VISITING COLLECTOR MATTHEW STICKNEY

A few weeks ago I made acquaintance with Mr Matthew A. Stickney, of Salem, Mass., and was permitted to revel amid his numismatical treasures, which, to my astonishment, surpass those of my friend in Jena.- This gentleman, by occupation a grocer, and without more education than he could get in a common school, alone, unaided, nay, ridiculed by the unappreciating masses- has been a magnet, attracting to himself, from the ends of the earth, and from the ends of time, a treasure of which any museum or college in the country might be proud. All the more worthy is he of honor.

To my mind, there is something noble in the disinterestedness, zeal, perseverance and singleness of purpose which Mr. Stickney has exhibited. Dress, equipage, journies, high living, architectural display, are nothing to him. Well may he be parsimonious as to these things- though I know not that he is- that he may be prodigal in a less selfish and ostentatious, but a more permanently useful, indulgence.

I should not omit to mention that, in addition to coins and medals, Mr. Stickney has gathered a library of all the standard works in Christendom relating to numismatics. His gold pieces- or silver specimens, ipsa raritate rarior, that would sell for fifty times their intrinsic value- years ago had become so valuable that he procured a salamander safe for their security against fire and thieves. As burglaries have of late alarmingly increased, he has deposited his jewels, that would most excite cupidity, in the vault of a neighboring bank.

Every Green Mountain Boy would be interested in at least four coins in Mr. Stickney's collection, namely: the copper coinage of Vermont before it was admitted into the Union. The earliest bears the date of 1785. It bears a representation of mountains with the sun rising behind them, and a plough in the foreground. It is inscribed, Vermont's respublica Slella quarla decima. Some critic probably found fault with the Latinity, for the coin of the next year, 1786, shows the word Vermont's superseded by Vermontensium. The coin dated 1787 in inscribed, Inde et libe.; and bears a female figure, seated, holding a flower in one hand and a spear in the other. The coin of 1788 shows a bust, mailed and laureled, with the inscription, Vermon auclori, meaning, I suppose, by the authority of Vermont.

To read the complete article on NNP, see:
[The Salem Register. February 24, 1851] (https://nnp.wustl.edu/library/periodical/629442)

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