EMERGING COINS

Last week in The E-Sylum, Wayne asked about coins that were mentioned in literature but unlocated until emerging from obscurity much later. My thoughts went back to a few coins that appeared at auction after a long time off the market. The first involved a discovery I made a few years ago.

Starred Reverse Cent
The Heritage sale of February 20, 2020, had a Starred Reverse cent as lot 3008. The lot description stated, “This piece doesn't match any example in our photographic record of 62 different Starred Reverse cents.” I went to my photo archive and matched the coin to the Frossard and Hays book, Varieties of United States Cents of the Year 1794, published in 1893. At the time, only about six examples were known. Charles Steigerwalt acquired the coin in 1899 and consigned it for sale by Lyman Low on March 7, 1907, as lot 8. The 2020 sale was the first public appearance in 113 years.

 

1792 Pattern Cent (Judd-2)
My thoughts turned next to a 1792 small pattern cent (Judd-2) that emerged from obscurity in 2004. Heirs of Oliver Wolcott (1726-1797) brought it to the 2004 ANA convention. Wolcott had been a signer of the Declaration of Independence. In 1792, he was Governor of Connecticut. The coin was consigned to Ira and Larry Goldberg for sale in May 2005 as lot 3462. After being off the market for 213 years, the coin was sold twice more in 2008 and 2016.

 

1894-S Dime
In 1894, Hallie Daggett walked into the local drug store for a dish of ice cream. She paid for it with an 1894-S dime given by her father John Daggett, Superintendent of the San Francisco Mint.

 

In 1954, eleven-year-old Kelly Oliver was putting dimes into a Whitman holder. He noticed that his 1894-S dime did not fit in the holder because there was a blue cardboard plug in the spot. He took the coin into Gimbels Department Store in 1957 where Robert Friedberg bought it for $2.40. It appeared in a 1980 Steve Ivy sale, a 1981 Bowers & Ruddy sale and a 1989 Bowers & Merena sale. It had been in relative obscurity for 86 years.

The Hull-Sewell Pine Tree Shilling Hoard.
Silversmith John Hull (1624-1683) produced Pine Tree Shillings for Massachusetts Bay Colony dated 1652. By the time his daughter Hannah was born, the family had already lost four children as infants. Two more infant deaths would follow. When surviving daughter Hannah Quincy Hull (1657-1717) was married to Samuel Sewell (1652-1730) on February 28, 1676, John gave the couple a dowry estimated to be 125 pounds of Pine Tree Shillings worth about £500.

This was immortalized by Nathaniel Hawthorn in The Pine Tree Shilling, first published in The New Yorker on May 15, 1841. In the Hawthorne story, the daughter was called Betsy and described as plump as a plum pudding. She sat on a balance sale while her father piled her weight in Pine Tree Shillings on the other side. It is believed that the author embellished the story a bit, as writers often do.

Samuel Sewell and Hannah lost eight children as infants. Samuel put some of the dowry into his business and became a wealthy merchant. What wasn't spent was passed down through the generations as the Hull-Sewell hoard. As the value of the coins grew, descendants sold off some of the coins.

The remaining hoard was absorbed into the Richard Picker collection sold by Stack's on October 24, 1984. This was the first public sale of the coins in 308 years. Unfortunately, the Hull-Sewell provenance is not mentioned in the sale.

The Thirty Pieces of Silver
In 1973, an auction company in Tel Aviv offered a thirty-coin lot. The description included this text, “The thirty pieces of silver paid to Judas to betray Christ. Phoenicia, city of Tyre. Mixed dates, Civic Year 135-157.” The numismatic reference is the Bible, verse Matthew 26:15. This would have been the first public sale in about 1940 years.

The auction company did not provide a pedigree to verify the claim. I suspect that verification was not possible.

	NBS (coinbooks.org) Web