Bust quarter discovery with no credit given.
Bustquarterhound
Posts: 134 ✭✭✭
Back in the late 80's I bought an 1824 au quarter and we had a subscription to the Bowers rare coin review at the time. They had a full page ad of the obverse and a full page ad of the reverse of an 1823 au quarter for the price of $99,000. After a couple of beers I couldn't see any difference between the reverses besides the obvious broken arrowshaft and arrowhead. Then looking at the 24 the arrowhead looked repaired with a slip while fixing it. All the positions of the letters seemed
the same. Thinking I was on to something I called Dave Davis, Russ Logan, John McClosky and Jules Reiver who all said they don't think so. Or that's not possible. ( I met all of them at the coinage of America conference in 1986 and Russ Logan suggested I join JRCS) A week or so later Jules called me and said son I think you're right ( Talk about a high) He encouraged me to submit an article to the JRCS journal . So after some research finding that engraver Knease (spelling?) Took over in 1824 it made reasonable sense he was the one to repair the die. I sent Jules wife Iona a copy to proofread and she sent it back with lots of corrections. After rewriting it I sent it to JRCS . The next journal came without my article. Ok maybe it came in to late. Keep in mind this is pre-internet. Then the next journal came with no article. Then I got a copy of Breen's quarter book about a month later and low and behold my findings were in a stop the presses moment with smaller font size. Talk about a low ( I quit the hobby for about 20 years) All the guys that I told are now dead. I'm way passed mad but it would be interesting to know who informed Breen. I still get a chuckle when someone explains the common knowledge of 1823b-1 24,25 b-1 28 b-2 and now the 1822 b-3 as having the same reverse die.
Comments
Who was publishing the journal at the time? You could ask them why they sat on your article.
Scubafuel it was Dave Davis the editor at time he said he never received it.
Cool you got to hang out with those guys, though!
BHNC #248 … 130 and counting.
Pnies20 becoming friends with Jules and Russ was well worth not getting credit
We need to make sure that history properly matches you to the discovery. We stand on the shoulders of those who came before us. Thanks for setting us up.
It could be that they put quarter articles on hold, since they knew Breen's book was coming out soon,
The main problem is that you didn't get credit for the discovery in the addendum to Breen's book.
That could have been a mistake or misunderstanding.
It could be fixed in future references if you contact the current quarter book authors with your story.
Sounds as foreign as algebraic equations to me. lol. Interesting story. I don't understand why they would run your story where no one basically saw it. Smaller font size seems to me that for some reason, someone may not have wanted the story to be your story or even really to be seen. Seems a little fishy to me.
Anyway, nice eye. You know that you noticed it and that will have to be good enough for now unless you can get the recognition that you deserve. If you still have a copy of your story about your findings, maybe you should shoot for the rightful owner of your discovery. Would you have got a much greater offer for yours because not only did you have the au quality of your coin but also an additional error, therefore, driving down the price that the ad was asking for their coin? That would make sense that someone did not want that to happen. But then again, I am a pessimist after experiencing those types on many occasions in life. Hoping I got that right.