1948 price guide found.
oldgoldlover
Posts: 429 ✭✭✭
I was visiting my wife's parents and they were the held an estate sale for a lady they knew well as she passed away at the age of 96. She had no close heirs but a couple of very distant relatives were ultimately the lucky relatives. They will receive proceeds from sale of 800 acres of land with timber all over it and most of her personal effects and cash.
The lady lived in a house that was built in 1848 all her life in rural Arkansas. My father in law was appointed as executor and was told to inventory the assets in the house after a long wait. In the attic he found three original letters sent to the deceased woman's uncle during the civil war by his brothers, who were in the confederate infantry. Also found was confederate money in some books, a live cannon ball, a large projectile, an original confederate fife and many other related items.
After the estate sale my mother in law saved a 1948 coin price guide, which gives F,VF and XF prices for U.S. coins. She also gave a 1971 price guide to me as these books were not sold. No interest in these books as they are pretty rough.
If anyone wants to know the price guide value of a coin per the 1948 or 1971 price guide post your request. Responses will be short as I have limited information. The amount of the coins minted was very accurate based on what I saw. In 1971 you could assemble a complete set of $20 O mints, including the 1879 O for under $20K. This is using the highest grade in the book. In 1948 the pops were not know and little difference in the dates is stated. What was interesting to me is the 1948 guide had a list of many of the major collectors in the U.S. Listed.
Comments
That's a piece of history! The letters, the bills and all. Very cool stuff.
Would love to see a picture of what the price guide looked like
Cyndie
While not exactly coin related, a cannon ball is inert, therefore is not "live",unless there is a hole in it for explosives.
However, there are explosive projectiles from the Civil War that are still lethal. A few years ago, one exploded and killed a person. The bomb squad people, when they found that there was Civil War stuff, they called the Civil War expert in to determine what was lethal and what was inert.
The expert was the person who had been killed by one of his relics.
While I am not an explosives expert, I have blown up a bridge and water tower using C4, and small buildings with C4 and dynamite, and treat them with extreme caution.
As the old army manual used to say "Once the pin has been pulled, Mr. Hand Grenade is no longer your friend."
Interesting story and finds....surprised there were no coins. Seems all the old folk (dang, I am one of them now) keep/kept some old coins that were of interest to them.... Cheers, RickO
Cyndie
Give me so time and I'll post a picture. I is small and reading anything will be difficult.
What is nice about this book is the U.S. collectors could writ in what they collected, if the sell or buy and if they want to correspond with.
Here is one of the quotes from the collectors register.
"Hay, William Box 4075 South Denver Station Denver 9, Colorado. Collector of coins and Indian artifacts.
Sounds like explosive expert to me.
Better than the guy who blew himself up trying to take out the dam on Beaver Creek. Crazy.
The ball was disarmed prior to my father in law going near. My wives first cousin has a large cannon ball sitting outside his back door. I doubt it is live or he would have already raised some real hell with it. All of this is located in SW Arkansas where there were several battles fought and thousands of men passed through, both yankee and confederate. My in laws live on the Old Military Road, which is the oldest road in the county and the corridor through which everyone passed all through the 19th century.
That is a very interesting group of items. Some of the Civil War era letters are very neat. I have almost purchased a couple of them, but I decided I was not into paper which I think they call it "ephemera."
So far as the price guides go, they are of less interest to me because I have a complete year set of Red Books, but no varieties. Modern collectors won’t believe this, but there was a time when collectors eagerly anticipated each new edition of the Red Book because it was the U.S. coin pricing “bible.” The book really had a lot of influence 50 years ago.
An explosive cannonball from the civil war would classified as a destructive device according to the BATFE and is illegal to own without authorization.
FWIW, while it's always advisable to treat something that is designed to blow up with caution, C4 is extremely stable. You can light it on fire or put it in a microwave and it won't detonate.
The canon ball has been defused as has the projectile. They had a wooden fuse that can be removed to take the "life" out of the cannon ball. hey are found in southwest Arkansas fairly often as are spent bullets. There were several battles in the area.
My grandfather was a carpenter in a refinery and one day at work the pipeline people were digging and found dozens of live cannon balls. My grand father did not know what they were and put about 18 in the back of his truck. They were loose and rolled around as he drove home. Once he got home my father put one on a level in a field behind the house and shot it with a 22 and it blew. After the third was shot my day buried them as he said they were quite loud.
I also stopped in to get a burger on the way to a second job right out of college and saw a guy tossing one up and catching it. He has his four year old son with him. He was working on a pipeline crew and they dug several up and he kept one. I told him if he drops it he may have just eaten his last meal. I left as I was not in a mood to see how this played out. Not all people were created equal from a mental standpoint.
What was really interesting is mint marks have little effect on the price as people seemed to collect dates. No mention of AU as Fine VF and XF were all that was printed.
Back in the 1960s, a lot of "old timers" could not see much difference between EF and AU. I remember reading column in, COINage, I think (It WAS over 50 years ago,) that were was not much difference with implication that the grade was merely used to get a higher price for the coin.
Not only was high grade a big emphasis but mint mark was not to important based on the prices listed.