Henry Linderman and A. Loudon Snowden - Most Dishonest Mint Officials Ever?
Rittenhouse
Posts: 614 ✭✭✭✭
Since the subject came up in another post, I'm posting copy of my Pennywise article on Henry Linderman and A. Loudon Snowden, certainly the two most prolific restrikers in US history and probably the most dishonest mint officials ever. The story is both disturbing and hilarious. Enjoy.
4
Comments
Interesting read--thanks for posting it.
No defense of Linderman & his corruption, but gold/silver debate raging did put a target on his back.
Just an fyi---attaching excerpt of Congressional Record cited. Note the cited pages was a speech by Representative Glover of Missouri, rather than the Treasury Report. (Glover was Chairman of the Committee on Expenditures in the Department of the Treasury)
Gotta love the famous coins that came out of Lindermans tenure. My avatar is his creation from circa 1871. It's the 1863 w/L Proof Indian Head Cent in PF64BN. Just 8 known I believe with multiple locked away in museums. The Connecticut State Library has 2 in their collection!
And I am proud that that Linderman 1804 dollar once had my fingerprints on its lettered edge!
By the way, when I recovered that coin at ANACS one of the ways I verified that it was the Linderman Specimen was by weighing it. We had a pretty damn good scale, and the weight we got was only 1/100th of a GRAIN (not gram) off from the weight given for it in "The Fantastic 1804 Dollar!"