Crews searching for Richmond Virginia Robert E. Lee statue 1887 time capsule

Options
WillieBoyd2
WillieBoyd2 Posts: 5,411 ✭✭✭✭✭
edited September 9, 2021 2:44PM in U.S. Coin Forum

There's a silver dollar in it.

Work crews were still searching Thursday morning for a time capsule they believed was buried inside the pedestal under a statue of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee that towered over Richmond, Virginia, for more than a century until it was taken down Wednesday.

A newspaper article from 1887 suggests that the copper time capsule contains mostly memorabilia, including a U.S. silver dollar and a collection of Confederate buttons. But one line from that article has piqued the interest of historians. Listed among the artifacts is a "picture of Lincoln lying in his coffin".

Yahoo News and Associated Press:
https://www.yahoo.com/news/confederate-statues-1887-time-capsule-050427985.html

:)

https://www.brianrxm.com
The Mysterious Egyptian Magic Coin
Coins in Movies
Coins on Television

Comments

  • ricko
    ricko Posts: 98,724 ✭✭✭✭✭
    Options

    That will be interesting.... IF they find it. Seems strange that it is not where it was purported to be.... I hope we get 'the rest of the story'. Cheers, RickO

  • MsMorrisine
    MsMorrisine Posts: 40,090 ✭✭✭✭✭
    edited September 9, 2021 12:58PM
    Options

    Listed among the artifacts is a "picture of Lincoln lying in his coffin".

    a macabre time capsule inclusion

    Current maintainer of Stone's Master List of Favorite Websites // My BST transactions
  • Connecticoin
    Connecticoin Posts: 13,278 ✭✭✭✭✭
    Options

    Maybe a 5th Confederate Half Dollar!

    *For Sale on Ebay*
  • lclugza
    lclugza Posts: 568 ✭✭
    Options

    Too bad they didn't put an 1887 proof set in there that included gold- the half eagle and double eagle are Proof-only date/mm combinations.

    image"Darkside" gold
  • Namvet69
    Namvet69 Posts: 9,424 ✭✭✭✭✭
    Options

    Shouldn't be too hard to find, if it wasn't swiped. Here's hoping we get to see the contents. Abe death image is intriguing. Peace Roy

    BST: endeavor1967, synchr, kliao, Outhaul, Donttellthewife, U1Chicago, ajaan, mCarney1173, SurfinHi, MWallace, Sandman70gt, mustanggt, Pittstate03, Lazybones, Walkerguy21D, coinandcurrency242 , thebigeng, Collectorcoins, JimTyler, USMarine6, Elkevvo, Coll3ctor, Yorkshireman, CUKevin, ranshdow, CoinHunter4, bennybravo, Centsearcher, braddick, Windycity, ZoidMeister, mirabela, JJM, RichURich, Bullsitter, jmski52, LukeMarshall, coinsarefun, MichaelDixon, NickPatton, ProfLiz, Twobitcollector,Jesbroken oih82w8, DCW

  • mr1931S
    mr1931S Posts: 7,314 ✭✭✭✭✭
    Options

    Shouldn't be too hard to find, if it wasn't swiped.

    My money is on swiped.

    "Two things are infinite: human stupidity and the universe; and I'm not sure about the universe."
    -Albert Einstein-

    Mistakes are natural. But repeated mistakes without reflection are something else. That may be the “stupidity” he was referring to. In research, he admitted uncertainty openly. “If we knew what it was we were doing, it would not be called research, would it?” This shows humility. Even a Nobel laureate accepted doubt. That humility makes the quote less cynical and more observational.

  • DCW
    DCW Posts: 7,877 ✭✭✭✭✭
    Options

    This is the only known photo of Lincoln in his coffin:

    I believe it was discovered long after his death, among the personal items from the photographer that couldn't bear to dispose of it.
    I am intrigued by the way the Union soldiers, while standing guard, appear so melancholy at their posts. Makes me believe it was not staged.

    Dead Cat Waltz Exonumia
    "Coin collecting for outcasts..."

  • amwldcoin
    amwldcoin Posts: 11,269 ✭✭✭✭✭
    Options

    If it was in a copper box it seems like it would be easy to locate with a metal detector.

  • 1630Boston
    1630Boston Posts: 14,157 ✭✭✭✭✭
    Options

    @ricko said:
    That will be interesting.... IF they find it. Seems strange that it is not where it was purported to be.... I hope we get 'the rest of the story'. Cheers, RickO

    .
    .
    Precisely :)
    boston

    Successful transactions with : MICHAELDIXON, Manorcourtman, Bochiman, bolivarshagnasty, AUandAG, onlyroosies, chumley, Weiss, jdimmick, BAJJERFAN, gene1978, TJM965, Smittys, GRANDAM, JTHawaii, mainejoe, softparade, derryb, Ricko

    Bad transactions with : nobody to date

  • Barndog
    Barndog Posts: 20,530 ✭✭✭✭✭
    Options

    "taken down"

    JR Newsletter Online Edition
  • Coinscratch
    Coinscratch Posts: 11,086 ✭✭✭✭✭
    Options

    @amwldcoin said:
    If it was in a copper box it seems like it would be easy to locate with a metal detector.

    I think you’re right even though detectors have limits. A coin is like 18 inches or 2 feet. But a large copper container might be good to 5 or 6 feet. Considering the thuggery involved I would be checking the local pawn shops. But I don’t live there, TG!

  • Hydrant
    Hydrant Posts: 7,773 ✭✭✭✭✭
    edited September 9, 2021 7:13PM
    Options

    I wonder what's in it?

  • 291fifth
    291fifth Posts: 25,218 ✭✭✭✭✭
    Options

    @DCW said:
    This is the only known photo of Lincoln in his coffin:

    I believe it was discovered long after his death, among the personal items from the photographer that couldn't bear to dispose of it.
    I am intrigued by the way the Union soldiers, while standing guard, appear so melancholy at their posts. Makes me believe it was not staged.

    Is the soldier on the right Sherman?

    All glory is fleeting.
  • ms70
    ms70 Posts: 13,958 ✭✭✭✭✭
    edited September 9, 2021 5:16PM
    Options

    It's probably stuck to the base of the statue and nobody looked there.

  • DCW
    DCW Posts: 7,877 ✭✭✭✭✭
    Options

    I do not think it is General Sherman, though it bears a striking resemblance.

    Dead Cat Waltz Exonumia
    "Coin collecting for outcasts..."

  • oih82w8
    oih82w8 Posts: 13,212 ✭✭✭✭✭
    edited September 9, 2021 8:40PM
    Options

    Not sure about the validity of this excerpt;

    "Jeremiah Gurney set up his camera on a narrow catwalk high above the building’s rotunda and took this breathtaking picture of the open coffin, with Admiral Charles Davis and General Ed­ward Townsend guarding either end. Though he had been dead nine days, Lincoln’s heavily em­balmed features were still recognizable.In its own time, the picture never came to light. When Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton learned of its existence, he ordered Maj. Gen. John A. Dix to seize and destroy all prints and negatives. Dix, however, sent one copy to Stanton, who spared it.Years later, Stanton’s son gave it to Lincoln’s former private secretary, John G. Nicolay. But not until 1952, rummaging through the Nicolay Papers in Springfield, Ill., did student Ronald Rietveld (later to become a Lincoln scholar) discover the sensational, long-lost picture—the world’s very last look at Abraham Lincoln."

    https://www.reddit.com/r/pics/comments/7y1wsl/actual_photograph_of_abraham_lincoln_in_his_casket/

    oih82w8 = Oh I Hate To Wait _defectus patientia_aka...Dr. Defecto - Curator of RMO's

    BST transactions: dbldie55, jayPem, 78saen, UltraHighRelief, nibanny, liefgold, FallGuy, lkeigwin, mbogoman, Sandman70gt, keets, joeykoins, ianrussell (@GC), EagleEye, ThePennyLady, GRANDAM, Ilikecolor, Gluggo, okiedude, Voyageur, LJenkins11, fastfreddie, ms70, pursuitofliberty, ZoidMeister,Coin Finder, GotTheBug, edwardjulio, Coinnmore, Nickpatton, Namvet69,...
  • ReadyFireAim
    ReadyFireAim Posts: 1,860 ✭✭✭✭✭
    Options

    I am intrigued by the way the Union soldiers, while standing guard, appear so melancholy at their posts.

    Their arms folded posture is striking.
    The man on the left appears to have something under his left arm...Hat?
    I wonder who the busts are of.

    My Saint Set

  • 1northcoin
    1northcoin Posts: 5,548 ✭✭✭✭✭
    Options

    @ReadyFireAim said:

    I wonder who the busts are of.

    One could probably visit the Capital's rotunda today and likely make a match.

  • TurtleCat
    TurtleCat Posts: 4,692 ✭✭✭✭✭
    Options

    @MsMorrisine said:

    Listed among the artifacts is a "picture of Lincoln lying in his coffin".

    a macabre time capsule inclusion

    Sensibilities were quite different then. It wasn’t as taboo a concept as it is to modern sensibilities. The Victorian era saw many photographs of deceased people as a way of memorializing them.

  • WillieBoyd2
    WillieBoyd2 Posts: 5,411 ✭✭✭✭✭
    edited September 10, 2021 6:44AM
    Options

    Crews end search for 1887 time capsule under former Robert E. Lee statue in Richmond

    Crews in Virginia ended a daylong search Thursday after they were unable to locate a 134-year-old time capsule state officials believe is buried in the pedestal of a statue of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee that towered over Richmond for more than a century.

    State officials were scheduled to remove the 134-year-old time capsule from the cornerstone a day after the large Confederate statue was taken down. But after removing more than half a dozen large, heavy stones, crews were unable to find it.

    CBS News article:
    https://www.cbsnews.com/news/robert-e-lee-statue-virginia-1887-time-capsule-search-end

    Some things are better left unfound.

    :)

    https://www.brianrxm.com
    The Mysterious Egyptian Magic Coin
    Coins in Movies
    Coins on Television
  • mr1931S
    mr1931S Posts: 7,314 ✭✭✭✭✭
    Options

    There may have been no time capsule at all. Is there a document in existence that states a time capsule was placed?

    "Two things are infinite: human stupidity and the universe; and I'm not sure about the universe."
    -Albert Einstein-

    Mistakes are natural. But repeated mistakes without reflection are something else. That may be the “stupidity” he was referring to. In research, he admitted uncertainty openly. “If we knew what it was we were doing, it would not be called research, would it?” This shows humility. Even a Nobel laureate accepted doubt. That humility makes the quote less cynical and more observational.

  • PipestonePete
    PipestonePete Posts: 1,987 ✭✭✭✭✭
    Options

    http://www.abrahamlincolnonline.org/lincoln/news/rietveld.htm

  • WillieBoyd2
    WillieBoyd2 Posts: 5,411 ✭✭✭✭✭
    edited September 11, 2021 7:12PM
    Options

    A poster on another forum found this:

    The Richmond Dispatch newspaper of October 26, 1887 has a long list of items in the "Corner-Stone Box" including:

    United States silver dollar 1886
    Assortment of United States silver and copper coins
    Assortment of United States fractional coins
    Twelve copper coins
    English penny of 1812

    Confederate treasury notes
    $1 Confederate note
    Confederate buttons

    Miss Pattie Leake, picture of Lincoln lying in his coffin

    There are lots of Masonic items including a programme of the Ancient Order of Nobles of the Mystic Shrine

    The list:
    https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn85038614/1887-10-26/ed-1/seq-1

    :)

    https://www.brianrxm.com
    The Mysterious Egyptian Magic Coin
    Coins in Movies
    Coins on Television
  • WillieBoyd2
    WillieBoyd2 Posts: 5,411 ✭✭✭✭✭
    edited December 17, 2021 1:58PM
    Options

    Crews may have found 1887 time capsule while removing base of Gen. Robert E. Lee statue in Richmond, Virginia

    CBS News article:
    https://www.cbsnews.com/news/1887-time-capsule-robert-e-lee-statue-base-richmond-virginia

    Crews working to remove the pedestal where a statue of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee towered over Richmond for more than a century believe they've found a time capsule that was buried there in 1887. Governor Ralph Northam's office said it appears to be largely undamaged.

    :)

    https://www.brianrxm.com
    The Mysterious Egyptian Magic Coin
    Coins in Movies
    Coins on Television
  • WillieBoyd2
    WillieBoyd2 Posts: 5,411 ✭✭✭✭✭
    Options

    The capsule was opened and the event was broadcast on television.
    https://www.cnn.com/2021/12/22/us/virginia-lee-time-capsule-open-trnd/index.html

    This New York Times article has a photograph of a book and a coin found in the time capsule.
    https://www.nytimes.com/2021/12/22/us/time-capsule-lee-statue.html
    The coin appears to be a Great Britain Victoria Jubilee Shilling.

    :)

    https://www.brianrxm.com
    The Mysterious Egyptian Magic Coin
    Coins in Movies
    Coins on Television

Leave a Comment

BoldItalicStrikethroughOrdered listUnordered list
Format
SpoilerCodeQuote
Heading 2Heading 1
Emoji
:):D:(;):/:o:s:p:'(:|B):#:*<3o:)>:)
Url
Image
Align leftAlign centerAlign rightToggle HTML viewToggle full pageToggle lights
Drop image/file
Comment As ...

Categories