JOHN WHITE HASELTINE (1838-1925)

Haseltine, Captain John White (1838-1925), Philadelphia coin dealer. Captain in the Civil War. Afterwards a clerk at Haddock & Reed, Co., 164-166 Market Street, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, where he worked in his family business, formerly called Haseltine, Haddock, Reed & Co. The firm of Haddock & Reed, Co., was dissolved in 1871.

He was born on September 6, 1838, the son of John Haseltine (1793-1871), a native of Massachusetts and a very wealthy and successful businessman, and his wife Elizabeth Stanley Shinn Haseltine (1811-1882), a native of Pennsylvania, and an amateur landscape painter. He was one of ten children. Elizabeth’s mother Mary Shinn lived with at the Haseltine’s home in Philadelphia and is listed as age 84 in the US Census of 1870, at the family residence 706 Spruce Street, Philadelphia. At that time the Haseltine family had three live-in domestic servants from Ireland : Ellen Gallaher (1820), Mary Donnagan (1845-), and Mary Hogan (1845-). In that same census report the Haseltine home was estimated at $80-100,000.

In 1854 he became a clerk in the book trade. He began collecting postage stamps. Later he worked in the wholesale boot and shoe industry. On August 20, 1861 he joined the Company B. Pennsylvania 2nd Calvary Regiment as 1st Lieutenant. He was promoted to full Captain on October 1, 1862 of the 2nd Pennsylvania Calvary. He was promoted to Captain in 1863. He was taken home wounded in 1864, when his horse was shot from under him at Petersburg, falling onto him in a swamp leaving him unconscious.

Renown numismatist of the 19th-20th centuries, he was a collector and a dealer of both stamps and coins. He was the treasurer of Mason & Co., mining companies located at 506 Walnut Street, Philadelphia. Haseltine was and his family were invested in mining operations in Colorado, in the Pioneer Mining Company, and the American Exploring Company.

He sold his early stamp collection for $1,000 raising funds to enter the stamp dealing business full time. It was after that sale that he became the second business partner of Ebenezer Locke Mason selling coins and stamps.

He married Rose, the daughter of William Idler, jeweler and coin dealer. He married on June 9, 1869 Rose A. Idler (1848-).

He was elected as corresponding member of the ANS 1877-1879, 1879-1881 In 1878, he published a stamp catalogue comprising 102 pages, that went into several editions.

A Captain in the Union Army during the Civil War he kept active in veteran affairs attending the annual meetings of the Grand Army of the Republic. He retained the name of Captain Haseltine into the twentieth century when B. Max Mehl in his Numismatic Monthly referred to him by this name.

He was a coin collector, dealer and stockbroker. He employed Henry Chapman and his brother Samuel Hudson as assistants in his coin trade.

Haseltine’s 1794 cents were sold in his sale on March 16-18, 1881. Others of his large cents were sold in another of his sales on November 28-30, 1881. Also , he published Haseltine’s Type Table of Silver Coins, cited in Mason's Herald, Vol. III, No. 3, December (1881).

In 1885 his coin auction sale was confiscated by the US Mint under the direction of Captain Wallace W. Hall, United States Secret Service, since it contained an 1804 silver dollar and several other coins in the sale were discovered to have been counterfeited within the year.

On February 28, 1888, Scott held the Linderman sale at Bangs & Co., New York. The government seized the pattern coins sold to him by Haseltine, who was also under investigation since 1885.

He died on February 28, 1925, at his home at 7315 Oak Avenue, [Oak Lane], Cheltenham, Pennsylvania. He was survived by his wife and daughter Mrs. Marion H. Richards of Cranford, New Jersey. His obituary is in The Numismatist, April (1925) : 225-226. Inducted into the ANA Numismatic Hall of Fame in 1974.

To read the complete article, see:
HASELTINE, JOHN WHITE (http://www.numismaticmall.com/numismaticmall-com/haseltine-john-white)

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