FELIX DELOS

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V20 2017 INDEX E-SYLUM ARCHIVE

The E-Sylum: Volume 20, Number 41, October 8, 2017, Article 13

John Lupia submitted the following information from the online draft of his book of numismatic biographies for this week's installment of his series. Thanks! As always, this is an excerpt with the full article and bibliography available online. This week's subject is French-American numismatist Felix Delos. -Editor

Felix Delos, was born on March 28, 1859 in Toulouse, France. He first came to America on July 29, 1879. His final journey to America was aboard the ship La Bougogne on June 30, 1890 sailing from Le Havre, France, together with his friend a fellow sculptor Alexandre Hedouin.

In the 1892 New York City Directory on page 330 he is listed as an upholsterer living at 360 West 49th Street. He married Marie M. Lormand, also a French native, on January 26, 1896, Brooklyn, Kings, New York. He was a French-American numismatist, 501 West Fifty-Second Street, NY, a professional sculptor and marble cutter by trade. On October 8, 1895, he became a naturalized citizen of the United States.

He was the owner of an 1804 silver dollar. After bargaining for two years he finally purchased it for only $100.00 in December 1897 from old time dealer, Hugh Roden, who owned since 1870 his shop selling books, curios, and coins at 408 Canal Street, New York.

Delos read in the New York Sun newspaper about the discovery of an 1804 Dollar in Montana in change by Billy Seymour, a bartender. Learning the 1804 Dollar was valued in the thousands of dollars he wrote to the editor of The Sun to report that he also owned an 1804 Dollar. According to The Numismatist several experts examined the 1804 Dollar owned by Delos and they pronounced it genuine. The most prominent numismatists available to check out the coin at that time who most probably were contacted by The Sun were Lyman Haynes Low, David Proskey, and Henry Chapman, Jr.

Apparently Delos sold his collection in haste to raise funds to take a trip back to Toulouse, France for family and business. In haste there was no advertisement of his coin collection being sold at auction resulting in very poor prices realized. He lost $45 on the 1804 Dollar! Incredible! On August 23, 1902 he and his wife Marie sailed on S. S. La Savoie from Le Havre, France to New York.

Interesting discovery of the Sun article. See the full article on Lupia's site. Please also see the Newman Portal article elsewhere in this issue for more on the sale of the Delos collection. The pedigrees of the known genuine 1804 dollars are pretty well established. Could the Delos specimen have been a fake after all? Or is it time to revisit those pedigrees? -Editor

To read the complete article, see:
DELOS, FELIX (https://sites.google.com/a/numismaticmall.com/www/numismaticmall-com/delos-felix)

The entire inventory of the Lupia Numismatic Library is for sale. Since neither the Chapman Family Correspondence Archive as a whole nor that of Hiram Edmond Deats could find an institutional or private buyer they shall, unfortunately, be broken up into parcels and sold from the NumismaticMall.com.

Every item in the Deats and Chapman Archives will be sold to anyone bidding a fair market price. Individual items will be available before the remaining archives are broken up into parcels sold at philatelic auctions in the U. S. and Hong Kong.

Check NumismaticMall.com frequently as dozens of new items with estimates will be posted daily beginning August 21, 2017 until everything is sold lock stock and barrel. Many treasures and surprises will be found, so keep looking.

All inquiries will be given prompt and courteous attention. Write to: john@numismaticmall.com .