pattern coinage.

The key is that a lot of these give the appearance of being approval invoices, with many items returned. Sometimes it is difficult to read the scribble on the pages to know what really happened.

One more thing people might find interesting is the prices and how collecting taste has changed.

For the most part, the pieces which really had the highest prices were the rare territorial gold pieces. Kohler ingots and the Pacific $10 were being priced in the same range as Brasher doubloons.

This was probably first noticed in Elder’s 1929? Lawrence sale when territorial pieces brought record prices.

Classic rarities of today, 1838-O half dollars, 1870-S dollars, 1875 $3, 1907 Ultra High Reliefs, 1913 nickels, 1884 and 1885 trade dollars, 1802 proof restrike dollars etc. were offered at fractions of the amounts these territorial pieces were being offered for.

The Johnson-Newman business arrangement was simple and direct. There was no written contract.

After Newman's first purchase from the Estate he discussed the situation with Burdette G. Johnson, owner of St. Louis Coin and Stamp Co. At Johnson's suggestion he put up the money to buy items from the Green Estate. After purchase, Johnson would value all the coins [wholesale or retail – not sure which] and Newman could select whatever he wanted first. Then Johnson selected an equal value. They each owned their selections outright. Johnson would then sell the remainders and split the profit equally with Newman. Newman could then use his share of the profits to buy more coins from the Green Estate.

Items in RED on the invoices are ones where the profit was to be split. Johnson did all the selling, shipping, bookkeeping and other fulfillment activities. Selling expenses were deducted before the profits were divided.

Also, the Johnson invoices sometimes - not always - indicate returns or unsold pieces.

Many invoices to regular customers (Celinia Coin Co. for example) are really Johnson's guess about coins the customer might find desirable. That is, Celinia might call and say "We need a selection of early large cents." Johnson would reply with what amounts to an approval selection and an invoice.

All invoices were originally accompanied by adding machine tapes that Johnson used to confirm totals.

One interesting aspect of provenances is that probably 75% or more of rarities sold from the 1950s through a generation ago were by private sale and never appeared in auction catalogs. For example, in 1961 Empire Coin Co. was the first to cross the $1 million sales/year mark, with lots of rarities, but no auctions. All of the 1,400 or so different patterns from the Lenox R. Lohr Collection were sold by private treaty. Ditto for most of the ex Farouk patterns brought back from Cairo in 1954 by Sol Kaplan and Abe Kosoff (I was the main buyer of those, working hard to turn them over quickly to preserve my capital).

Today this non-auction-appearance situation is best appreciated in certain provenances of large copper cents passing privately from one person to another.