1792 Silver Center Cents
Zoins
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There are just 12 1792 Silver Cents known.
1792 Silver Center Cent - Judd-1 - PCGS SP67BN - Garrett-Simpson
The finest known cent, PCGS SP67BN, is coming up for sale from the Simpson Collection.
Prominent collector provenance includes:
- Peter Gschwend
- William Woodin
- James W. Ellsworth
- John Work Garret
- Bob Simpson
Prominent dealer provenance includes:
- Thomas Elder
- Henry Chapman
- Joel Perlin
- Kevin Lipton
- John Albanese
- Laura Sperber
Great history from Heritage on not only this particular coin, but how collections were bought and sold!
The first owner of record for the coin offered here was Pennsylvania collector Peter Gschwend. In his catalog of the Gschwend Collection (6/1908), prominent coin dealer Thomas Elder reveals that Gschwend was a contemporary of early collectors like Joseph Mickley and Charles Ira Bushnell and notes that he stopped collecting in 1871. Accordingly, Gschwend must have acquired his Silver Center cent at an early date, when public offerings were rare occurrences. Only five pre-1871 auction appearances have been traced for the 1792 Silver Center cent, and two of those appearances are accounted for in well-established pedigrees for the Bushnell and Queller examples in the roster below. It is possible that this coin was the first specimen offered at auction in the 1862 sale of the John K. Wiggin Collection, mentioned above, but it is more likely that Gschwend purchased it privately. Gschwend retained this coin for decades, until he sold his remarkable collection intact to William Woodin, sometime before 1908.
Woodin selected a few specimens that he needed for his own collection and offered the remaining coins through Elder's auction in June of 1908. Elder cataloged the collection under Gschwend's name, even though it was owned by Woodin at the time of the sale. The Silver Center cent was featured in lot 116:
"1792. The 'Silver-Center' Cent. Obv. An Indian head r. LIBERTY PARENT OF SCIENCE & INDUST: Below the bust, 1792. Rev. value within a wreath, around the bust, 1792 (sic). Rev. value within a wreath, around which UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. Below wreath 1/100. Edge milled. A silver plug has been inserted through the center of the coin, (which is of the size of the old half-cent) to give it an intrinsic value of one cent. Uncirculated, with faint traces of original red around the obverse letters. A magnificent piece, the finest known specimen. One, very good, in my sale of October, 1907, sold to a prominent dealer for $212.50. The value of this may be reckoned accordingly. Crosby Pl. X. 22. Plate."
Despite some misprinting, Elder's description was unusually eloquent and quite lengthy for the time. Elder's hopes for the coin were fully realized, as the lot sold for a remarkable $402.50, to Ohio collector James W. Ellsworth.
Ellsworth was born in Hudson, Ohio and maintained his family estate there, but he made his fortune selling coal to the railroads and serving as president of the Union National Bank in Chicago. Ellsworth assembled world class collections of coins, books, rugs, and works of art over the years, and acted as one of the primary directors of the World Columbian Exposition in 1893. He lived much of his later life in Italy, where he purchased the Villa Palmieri, the site where Boccaccio wrote his classic Decameron. His coin collection included two 1804 dollars, the finest-known 1787 Brasher doubloon (which is offered in the catalog of Donald Partrick's Collection, elsewhere in this sale), the unique set of 1783 Nova Constellation patterns, and other rarities too numerous to mention. He sold his fabulous numismatic holdings in 1923, to a partnership of Wayte Raymond and John Work Garrett, for a then-record price of $100,000.
Baltimore collector John Work Garrett was the oldest son of T. Harrison Garrett, who founded the Garrett family coin collection when he was attending college in the 1860s. The Garrett's were major stockholders in the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad, which was immortalized as the B & O Railroad in the popular Monopoly board game. T. Harrison Garrett formed possibly the finest coin collection of the 19th century before his death in a boating accident in 1888. His sons inherited the collection after his death. John Work Garrett was in the diplomatic service and was frequently stationed abroad, so his younger brother, Robert, initially acted as administrator for the collection. In 1919, John Work Garrett agreed to buy his brother's share of the collection and took over as administrator. He then preserved and expanded the collection until his death in 1942. His most important numismatic transaction was the purchase of the Ellsworth Collection in 1923, in partnership with Wayte Raymond. Raymond acquired most of Ellsworth's federal coins, while Garrett retained most of the colonial and territorial issues, and the 1792 patterns. Garrett bequeathed the collection, including this finest-known Silver Center cent, to Johns Hopkins University after his death.
Comments
A real numismatic treasure....Cheers, RickO
Very nice and interesting piece. Even though you have brought this treasure to our attention, I will not be bidding against you. Good luck!
I find it interesting that the designer didn't allow for the length of the word "industry".
Back in the 1700s and even 1800s, this type of thing seemed to happen quite a bit.
It's a lot easier these days with computers and adjustable font sizes with laser engraving.
Thanks for an interesting post! It amazes me how various connections can be made in reading about this coin. Two that come to mind are "The Decameron" and the board game Monopoly.
Agreed. I didn't know about the Garretts' connection to the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad before. Great collectors today seem to be really successful in business as well.
Nice coin!
Apropos nothing at all, I wonder if the practical experience derived from working with these inspired somebody to later think "Hey! We can raise the weight of an underweight dollar planchet by sticking a plug in the middle of it!"
Checks all the boxes of numismatic importance.
I wonder if Hansen or Black Cat will go for it?
The kitty has been on the prowl for Simpson patterns, while Hansen May get a good price which he likes.
I do not mean to take away from this thread in an way but I have always wondered who cut the dies and struck
the Worthy Store Tokens? Does anyone know ?
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CoinsAreFun Toned Silver Eagle Proof Album
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Gallery Mint Museum, Ron Landis& Joe Rust, The beginnings of the Golden Dollar
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More CoinsAreFun Pictorials NGC
Now that is a coin that I would love to own. I now appreciate the Col Ellsworth pedigree, thanks for educating me.
@Zoins
Thanks for your informative post's, always an enjoyable read...
POST NUBILA PHOEBUS / AFTER CLOUDS, SUN
Love for Music / Collector of Dreck
I can't take credit for the writing or the photos, just thinking that they are interesting and posting it here.
Hats off to the cataloguers at Heritage for such in-depth writing and Phil @PCGSPhoto for the great TrueViews!
I can only hope tokens and medals can get such rich descriptions one day
I believe that Hansen has the Norweb specimen??? Alan Weinberg's piece (SP58+) was sold last year at FUN for 750K -- I had the chance to inspect that one closely several times, a neat piece in hand.
The Weinberg piece has been crossed to NGC MS61 and is part of the fabulous Resolute Americana Collection now. The Collection is quickly emerging as one of the best early Americana medals and coins ever assembled with deep roots in historical knowledge and understanding.
One of my favorites is the Kendall PCGS SP65 Red and Brown CAC with red highlights around parts of the motto. Of course I'm a bit biased.
1792 Silver Center Cent - Judd-1 - PCGS SP65BN - Norweb-Hansen
Hansen's coin is ranked 2 in the condition census. It is the University of Pennsylvania-Norweb-Jung specimen. This is commonly known as the Norweb Specimen as mentioned by @tokenpro. Emery May Norweb also owned what is commonly known as the Bushnell specimen.
In 2014, Oliver Jung sold this coin for $1.99M as a PCGS MS64BN CAC. It is now a PCGS SP65BN Non-CAC. This is from the Heritage description:
Prominent Collector Provenance: