Thomas L. Elder and his ""WILSON" OR "GOLD BASIS" DOLLARS OF 1912. (provenance in last post)
keets
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I thought I would make a short post about a medal I recently won at a Stack's auction, HK-813/Silver Wilson/Gold Basis So-Called Dollar. This group of medals brought to a close the ongoing battle between the Gold and Silver factions, which had been at "War" with each other for two decades, as well as the Political ambitions of William Jennings Bryan. He was to later come back into the news during the 1925 Scopes Monkey Trial where he was pitted against another formidable adversary, Clarence Darrow.
Members CaptHenway and BillJones are probably better informed with the facts, but I think Bryan made 3-4 runs at the Presidency as the "Free Silver" candidate and met stiff opposition along the way from many others, just none so determined and dogged as Thomas Elder. Never one to mix words or back off from a fight he seemed to always need a sparring partner or a cause to rail against. His series of anti-Free Silver Lobby and anti William Jennings Bryan medals ended in 1912 with Bryans final unsuccessful run at office.
This series of medals covers the last two failed attempts, in 1908 and 1912. All the medals are rare, almost 40 different by planchet alloy/Type and probably numbering under 250 total issued, extant numbers almost certainly much lower than that. According to the 2nd Edition of So-Called Dollars:
R7 --- 11-20 known, 2 listings.
R8 --- 5-10 known, 15 listings.
R9 --- 2-4 known, 21 listings.
The HK-813 I won is a Silver medal the size of a standard U.S. Dollar, 38mm, and listed as an R8. I thought I would search a little as I did last week with the Eutopia Dollar to see how many unique images I could find to get a better idea of how many medals might exist. As before, other members are better informed about the true numbers than me, I hope they enter the thread and comment.
The raw medal I recently won with obv/rev pictured. Since the reverse is uniface I should only need the obverse of the others.
NGC MS64PL from Stack's.
NGC MS62 from Stack's.
NGC MS63 from Stack's.
Raw Very Fine from Stack's.
Raw from the book "So-Called Dollars" and not matching any others.
PCGS MS63 from CoinFacts.
These are the only ones I could find. PCGS shows one MS63, NGC lists six in their pop report.
MS62 --- two.
MS63 --- one.
MS64 --- two.
MS64PL --- one.
My total is nine medals which mean either the initial estimate of 11-20 seems fairly accurate. Again, if anyone has images which don't match these please post them. Thanks in advance.
Al H.
edit for poor math skills!! 
Comments
The Elder catalog shows this piece (DeLorey-68) with a mintage of 10-12 pieces in silver which would drop it to an H&K Rarity-7. It was also struck in 6, (possibly 7) other fabrics. CaptHenway might have some additional observations.
cool coin
That's a beautiful medal @keets! Congrats on winning it!
It's the nicest looking specimen I've come across.
It was on my short list but I decided to focus my attention elsewhere, like my underbid on HK-891.
like my underbid on HK-891
this is a problem I suffer from and it stems from my being what I call a "Blue Collar" collector. for me, that means I have a limit on what I can spend, can't get stretched too far and, most importantly, can't afford to make any mistakes. what happens more often than I like is that I am forced to choose between several lots in an auction. in the past I have allowed a lot I really wanted to pass so I could bid on something later, only to be outbid and walk away with nothing!!
in the end I end up with less, better quality and my collection builds at a snail's pace.
Yes, it's a sad situation, but even Hansen has budget limits, so I think it's hard to get away from.
I think a lot of it comes down to bidding on pieces that matter to you and avoiding bidding on pieces that don't. I ended up with a couple of interesting pieces that I think I could have passed on to bid on some larger pieces, but sometimes I like a bit of serendipity.
My collection is starting to get physically bigger, so I've started to thinking about becoming more strategic on purchases.
I agree one can end up with lower quality pieces, but wouldn't your collection grow faster with less expensive pieces? Perhaps, only better quality is suitable for the collection!
Here's the HK-813 matted
but wouldn't your collection grow faster with less expensive pieces?
right now I'm growing by subtraction, if that makes sense, less quantity but better quality.
Collectors can have difficult choices... To go without and wait for the right coin, token, medal...whatever or run the risk of not seeing another offered for sale. Opportunity is one of those concepts that can be punishing and rewarding.
As for Bryan, he was the Democratic Presidential candidate in 1896, 1900 and 1908. He was the youngest man nominated by a major political party... He was only 36 in 1896... so he even remained the youngest nominated at the age of 40 in 1900. He clearly steered the nomination to Wilson in 1912 by failing to back Champ Clark. Tammany Hall switched its support from Ohio Governor Judson Harmon to Clark when it became apparent Harmon was loosing delegate strength after 10-15 roll call ballots. Keep in mind, Wilson was nominated on the 46th ballot. Bryan did become Wilson's Secretary of State... And he resigned as he feared the US entry into the Great War which happened several months later.
Experience the World through Numismatics...it's more than you can imagine.
My mintage figures were derived from Elder’s notes where he was selling his medals in his auction catalogues. A spread like 10-12 means that he said 10 in one catalogue and 12 in another. In such a case you can assume that 12 is the upper limit.
Tom, where did Hibler/Kappen get information which states things such as "6 struck" when describing different issues?? is stuff like that supposition or direct from the issuer?? it's done quite often with Elder pieces but also in other parts of the book.
Neat to think it was seven months earlier the Titanic sunk.
Don’t know.
For the 2nd edition, most of the mintage figures are sourced in the description or in the bibliography or both. If you have questions about a specific entry I might be able to find it in my notes. The mintages for the Elder pieces came from CaptHenway's catalog in The Numismitist. Now that so much information is available online in the NNP, it might be possible for others to confirm or extend his research.
I have two examples of this design that I'm tentatively calling HK-813 and HK-814 but without metallurgic analysis it's hard to be sure. There was an example of HK-818 (aluminum) sold on eBay in the last month or two.
There was an example of HK-818 (aluminum) sold on eBay in the last month or two.
here's the one you mentioned. it has an interesting die crack starting at the rim and running into "FINE" on the obverse. that doesn't show on any examples of the Type that I've seen. Jonathan. any idea why these were struck uniface??
Damaged, scratched surfaces (with a rim bump at 7:00). AU50 details. NET VF30.
I have four examples of this die (Hk-813, HK-814, HK-818 x2) and none have the die crack. None of the 8 or so examples at Stacks seems to have the die crack either. I guess the eBay example was a very late striking.
I don't know why uniface. The dentils show that it was clearly die struck (even if not a ver interesting die), so it was clearly intentional.
nice scd's all
Don't know why the blank die with denticled edge was used. Perhaps Elder intended to have them engraved with some added message, but I have never heard of such a piece.
How were these distributed? Did he sell the ones with blank sides or did they come out of his estate?
He did multiple sales per year and just stuck things in the next catalogue as he got them. Unsold stuff might reappear many times over subsequent years. THis is how different mintage figures crept into the listings, as he forgot or misremembered how many of each he had ordered. I wish now that as I had done my research I would have recorded the dates each mintage figure was given, as the first figure given is more likely to be correct UNLESS he had a second striking made.
@CaptHenway do you remember how these pieces were described in the sale catalogs? Most (all?) of the Elder catalogs are on the NNP. I took a quick look and didn't see these pieces but I just skimmed the catalogs since there are s many
Most items are one-line listings with no illustrations. Most of the coins were the same way. I used to take a few catalogues home from the library and read them in the evenings until my eyes got tired.
the HK-813 from Stack's arrived this morning. interestingly, the medal comes with three Auction tags which dates it to The Robert Schwan Collection which might be viewable in the Stack's archives, which I found. the medal itself would probably be "RickO approved" since it is mostly white, brilliant with very reflective fields. it has almost imperceptible tone on the reverse at the rim, sort of in the denticles. on the obverse there is light color from around 1:30-3:00 and again from about 7:00-9:00. it appears to be as-struck with the only imperfection being three light cuts on the reverse, those most likely being unstruck planchet flaws.
it's unusual that the Stack's images made the medal look darker than it actually is, it usually works the other way around.
I'll probably submit it to PCGS sometime in the next few weeks, maybe after Labor Day, and would expect it to grade 65/65PL with PCGS determining the Proof or Mint State designation. to me it looks like a Proof but with so few struck every medal should be crisp. at every sale by Stack's they have called it a Proof.
the Provenance would be as follows:
NewMadison Collection, Stack's August 2020..
Robert Marcus Collection, Presidential Coin and Antique Company 2001 (posted by Zoins a few days ago).
Robert W. Schwan Collection, Stack's 2000 --- described as a Brilliant Proof 63, price realized $1,035.
The Bebee Collection, Bowers and Merena 1987(I couldn't find the medal in the online catalogue).