U.S. MINT'S 1895 'LEADING COIN DEALERS' LIST

Last week's NNP E-Sylum article highlighted the business relationships the United States Mint had with coin dealers during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. According to National Archive correspondence, the Mint released a list ofleading coin dealers in 1895. Not only did these dealers provide numismatic items for their clients, but at least three of them also advanced the study of numismatics: Charles Steigerwalt, Lyman Low and John Colvin Randall.

Charles Steigerwalt was a Lancaster, Pennsylvania coin dealer, auctioneer, and collector. One of his most notable achievements was the discovery in 1900 of a new 1794 cent variety, the Hays-59 (Sheldon-37). Known as the Steigerwalt Variety, it is the rarest Sheldon variety of 1794. The discovery specimen (shown above) currently resides in the American Numismatic Society collection. Steigerwalt also purchased the famous William Wallace Hays collection of 1794 large cents, which Hays and Ed Frossard referenced when writing their 1893 book, Varieties of United States Cents of the year 1794.

Lyman Low's passion for coin collecting led him to start his own business in 1880 in New York City, although from 1887 to 1896 he managed the Numismatic Department at the Scott Stamp and Coin Company. Low published his first work on Hard Times tokens in 1886, in the form of a fixed price list that focused on political tokens. He enthusiastically gathered additional material, much of it from primary sources, and published an expanded reference in 1899 that included information on store cards. In 1906 he updated this Hard Times token reference with a supplement in the American Journal of Numismatics.

John Colvin Randall operated a successful coin business within walking distance of the Philadelphia Mint and was also an avid collector. Even though he was not formally recognized as a contributor, Randall provided a substantial amount of research for the Type Table that John W. Haseltine published in 1881. This work was the first die marriage reference for early U.S. quarters, half dollars and dollars. Included within an auction catalog and usually cited as the Haseltine Type Table, it was the pre-cursor to later denomination-specific works by Browning, Beistle and Bolender.

Image: 1794 S-37 1c EAC AG3, Discovery Coin. (Image Courtesy of the ANS)

Image: Title Page of Lyman Low's 1886 Descriptive Catalogue of Hard Times Tokens Issued For and Against the United States Bank and With Reference to the Financial Troubles of 1834-1841.

Link to the Mint's list of leading coin dealers:
https://archive.org/details/leadingcoindealers18950719/page/n1/mode/1up

Link to Varieties of United States Cents of the Year 1794:
https://nnp.wustl.edu/library/book/520720

Link to Lyman Low's 1886 catalogue of Hard Times Tokens:
https://nnp.wustl.edu/library/book/517345

Link to the Haseltine Type Table:
https://nnp.wustl.edu/library/auctionlots?AucCoId=510907&AuctionId=511616

To read the earlier E-Sylum article, see:
COIN DEALERS AND THE UNITED STATES MINT (https://www.coinbooks.org/v24/esylum_v24n29a06.html)

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