COMMODORE PERRY'S COLLECTION

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V19 2016 INDEX E-SYLUM ARCHIVE

The E-Sylum: Volume 19, Number 41, October 9, 2016, Article 29

Thanks to Georges Depeyrot for pointing out the Perry Collection at the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge. Here is more information from the museum's web site. -Editor

Commodore Perry led an extremely significant diplomatic mission to Japan in 1852-4, opening up the previously reclusive and autarkic country to American trade. He was also an avid coin collector, acquiring a wide variety of Greek, Roman, medieval, Islamic, American and modern World pieces.

A number of Perry's coins can be associated with his famous trip to the Far East in the early 1850s. The Perry Collection therefore provides a tangible link with this important event in Japanese and American history, as well as a valuable insight into the scope and techniques of early American coin collecting.

The Fitzwilliam Museum has been lent a substantial element of the Perry Collection by a private collector. An exhibition about Commodore Perry, his trip to Japan and his collection is on display in the Fitzwilliam Museum's Glaisher Gallery, 1 April-5 July 2009.

Perry was a man of many interests. Passionate about naval education, he helped establish a naval curriculum and a gunnery school, and worked to implement an apprentice scheme. He was also interested in the modernisation of the navy, and strongly supported the development and construction of steam-powered ships. It was the trip to Japan in 1852-4, however, for which Perry is best remembered.

When Perry returned to America from Japan in 1855, he was advanced to the rank of rear-admiral, and retired soon afterwards. He died in New York on March 4th 1858 at the age of sixty-three. He was given an extremely lavish funeral, which included a Grand Pageant through the city.

Perry the Collector
Commodore Perry is an outstanding example of an early American coin collector. His hugely diverse collection included American and Canadian currency of his own day, Ancient Greek and Roman coins, early medieval and Byzantine pieces, and coins from all over the world from Europe to the Far East dating from the seventeenth century onwards.

Coins have been collected throughout history, but the study and collection of coins only took off in America during the mid-nineteenth century. In 1858 the American Numismatic Society was founded to promote and support coin collecting, and was followed by the establishment of the American Numismatic Association with a similar aim in 1891. Perry, collecting during the 1830s-50s, was thus one of the first American collectors to build up such a varied and substantial collection.

A few early coin dealers did exist in Perry's day, especially in New York where he lived for a substantial period of his life. Many of his modern coins, however, espeically his American coins, he could have taken straight out of circulation. Others he must have acquired during his long and prestigious naval career. As well as the famous trip to Japan in the 1850s, he travelled to the North Sea during the War of 1812, spent time on the African coast during the founding of Liberia, undertook a series of European voyages, and chased pirate and slave ships around the Caribbean. The wide date and denomination range of his collection suggests that Perry sought out specific coins rather than just collecting currency, showing that he was a careful and determined collector.

Commodore Perry's Collection
During his lifetime, Commodore Perry amassed more than one thousand coins. Over half of his collection, almost 600 coins, were world coins dating from the medieval period to the nineteenth-century. He collected examples from all over Europe and South America, from Russia, the Caribbean, from India and the Far East, and from the Ottoman Empire. In addition, Perry obtained almost a hundred American coins, which made up just under ten percent of the collection. His American coins were also immensely varied, ranging from copper cents to silver dollars, and covered the period from 1652 to his own day.

Around a third of Perry's collection, over three hundred coins, were Ancient Greek or Roman, dating from the 5th century BC to the fifth century AD. His collection of Roman coins was especially comprehensive, covering almost the entire Roman period. He obtained a specimen of the coinage of over forty-two different Roman emperors, from Augustus (27 BC - 14 AD) to Theodosius II (408-50 AD). He also obtained over fifty coins from the Byzantine Empire, which dated from the late fifth to the early ninth century. Perry drilled holes through many of his coins, especially his Greek, Roman and Byzantine specimens, and attached identifying hand-written labels to them, many of which still survive as a tangible link to the man himself, his numismatic knowledge and his collecting practice.

After his death in 1858, Perry's coin collection passed to his daughter, Caroline Perry Belmont. The Belmont family had the Perry Collection valued in 1898 by the New York coin dealer Lyman H. Low. Low identified the coins and put each in a hand-written, numbered and colour-coded envelope, most of which have also survived, providing further evidence of the history of the collection. Perry's coins remained in the Belmont family until they were sold in 1994, and put up for auction in 1995 with the American auction company Bowers and Merena.

Perry's collection of 1035 coins was divided and sold in 187 lots, which also included the box he had kept them in. Sixteen lots, which totalled 580 coins or just over half of the collection, were acquired by a private collector and generously placed on deposit at the Fitzwilliam Museum. This has enabled us to examine this portion of the collection, which includes the majority of Perry's ancient coins and a good proportion of his medieval and modern world coins, in more detail.