Can anyone provide me with some info on the Nichols Find (Hoard of mint state 1796 and 1797 cents)

Comments

• numisma Posts: 3,877 ✭✭✭✭

  January 8, 2008 10:44AM

  The best summary and account of the Nichols Find is, in my opinion, found in Bowers' Coin Treasures and Hoards book. Here are a few key points from Bowers' reference:
  
  * according to tradition, these cents originated with Benjamin Goodhue in late 1797. Goodhue was a senator at that time. He obtained the coins, presumably, in a bag of 1,000 pieces that may have been struck on Boulton-supplied planchets (these flans were of premium quality compared to locally obtained copper).
  
  * Goodhue gave the cents to his daughters and the coins were handed down through a few generations.
  
  * The coins were dispersed out of Salem, MA via a one David Nichols, although Breen thinks it was Springfield, MA through Major C.P. Nichols. Bowers states that the hoard was dispersed between 1858 and 1863 for $1 each. Sheldon suggested that they were sold at face value.
  
  * It is thought that the hoard contained 1,000 coins, the quantity of cents found in mint bags of the late 1790s.
  
  * Bowers lists the following as the typical Nichols Find large cent: 1796 S-119, 1797 S-123 and S-135 and, "to a lesser extent," 1796 S-104 and S-118, 1797 S-122, S-136 and S-137.
  
  That's a summary of Bowers' write-up on the Goodhue-Nichols Hoard of Draped Bust large cents. There are a few in the Heritage FUN auctions, if you want more information and to see actual survivors of this hoard.

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• CaptainRon Posts: 1,189 ✭✭

  January 8, 2008 10:48AM

  Thanks for your help again
  

  

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• TONEDDOLLARS Posts: 2,928 ✭✭✭✭

  January 8, 2008 10:57AM

  I thought large cents of that era came in wooden kegs of 5000?

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• numisma Posts: 3,877 ✭✭✭✭

  January 8, 2008 11:25AM

  
  
  << <i>I thought large cents of that era came in wooden kegs of 5000? >>
  
  
  
  You are thinking of the Randall Hoard, which contained large cents from 1816-1820 and was found a few years after the Civil War.
  

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• Pistareen Posts: 1,505 ✭✭✭

  January 8, 2008 12:02PM

  Regarding the size of kegs, contemporary newspaper ads and manuscript accounts show that in the first two decades of the 19th century they varied in size from $120 to $180, or 12,000 to 18,000 coins. I haven't specifically uncovered anything that reflects the keg size in 1796 or 1797, but I guess it was probably about the same size but also likely flexible depending upon the amount requested.

  John Kraljevich Americana
  Betts medals, colonial coins, US Mint medals, foreign coins found in early America, and other numismatic Americana

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• numisma Posts: 3,877 ✭✭✭✭

  January 8, 2008 12:11PM

  
  Bowers states in his hoard reference that "Mint records show in 1797 that the Mint regularly issued cents in bags of 1,000 and boxes of 5,000 coins." That was for 1797. The keg holding the Randall coins was reportedly "smaller." I think Breen mentions that there were several kegs in his Encyclopedia. Anyone have an opinion on the number of kegs found and the total amount of coins in the Randall Hoard?

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