Some Bechtler Gold.....

savoyspecial

.....on display at the Colburn Mineral Museum in Asheville NC





(notice the $1 Bechtler to the far right seems to have a bend in it?? well, Rob <LordMarcovan> has relayed some lore about these pieces to me: locals used to press the coins in their door frames as a measure to verify the gold content and hardness)***





yours truly in front of the Bechtler sign (my apologies for the unsteady hand of the museum's curator)

ksteelheader

Some Bechtler on ebay right now . A forum member.

savoyspecial

from Stack's 1963 sale of the George Walton collection a Bechtler counterstamp:





and more recently offered, a Bechtler love token:





The elder Bechtler and his sons seem to have attained a trust among locals regarding their coinage's purity that was never reached by their Georgia neighbors, Templeton Reid


you will notice that the 3 Bechtler pieces in the initial post are on loan from the Sondley Collection.......the Sondley Collection held in it's mandate that the collection was to be for the use of "well conducted, non-smoking white people" (this is not widely known for obvious PC reasons)

savoyspecial

somewhere i have an image of his mark on an early firearm

the mark is "C.Bechtler RUTHERFORD N.C."

ricko

Nice...very informative.... Cheers, RickO

CharlotteDude

Nice Savoy... very nice indeed. That's a cool story about the counterstamped $5, also. It would've been really ironic had the $5 been an 1838-C

thanks for sharing...

'dude

asheland

I need to see this sometime...

lordmarcovan

Funny how close I lived to that and never saw it. I hadn't heard of the Colburn Museum- was it around 15 years ago when I lived in the Asheville area?