HOLABIRD JACK HADDOCK NEVADA TOKENS, PART 3

As a practicing scientist for over five decades, we are trained to look for data. The greater number of data points, the closer you get to an answer of whatever your question is. In the case of this catalog, I've applied scientific principals to history, digging deeply for data points to answer historical questions. During this process, it becomes necessary to investigate and attack a number of distinctly different historical disciplines. Here are thirteen specific examples:

a. Want to know how important a single mining camp was? Look at the money. Needed reference: Mines Handbook

b. Want to know why a town is located where it is? Needed ref: Geology and Mineral resources of …

c. Want to know the approximate dates of major activity quickly? Needed ref: Post offices of Nevada

d. Want to know about the merchants? Needed refs: directories and gazetteers

e. Want to know the strength of the business? Needed ref: commercial business guides such as Dun, Bradstreet, Fulton-Pickens

f. Want to know the source of the town/mining camp name? needed ref: Place Names of Nevada

g. Want to know the rarity of a token or if it might exist? Nevada Token book – either the old one (Dun et al) or the new post-2000 suite (Haddock)

h. Want to know how the mining camp stacked up versus others in terms of monetary production? Needed ref: Nevadas Metal and Mineral Production

i. Want to know stories about the towns themselves? Needed refs: Paher- Nevada Ghost Towns; Shamburger's series on Nevada mining camps; Western Places series on Nevada mining camps; Shawn Hall's similar series.

j. Want to know general histories and key people? Needed refs: various History of Nevada – Wren, or Davis or Angel

k. Want to know what a merchant was licensed for? Needed ref: annual County license records

l. Want to know what kinds of property the merchant owned? Needed refs: County Recorder's Office records

m. Want to know stories of the merchants current to their time in Nevada? Needed refs: Newspapers.com; Chronicling America, digitized newspapers; California digitized newspapers.

This gives you a taste of what you are about to read in this catalog. It is written informally. A scholarly work would take hundreds of pages, and if I or we quoted every reference used for each token, there would be an addendum of footnotes over 1500 long.

In the past for token collectors, regional or local "directories" or "gazetteers" were the sole source of information. But here in Nevada, these companies that were doing the "canvasing" of all the tiny and out of the way mining camps missed tons of them. Additionally, if you were a business, with perhaps a sign in the window, and the door was locked when the directory company came around, you were not listed, assumed as "out of business."

If you have not yet used the various free internet newspaper services, there are at least four independent sources, of which I'll recommend: newspapers.com and Chronicling America (Library of Congress), along with California Digital Newspapers (UC Riverside). The other sources generally must be accessed from a major subscription source such as a major university.

These sources are by no means complete. Western states, such as Nevada, had hundreds of tiny mining camp newspapers, and most of these have yet to be digitized. So the looking – or research- is not, and cannot be, complete until this massive project is completed. Don't hold your breath. But it gets better every month. Trust me on that. You can also "filter" your search and limit the parameters which speeds things up tremendously.

For the purpose of this catalog, we (90% me) have used so many references, you'd laugh. But I'll try to give you a sample of the mess around my desk right now – oops, I mean the "carefully placed" research books sitting nearby…. For each and every token listed in this catalog, I'll bet the average number of references physically handled, not including internet or newspaper searches, is at least 5 volumes.

And a few more counties I didn't take the time to list. This is just the stuff within arm's reach – not the stuff I already put away.

For more information on the sale, or to bid, see:
Jack Haddock Nevada Town Token Collection Auction(Session 1) (https://holabirdamericana.liveauctiongroup.com/auctionlist.aspx?t=JH1)

To read the earlier E-Sylum article, see:
HOLABIRD JACK HADDOCK NEVADA TOKENS, PART 1 (https://www.coinbooks.org/v29/esylum_v29n41a21.html)
HOLABIRD JACK HADDOCK NEVADA TOKENS, PART 2 (https://www.coinbooks.org/v29/esylum_v29n42a20.html)

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