NEW BOOK: OSBORNE COINAGE CO. RECORDS

In 2002 I learned that some encased coin production records survived the purge of encased coin materials at the Osborne Coinage Company. Recognizing the value of these records, over many years I have worked to make them available to the public.

While a listing of all 4,735 Osborne encased coin production records was far too large to publish in printed form, it was practical to create an online catalog of all the records, and print only this excerpt of just the Fankhauser records. The catalog of all of the Osborne production records can be viewed at tokenandmedal.org/Osborne.

TAMS published the first Catalog of Earl Fankhauser's encased coins back in 1995. In the last twenty-nine years, more pieces have been discovered and new varieties have been found. The location of most of the remaining maverick pieces have been identified, and other pieces have been attributed to different cities than they were originally.

 

In addition to these updates, the Catalog now contains valuable information from the Osborne production records. The records revealed the order quantities and actual order dates, along with other interesting facts, such as the original cost, whether a new die was to be made, and whether coins were provided by Fankhauser for the order.

From the production records I learned that Fankhauser was still taking orders in 1966, a year later than first believed. Osborne was using up their excess supply of 1963 and 1964 cents in 1964, 1965 and 1966, making it impossible to tell the date of manufacture from the date of the coin in the encasement during those years.

Not all of the production records for the Fankhauser encased coins survived. But for those that did, you can find the Osborne Order Number in this Catalog. With that number, you can pull up an image of the production record. Simply add the order number to the end of the main web address. For example, to see the production record for order #10240, look up tokenandmedal.org/Osborne/10240.jpg.

 

This updated Fankhauser Catalog contains all of this information and more. There are new stories and information about many of the pieces. Quite a number of typos and errors have been fixed from the original Catalog. Given the wide range of prices being paid for his pieces today, the Value field has been replaced with an Availability rating to give collectors a better idea of a piece's scarcity. The Catalog also lists six unknown and yet to be found Fankhauser pieces, known only from their Osborne production record.

There is also information on the encased coins I was involved in making, including the Old Fort Coin Club 40th anniversary pieces and the pieces made in collaboration with Elaine Rexdale. Many of the Rexdale designs broke new ground. They are catalogued after the Fankhauser pieces, along with stories about the pieces and our adventure together.

Those interested in learning more about Earl Fankhauser should locate a copy of the original 1995 Catalog, Frederick Earl Fankhauser "The Penny Man", His Life And Work With Encased Coins, published as TAMS Journal 35:6(2). It tells of the struggles of Fankhauser's early life during the Depression, and his eventual involvement with encased coins as "The Penny Man". Many colorful anecdotes about his life are shared as well. He was my wife's grandfather.

 
Fankhauser and Rexdale catalog sample pages

This Catalog cannot be re-issued without recognizing the enormous contribution made to the first Catalog by the late George Courtesis. He spent untold hours in the Allen County Public Library attributing maverick pieces and digging up background stories. George's enthusiasm, feedback, and friendly prodding were instrumental in providing me with the motivation to keep going. He was a good friend, and I miss him. Perhaps if he were still alive today, this Catalog would have been completed a lot sooner.

Bob Byrne was an invaluable source of information for reporting new finds and for helping establish the new Availability ratings. Bob has been a most active collector of Fankhauser pieces for the past twenty-five years. Bruce Perdue of EncasedCoins.info helped find errors in my Osborne database, and lent his expertise to build some early trials of the online Osborne Catalog. Robert Lloyd helped point out more errors in the first Fankhauser publication than I thought possible, and contributed a number of interesting stories on several of the pieces. Richard Greever of TokenCatalog.com created the Osborne Catalog webpage, which displays the records in a searchable format and links the Osborne order sheets to images of the pieces from his site.

Upon publication of this Catalog, additional pieces may be discovered, more stories may surface, and errors found. So that all may benefit, please send any information or comments to the author at the address below.

I hope you find the discovery of the Osborne Coinage Company's production records exciting, and enjoy this fresh look at Earl Fankhauser's work. Best wishes, and happy hunting.

Bryan writes:

For more information on the Token and Medal Society, see:
https://tokenandmedal.org/

 

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