Rarities for the rest of us: Post a non regular mint issue rarity

Weiss

Don't get me wrong--I think that late die state VG-8 capped bust half dollar with a teeny tiny fleck of metal attached to one prong of one star is really fascinating. Neat. Yep. And I believe that it really is one of only 100 known.

But for the same price, you could have acquired an American-made, historically significant, Red Book listed (page 404 of the 2014 spiral bound), PCGS graded, Zerbe numbered, genuinely rare (R4-R5), and quite frankly, ubercool piece like this Lesher Referendum Dollar:




So for the rest of us, who just can't get too excited about another barber half or morgan dollar, even if it does have that elusive slightly smaller "S" mintmark that makes it a "hot 100", let's post some actually rare and interesting American numismatic items. Post what you have, preferably with the population numbers! FWIW: this PCGS AU55 JM Slusher example is one of only 14 pieces in any grade from our hosts. There have been 11 JM Slusher pieces graded across the street.

ricko

Interesting piece.... octagonal or hexagonal coins always intrigued me.... thanks for showing us...Cheers, RickO

BillJones

The Lesher dollar is on my list, especially after I visited Cripple Creek and Victor, Colorado, but finding them is not easy. I passed on one because I thought that the rims had been filed and was not marked as such. Another had been dipped and did not look natural. A third was marked as a problem coin with rim bumps and scratches.

Here's a tough one, a Low #1 Hard Times token. What I really like about this piece is that is sums up two of the major issues during the 1832 presidential campaign, the Bank of the United States and the nullification issue.



My guess is that total population of these is in the neighborhood of 50 to 75 pieces.

Broadstruck

Just an update from last fall as I purchased Lyman Low's auction catalog of Dr. Benjamin P. Wright’s token collection and this token was not part of the sale.

1876 Carrollton Clothing House, Baltimore, Maryland, Duffield-20 / Miller-MD-23 / Rulau MD-BA-10 / Schenkman 60-C35/ Wright-1661, 25mm Diameter, Thin Planchet, Non Reeded Plain Edge, Brass.



This token has never come forth for photography and has never been plated in any reference guide.

It’s always just been described as "The Carrollton", below, "Clothing House." In the center, "—171— | W. Balto. St. | Next to the | Carrollton | Hotel." Rev. Female head 1., coronet with four stars, within a circle of 11 stars. In exergue, "1876." Brass. Size 25.

This token was considered Rare by Dr. Benjamin P. Wright’s in his “The American Store or Business Cards” research originally printed in the “The Numismatist” from 1898 to 1901 and at the time just 22 years after being struck assigned it a Rarity-4 status.

Frank G. Duffied who’s main area of interest was exonumia moved to Baltimore in 1889 and in 1907 contributed an article to “The Numismatist” titled “The Merchant Cards and Tokens of Baltimore”. In his research work stated "The Carrollton Clothing House" card is Extremely Rare and the specimen in Dr. B. P. Wright's collection being the only one he knows of.

Fifty years later George Fuld & his father Melvin mentioned they had a example in their collection and possibly knew of one other.

The die sinker for this token was John F. W. Dorman who was located at 19 German Street in Baltimore. Struck in very low relief on a thin 25mm diameter plain edge brass planchet the obverse Liberty Head with 4 stars is the same just enlarged design which Dorman used on his 1875 20mm diameter store card with the exception of using 2 lesser peripheral stars then the 13 on his own. 11 stars is quite unusual and looking at the obverse of the Carrollton Clothing House there was room to include them.

The Carrollton Clothing House was owned by G. C. Norris and only listed in Baltimore's business directories for having been in operation during the year of 1876. So this token may very well have been a pattern and with the business having failed in its first year no further production of advertising store cards for circulation commenced.

Having searched through 100 years worth of exonumia auctions (which is a dozen two foot high piles of bookmarked catalogs that resembles an episode of Hoarders) this particular token has only crossed the podium twice and based descriptions is the same example shown here. It was missing from many major collections which focused on Baltimore token issues such as Robert Lindersmith, Lionel Rudduck, Gilbert Steinberg and others. None surfaced in the recent John Ford Jr. sale which included hearty concentration of Baltimore token issues acquired from Fred C.C. Boyd, Wayte Raymond, Max Schwartz, and others.

This was valued by Benjamin Wright at $2.50 in 1898 and oddly just $5.00 in 1962 by Donald Miller. Russell Rulau on many tokens that he couldn’t find an auction price just used Miller’s 1962 values. In his first edition of “United States Trade Tokens 1866-1889” he also valued it at $5.00 and jumped the price to $7.50 in his second edition along with another final increase to $27.50 in his latest 2004 edition. As there are many tokens Rulau has valued at $40.00 just 9 years ago that today sell for upwards of $6,000.00 I had no issue adding this to my collection and paying multiples of guide book value to acquire it. As it is a mid level Rarity-8 quite possibly a Unique store card that might very well be both the Wright & Fuld specimen which has never been seen by the exonumia collector community before.

I've also enclosed some photographs of the Carrollton Hotel and the building next door as they stood at the time of this tokens centennial dated year of issue and one taken in 1904 of it's remains.



West Baltimore Street is just a couple blocks away from the convention center that Whitman uses for it's shows. When your attending the show later this week and are walking the brouse floor your actually amidst the center of a 140 acre region which was engulfed in the great fire which yielded the loss of over 1,500 buildings in the downtown Baltimore harbor area over the course of two days in February of 1904.

ricko

Thanks for the history and photographs Broadstruck....Cheers, RickO

rhedden

1860 Stars Obverse half dime (Judd 267). Often referred to as the "coin without a country," this issue combined the hollow stars obverse of 1859 with the reverse of 1860, eliminating "United States of America." Its mintage was limited to 100 pieces, and the survival rate may be less than 50%. Despite its status as a pattern coin, it is often collected as part of the Seated H10c, and is included in the Red Book.

Edited to add: though this coin was struck at the US mint, I am including it in this thread as "non-regular" in keeping with the title.

johnny9434

i love the token broad struck. them are always nice

Weiss

Good stuff, guys. And way, way more interesting than an indian cent with an extra palm frond.

I'm gonna hit you with the two most recent acquisitions from Heritage's last sale, because I'm still on a buyer's high from snagging them both:

1909 Hudson-Fulton celebration gold Daalder. Pop Top of 18 pieces slabbed across both TPGs:




1909 Hudson-Fulton celebration gold Trip. Pop Top of 22 pieces slabbed across both TPGs:

JerseyJoe

I think these qualify. Issued by the fed. and demonetized less then a year later . Alaska ARRC Bingles. . Part of President Roosevelt's
"NEW DEAL" . I included a pic of the octogonal cent for you ricko. There have been 13-30 of each denomination graded by PCGS.

kaz

Really interesting stuff, and Broadstruck's post is a great example of how a coin or token can be a "portal into history.' nice research and photos!