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A letter from the Archives about the 1838-O half dollar
denga
Posts: 922 ✭✭✭
A little bit of Mint history:
****************
U.S. Branch Mint, New Orleans
February 25, 1839
Dear Sir,
I mentioned in both of my former letters that the half dollars dies sent us last year are
unsuited for present use for, besides being out of date, the bottom ones are too short
to reach the screws and consequently cannot be secured in the press. I have, however,
...[illegible]... to one of them in order to try the press and succeeded in making ten excellent
impressions, the very first one struck being as perfect as the dies and entirely satisfactory.
The piece on the bottom of the die became loose and I was unable to strike any more
without further fixing.
[The rest of the letter deals with other matters.]
I am, sir, with great respect
Rufus Tyler
*********
Rufus Tyler was the coiner at New Orleans and the letter was sent to Mint Director
Robert M. Patterson in Philadelphia. It is known from a letter of March that the ten
pieces were struck in January 1839. The dies are known to have been defaced on
June 13, 1839.
****************
U.S. Branch Mint, New Orleans
February 25, 1839
Dear Sir,
I mentioned in both of my former letters that the half dollars dies sent us last year are
unsuited for present use for, besides being out of date, the bottom ones are too short
to reach the screws and consequently cannot be secured in the press. I have, however,
...[illegible]... to one of them in order to try the press and succeeded in making ten excellent
impressions, the very first one struck being as perfect as the dies and entirely satisfactory.
The piece on the bottom of the die became loose and I was unable to strike any more
without further fixing.
[The rest of the letter deals with other matters.]
I am, sir, with great respect
Rufus Tyler
*********
Rufus Tyler was the coiner at New Orleans and the letter was sent to Mint Director
Robert M. Patterson in Philadelphia. It is known from a letter of March that the ten
pieces were struck in January 1839. The dies are known to have been defaced on
June 13, 1839.
0
Comments
Do you think that this letter refers to the striking of the first 39-O's?
Doggedly collecting coins of the Central American Republic.
Visit the Society of US Pattern Collectors at USPatterns.com.
<< <i>Edited to ask:
Do you think that this letter refers to the striking of the first 39-O's? >>
No, because the remainder of the letter, among other points, asks about delivery
of the 1839 half dollar dies. These had not yet been received, which is why Tyler
tested the press with the 1838 dies.
<< <i>IIRC there are 11 known, wonder where the eleventh came from??? Or perhaps he made 10 perfect ones and a few "not-so-perfect" coins, are any of the known 1838-O's of lesser strike quality? >>
A good point. It therefore seems likely that there was enough demand for the first ten coins
that he rigged the press again (after mid-March) to strike additional pieces.
A good point. It therefore seems likely that there was enough demand for the first ten coins
that he rigged the press again (after mid-March) to strike additional pieces.
Having just watched an episode of House, I am reminded that "Everybody Lies". Tyler might have made one or more for himself and not reported it.
Doggedly collecting coins of the Central American Republic.
Visit the Society of US Pattern Collectors at USPatterns.com.
Doggedly collecting coins of the Central American Republic.
Visit the Society of US Pattern Collectors at USPatterns.com.
<< <i>Breen mentions finding a letter in the archives that states that "a few" were struck "to test a press". The quotes are his, which I assume means that that was Tyler's language. And if that's the case, Breen found a different letter than Denga found. That leads to the intriguing possibility that the coins referred to in the Feb 25 1839 letter are restrikes. >>
It would appear that Breen accidentally combined quotes from two different letters. There
also exists a letter from Superintendent David Bradford, under date of March 7, 1839, which
says, in reference to half dollars, that “about the middle of January Mr. Tyler struck a few
pieces in the large press.” This is the letter I was referring to in the original post; Bradford
also noted in this same letter that the 1839 half dollar dies had not yet been received.
In a technical sense there are no original 1838-O half dollars, all having been struck in
1839. Whether this makes them restrikes I will leave for others to decide, As these were
struck to test the largest press they were not subject to audit and were not officially reported
as coinage. Such pieces were distributed to interested persons and Tyler merely replaced
the bullion so that his silver account would balance.
The first coinage of half dollars at New Orleans in 1839 was in early April; 64,000 pieces
were delivered to the Mint Treasurer on April 6.
Doggedly collecting coins of the Central American Republic.
Visit the Society of US Pattern Collectors at USPatterns.com.
<< <i>Do we know where the reported mintage figure of 20 originally came from? >>
In his Encyclopedia Breen quotes a source as saying that not more than twenty pieces were
struck. This apparently means that a few were struck beyond the ten pieces known to have
been made in January 1839. The “not more than” twenty has become a full twenty in recent
years.
<< <i>Tyler might have made one or more for himself and not reported it. >>
Not nice! Poor Rufus is rolling in his grave.
Thanks for the info, denga. Very interesting. Here's a '39-O to go with the thread because everyone likes pictures with stories.
Lance.
<< <i><< IIRC there are 11 known, wonder where the eleventh came from??? Or perhaps he made 10 perfect ones and a few "not-so-perfect" coins, are any of the known 1838-O's of lesser strike quality? >>
A good point. It therefore seems likely that there was enough demand for the first ten coins
that he rigged the press again (after mid-March) to strike additional pieces.
Having just watched an episode of House, I am reminded that "Everybody Lies". Tyler might have made one or more for himself and not reported it. >>
Or maybe there are really only ten, the eleventh being a duplicate listing of one of the other ten.
Edited to add: Great post! Thank you for presenting this new information!
An authorized PCGS dealer, and a contributor to the Red Book.
<< <i>U.S. Branch Mint, New Orleans
February 25, 1839
Dear Sir,
I mentioned in both of my former letters that the half dollars dies sent us last year are
unsuited for present use for, besides being out of date, >>
The die[s] was dated 1838.
<< <i>the bottom ones are too short
to reach the screws and consequently cannot be secured in the press. >>
I assume that "bottom" dies in this case means anvil dies, not necessarily reverse dies. However, since the plural is used, perhaps that does suggest the reverse dies were in the anvil position. Would our reeded edge half expert tell us how many reverse dies were used at N.O. 1838-9?
<< <i>I have, however,
...[illegible]... to one of them in order to try the press and succeeded in making ten excellent
impressions, the very first one struck being as perfect as the dies and entirely satisfactory. >>
I'm reading "excellent" as basically meaning well-made; I don't think we can say anything WRT proof/business strike. It could also be considered some self-puffery, Tyler noting how ingenious he was by making the dies fit into the press and still able to get good coins out of them.
<< <i>The piece on the bottom of the die became loose and I was unable to strike any more
without further fixing. >>
The use of "was" is intriguing. Does that mean that the "further fixing" had in fact been done by the time the letter was written, and additional pieces were struck? Alternatively, such a reading is not necessitated; the past tense may refer only to the initial striking being finished, not the further fixing...
<< <i>
[The rest of the letter deals with other matters.]
I am, sir, with great respect
Rufus Tyler
*********
Rufus Tyler was the coiner at New Orleans and the letter was sent to Mint Director
Robert M. Patterson in Philadelphia. It is known from a letter of March that the ten
pieces were struck in January 1839. The dies are known to have been defaced on
June 13, 1839. >>
And a note on the pedigrees. Looking at the Byers (Stack's Oct 2006) catalog, there are 11 listed, one only having a single auction appearance in 1953, with no past or later appearances. This may be a duplicate example. It sounds like that the present pedigrees are based on research done for the Eliasberg catalog. I'll have to take a look at it tonight to see what it says.
Ed. S.
(EJS)
“the half dollar dies sent us...”. Two pairs of half dollar dies were sent from Philadelphia on April 13,
1838, and received by May 3.
It is also interesting to note that when the three presses were ordered for this branch mint in the late
summer of 1835 they were to be screw presses, not steam powered. By late 1835 Franklin Peale,
lately returned from Europe and a close examination of the steam coining presses at the Paris Mint,
had persuaded Director R.M. Patterson to change the order to steam presses.
Check out the Southern Gold Society
This is the Atw*ter Specimen, PCGS PR-63
This is the Anderson-Dupont Specimen, PCGS PR-45
This is the F.C.C. Boyd Specimen, images from The George "Buddy" Byers, Stack's
sale of Oct. 2006 catalog, Lot# 1097
R.I.P. Bear
Doggedly collecting coins of the Central American Republic.
Visit the Society of US Pattern Collectors at USPatterns.com.
Where was this letter found? At the Philadelphia archives or somewhere else?
Dennis
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<< <i>So what's going on with the reverse of the third coin? Check out the dentils at 6 o'clock. >>
They look like tadpoles
The Register of Dies Prepared for the New Orleans Mint shows dies delivered to the coiner in 1839 as 2 head and 2 tail dies shipped from Philadelphia on February 26, 1839 and additionally 1 head and 1 tail shipped on March 12, 1839 and that is it.
On the same page below the summary of all the different dies and denominations is written " The above is copied from the Old Register. The Superintendent reports, ( letter rec'd March 4, 1840 ) that the following dies have been defaced: Half-Dollar- 3 head, 4-tail
It is evident then that dies had been sent to N. Orleans which were not noted in the Old Register, or a mistake is made by the Supt.
The Supt. reports the following dies of 1839 reserved for 1840: 1 half dollar tail die."
This page was copied from the Register of Dies from the Philly archives.
I am aware of 4 die varieties of 1839-O half dollars that are comprised of 3 head dies and 3 tail dies. The most common of which is the JR-1 which is seen 95% of the time and I now believe was the first struck in the emission order. It has the same reverse as the 1838-O and was allowed to go to such a late state that it near fell apart. I was not sure whether it stayed in the press or was removed and used later until I studied a raw 1838-O and after counting the reeds on the 38-O found that both it and the JR-1 have 143 reeds and the other 3 varieties have 144. JR-2 & 4 share a common obverse and JR-2 & 3 share a common reverse. From looking at die progression, I feel that the emission order appears to be 1838-O, 1839-O JR-1-JR-4-JR-2-JR-3.
I have and still do wonder why they left the reverse of JR-1 in the press as long as they did and allowed it to break so severly. In its final stages, it is in several different planes. It would seem logical that this was the anvil die as gravity surely would have take it hold on some of these pieces, yet I have never seen an 1839-O with a cud but I rarely equate logic and the early mint in the same sentence. Could have something to do with the possibility that the coiner had to rig up some way to hold this die in place and didnot want to remove it until he absolutely had to or a multitude of other possibilities. Some thing just donot make sense, especially since they defaced a reverse die that they apparently never used or we have not found the variety yet that bears this reverse. Why save 1 die for 1840 if there were 2 that were unused, why not save or deface both? There remain lots of unanswered questions.
Very interesting discussion and look forward to any additional info that anyone has about the New Orleans mint at this time.
TD
Denga,
Where was this letter found? At the Philadelphia archives or somewhere else?
Dennis
*************
The letters were found in Box 39 of the General Correspondence files of the Philadelphia Mint. I
have been going back through some of my original tape recordings (which have been digitized)
and came across this material. It was originally taped in late July 1967.
The papers were examined when the Mint records were at the downtown Washington DC location
of the Archives. Now the Philadelphia records are at Philadelphia but I suppose the arrangement
is the same.
An authorized PCGS dealer, and a contributor to the Red Book.
Possibly a reason for saving a reverse die that was not used. The chief coiner might have figured that if he ran out of dies and could not predict when he was going to get another one, he could pull this reverse out of storage and use it in a pinch. Nothing in writing to back this up other than that is what I might have done back in 1839 to keep the presses rolling.
<< <i>So what's going on with the reverse of the third coin? Check out the dentils at 6 o'clock. >>
I added a close-up of the dentils below the third coin. There is a large deposit of gunk (a technical term)
in that area & it looks to me as if it's been disturbed, leaving those tadpole (another technical term) marks.
Would either Mr. Lustig, or Mr. Leidman have any images, or descriptive notes of any other 1838-O halfs?
R.I.P. Bear
I did own two of these, simultaneously, back in the middle 70's, both of them coming out of Stack's auctions within a year of each other.
I am pretty sure that neither are pictured in this thread, but am pretty sure that Jim Pryor owned the Atw*er coin, pictured above.
I firmly believe in numismatics as the world's greatest hobby, but recognize that this is a luxury and without collectors, we can all spend/melt our collections/inventories.
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Sorry, I don't have any notes. However, like Julian, I've had a couple of these. The Norweb piece, which is the finest known, and the Eliasberg piece.
Doggedly collecting coins of the Central American Republic.
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