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Bay State Coin Show Report: Friday, December 1, with so-called newps
jonathanb
Posts: 3,752 ✭✭✭✭✭
I arrived at the Bay State show a little before 1:00 on Friday, and contrary to airplanenut's report, my first impression was that it was much less crowded than usual. It may have just been a factor of lunchtime. I'm afraid I don't have much more of an opinion on the crowds as the day progressed because I spent most of my time facing "inwards" at tables, and hardly any time moving between them. It was a very good show for me.
As mentioned elsewhere, this show is held in conjunction with the annual meeting and auction of the Colonial Coin Collectors club, so as usual there was more early copper at this show than at other shows. I'm not active in that area, but I like the history in the early copper pieces (and there were a bunch of early silver pieces also). As I commented in a different thread, I saw maybe a half-dozen chain cents at various tables, all in low grade. I also saw more than a half-dozen Washington Inaugural buttons. I don't collect those either, but I ended up with one earlier this year, and I learned something about them at the time. They're interesting pieces, with as much history behind them as Chain cents. Unfortunately, they're nearly as expensive also, but what can you do.
As always, there's a corner of this show dedicated to dealers of ancients and other antiquities. If you like history, it's hard not to like these pieces, and I find the antiquities more interesting than the coins in many cases. I didn't spend much time in that area (and no money), but I still like looking.
I saw a few Gold Buffalos here and there, but mostly just tucked into a case with other stuff. Very little hype over the modern issues. The big buzz around the room was the high price of spot silver, so I wouldn't be surprised if the next show is different if things keep going in the same direction.
Northeast Numismatics had their typical understated table. Just a normal case with some slabs haphazardly stuck in it, next to whatever dealer was next to them. Very easy to skip over. If you take a second look, though, you'll realize that that fan of slabs is a grouping of four (five?) 1922-plain Lincolns in VF to AU grades. That Saint is a High Relief. That other gold piece is a Pan Pac round. And so on. Very droolworthy. I didn't ask prices.
My main collecting interests at the moment are in errors and exonumia. Errors were a bust for me at this show. There were a few here and there, but no significant groupings, and much less overall than usual. I probably could have found more if I worked at it, but that's ok because the exonumia was a bonanza.
There were some big names in Exonumia at the show (Steve Hayden, Steve Tannenbaum), but also several other dealers who had entire cases worth of medals, and more than usual that had one or two. I could have spent an awful lot of money if I bought everything I liked. And, for what it's worth, although there was plenty of interest in So-Called Dollars, there was even more interest in other types of tokens and medals. I'm very curious if this is a one time fluke at this show, or the beginning of a trend.
I have a bunch of observations on the process of buying and selling. I'm going to split those into a separate post.
Some newps:
HK-269a, unlisted in the original So-Called Dollars book in brass. This specimen has been fairly harshly cleaned, but it's still a rare piece.
HK-299 isn't particularly rare as So-Called Dollars go, but I liked the original look of this silver piece
HK-466 isn't particularly rare either, at least as a type. Most specimens, however, are dark brown, and many are corroded besides. NGC has graded 16 in BN, 2 in RD. It's very unusual to find one with any hint of red. Coincidentally, there was a very similar-looking piece on eBay a week or two ago that I missed out on.
HK-469 isn't all that rare either, but I like the look of this medal in high grades. It looks awful when it starts getting even a little beat up, but it's nice in this condition.
This is perhaps my find of the day. The Santa Monica Breakwater So-Called Dollar is very common in aluminum (HK-687). The catch is that this one isn't aluminum. It weighs far too much. It's got to be the version in nickel, HK-686. Except for the weight, it's hard to tell this apart from an aluminum version, even holding the two versions side by side. I wonder how many of the aluminum specimens out there are really nickel?
This isn't a So-Called Dollar, but maybe it should be. It shares most of its design with HK-125, except that this medal is for the 150th anniversary of the Battle of Groton Heights, rather than the 100th anniversary. I've seen other specimens (and I have another already), but this is is better-than-usual condition, and comes with the original ribbon, which is nice.
And another non-So-Called, although this one clearly is of the same theme as the WWI Good Luck tokens of HK-892 through HK-894. These medals were sold with the intention that they be used as pocket pieces, so most of them are very low grade.
This isn't a So-Called Dollar either, but it has an interesting tie-in. The dies used to produce this medal for the Boy Scouts in 1964 were originally produced in 1876 by Dickeson to produce replicas of the Continental Currency dollars. Those dies were obtained by Bashlow, who made a second set of restrikes in 1960. The central legend was then ground off the dies and replaced with the Boy Scouts phrase. These medals do include the word COPY, even though there isn't much chance of them being mistaken for anything else given the Boy Scouts tie-in. The word COPY is omitted from both the earlier Dickeson and the Bashlow restrikes.
This isn't a So-Called Dollar either, but the reverse is struck from dies that also struck the Hudson so-called dollars of in 1909. There was more discussion of these Sommer Islands mules in this thread. As far as I can tell, the copper mules are rarer than the aluminum but more common than the silver.
Billikens were something of a fad in the early 1900s. I had another copy of this token a few months ago, and I was surprised that anyone cared. Since then, a bunch more pieces have sold on eBay, each of them at prices that surprised me for mediocre circulated tokens. Clearly these pieces have a following. Also clearly, most people used them as pocket pieces as they were intended, and most specimens are low grade. This is the first full-red specimen that I've seen. It probably still isn't worth that much, but a full-red piece that's nearly 100 years old was worth snagging for the heck of it. This has nothing to do with So-Called Dollars, but it's still neat.
I also purchased a Pennsylvania Bicentennial US Mint medal, which I discussed in another thread
In all, I spent 6+ hours at the show, and I could have spent longer. I was very pleased.
jonathan
As mentioned elsewhere, this show is held in conjunction with the annual meeting and auction of the Colonial Coin Collectors club, so as usual there was more early copper at this show than at other shows. I'm not active in that area, but I like the history in the early copper pieces (and there were a bunch of early silver pieces also). As I commented in a different thread, I saw maybe a half-dozen chain cents at various tables, all in low grade. I also saw more than a half-dozen Washington Inaugural buttons. I don't collect those either, but I ended up with one earlier this year, and I learned something about them at the time. They're interesting pieces, with as much history behind them as Chain cents. Unfortunately, they're nearly as expensive also, but what can you do.
As always, there's a corner of this show dedicated to dealers of ancients and other antiquities. If you like history, it's hard not to like these pieces, and I find the antiquities more interesting than the coins in many cases. I didn't spend much time in that area (and no money), but I still like looking.
I saw a few Gold Buffalos here and there, but mostly just tucked into a case with other stuff. Very little hype over the modern issues. The big buzz around the room was the high price of spot silver, so I wouldn't be surprised if the next show is different if things keep going in the same direction.
Northeast Numismatics had their typical understated table. Just a normal case with some slabs haphazardly stuck in it, next to whatever dealer was next to them. Very easy to skip over. If you take a second look, though, you'll realize that that fan of slabs is a grouping of four (five?) 1922-plain Lincolns in VF to AU grades. That Saint is a High Relief. That other gold piece is a Pan Pac round. And so on. Very droolworthy. I didn't ask prices.
My main collecting interests at the moment are in errors and exonumia. Errors were a bust for me at this show. There were a few here and there, but no significant groupings, and much less overall than usual. I probably could have found more if I worked at it, but that's ok because the exonumia was a bonanza.
There were some big names in Exonumia at the show (Steve Hayden, Steve Tannenbaum), but also several other dealers who had entire cases worth of medals, and more than usual that had one or two. I could have spent an awful lot of money if I bought everything I liked. And, for what it's worth, although there was plenty of interest in So-Called Dollars, there was even more interest in other types of tokens and medals. I'm very curious if this is a one time fluke at this show, or the beginning of a trend.
I have a bunch of observations on the process of buying and selling. I'm going to split those into a separate post.
Some newps:
HK-269a, unlisted in the original So-Called Dollars book in brass. This specimen has been fairly harshly cleaned, but it's still a rare piece.
HK-299 isn't particularly rare as So-Called Dollars go, but I liked the original look of this silver piece
HK-466 isn't particularly rare either, at least as a type. Most specimens, however, are dark brown, and many are corroded besides. NGC has graded 16 in BN, 2 in RD. It's very unusual to find one with any hint of red. Coincidentally, there was a very similar-looking piece on eBay a week or two ago that I missed out on.
HK-469 isn't all that rare either, but I like the look of this medal in high grades. It looks awful when it starts getting even a little beat up, but it's nice in this condition.
This is perhaps my find of the day. The Santa Monica Breakwater So-Called Dollar is very common in aluminum (HK-687). The catch is that this one isn't aluminum. It weighs far too much. It's got to be the version in nickel, HK-686. Except for the weight, it's hard to tell this apart from an aluminum version, even holding the two versions side by side. I wonder how many of the aluminum specimens out there are really nickel?
This isn't a So-Called Dollar, but maybe it should be. It shares most of its design with HK-125, except that this medal is for the 150th anniversary of the Battle of Groton Heights, rather than the 100th anniversary. I've seen other specimens (and I have another already), but this is is better-than-usual condition, and comes with the original ribbon, which is nice.
And another non-So-Called, although this one clearly is of the same theme as the WWI Good Luck tokens of HK-892 through HK-894. These medals were sold with the intention that they be used as pocket pieces, so most of them are very low grade.
This isn't a So-Called Dollar either, but it has an interesting tie-in. The dies used to produce this medal for the Boy Scouts in 1964 were originally produced in 1876 by Dickeson to produce replicas of the Continental Currency dollars. Those dies were obtained by Bashlow, who made a second set of restrikes in 1960. The central legend was then ground off the dies and replaced with the Boy Scouts phrase. These medals do include the word COPY, even though there isn't much chance of them being mistaken for anything else given the Boy Scouts tie-in. The word COPY is omitted from both the earlier Dickeson and the Bashlow restrikes.
This isn't a So-Called Dollar either, but the reverse is struck from dies that also struck the Hudson so-called dollars of in 1909. There was more discussion of these Sommer Islands mules in this thread. As far as I can tell, the copper mules are rarer than the aluminum but more common than the silver.
Billikens were something of a fad in the early 1900s. I had another copy of this token a few months ago, and I was surprised that anyone cared. Since then, a bunch more pieces have sold on eBay, each of them at prices that surprised me for mediocre circulated tokens. Clearly these pieces have a following. Also clearly, most people used them as pocket pieces as they were intended, and most specimens are low grade. This is the first full-red specimen that I've seen. It probably still isn't worth that much, but a full-red piece that's nearly 100 years old was worth snagging for the heck of it. This has nothing to do with So-Called Dollars, but it's still neat.
I also purchased a Pennsylvania Bicentennial US Mint medal, which I discussed in another thread
In all, I spent 6+ hours at the show, and I could have spent longer. I was very pleased.
jonathan
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Comments
AAJ
Nice additions. The Sommer Island/ Hudson restrike is neat. I have one in silver, which you've already linked.
Cool post,Thank you.
I realy like your "Ford" copy as I have many of these my self(but not as red as yours),I work for Fords.
In fact,I was given one by a fellow board member.
Again,nice report.
Brian