Old New England Collection Yields 3 1907 High Relief $20's

Meant to tell this story when the thread was new.

Back around 1975 I was working for Coin World in the U.S. Department. My friend Dave Alexander wrote for World Coins, and edited Numismatic Scrapbook. Anybody in Sidney who wanted a real newspaper took one of the Dayton papers.

One day one of the Dayton papers had a full-page ad from a traveling coin buying road show. They were going to be set up at a Holiday Inn for two days, and they listed some of their generic buying prices. IIRC they were paying $4 for common silver dollars, which was about half a buck under what decent coin shops were paying, Dave had an older couple originally from New York living in the townhouse next to his. They were there because their only daughter and their grandchildren were in Sidney. They were nice people and kept an eye on David's place when he was on the road and picked up his mail and newspapers.

One day the husband mentions to Dave that he had seen this ad and was wondering if the prices were fair. Dave says that you can usually do a little better at a coin shop. The guy asks David if he would take a look at his coins to see if there was anything good. Dave says that he has a friend (me) who knows U.S. and he will ask me if I would take a quick look at the stuff. I say sure and we set a time one evening. I go over to Dave's with a magnifying glass and a Redbook and we go next door. I figured we would be out in 20 minutes because I had a city council meeting I wanted to go to.

The guy sets up a card table and some folding chairs and then goes upstairs and brings back an old tattered shoe box full of old tattered envelopes. He picks through the envelopes and pulls one out and says "I see where they are paying $4 each for silver dollars" and he opens the envelope and hands me an EF 1799 dollar!

I showed him the listing in the Redbook and he was shocked. Dave went back to his apartment and got a box of 2x2 brown paper envelopes and we spent over two hours putting all the better coins into individual envelopes with dates, mint marks, grades and approximate retail values. The coins had been his father's and the guy knew literally nothing about them. It was a blast showing him what nice stuff he had. When we were done he asked what he owed us and we said nothing.

Afterwards when the table was clear his wife is serving us tea and a little cake. I guess the guy has decided that he can trust us, so he asks "Would you like to see the good stuff from the bank?" The stuff we had seen had been upstairs under the bed! I ask him what there was and he says "There's a $20 gold piece but I don't know the date because it's in Roman Numerals!"

We made an appointment for two nights later so he could go to the safety deposit box. Again with the card table and chairs. We ask to see the High Relief and it is frigging gorgeous! You can see a picture of it on the cover of the first two editions of the Coin World Almanac. The guy's father had gotten it from a bank in 1907.

Other baubles were an AU-Unc 1799 or 1801 $10 Turban Head, A $3 and a dozen or so common gold coins. There was a 1795 dollar that I called VF then that would probably slab EF today. (The EF 1799 might go AU today.) There was a RB Unc 1922 cent that I can't remember if it was a Weak Reverse No D or a Weak Reverse Weak D. There was half an original paper roll of BU 1928 quarters.

As before we catalogued everything and told them to put everything back into the safety deposit box. Some years later the husband passed away and the daughter contacted David for advise on what to do with the coins. He said that if they did not need the money to just keep them as family heirlooms. For all we know they are still in the family.

So this is why I am not shocked to hear of three High Reliefs popping up out of nowhere. There is still stuff out there!

TD