The E-Sylum:  Volume 2, Number 32, August 8, 1999, Article 5

GOLD RUSH COINERS BOOK  

   In the "ephemera" portion of my library is an audio tape I 
   made at last year's ANA Convention in Portland, of John 
   J. Ford's talk on Western Assay Bars.   He mentioned the 
   Central America recovery and described a gentlemen who 
   became intrigued with the history of the makers of the 
   pioneer gold coins and bars discovered on the shipwreck.  

   Using a magnifying glass, he studied the assayer's names 
   on bars pictured in a magazine profile of the wreck.  Then 
   he went to the library.   While poring through microfilms of 
   contemporary newspapers, he began to assemble information 
   on each of the assayers, then looked for any other 
   documentary evidence he could find.   Gradually, he gathered 
   much heretofore unpublished information on these pioneer 
   coiners.  

   The man's name is Dan Owen, and as Ford announced last 
   year, his work is being published cooperatively by Stack's 
   and Bowers and Merena.   As noted by Dan in the Summer 
   1999 issue of The Brasher Bulletin, published by the Society 
   of Private and Pioneer Numismatics (SPPN):  

    "An Encyclopedia of California Coiners and Assayers 
   Related to Numismatics"  represents my in-depth research 
   project on the numismatic history of the California Gold Rush. 
   The text is several hundred pages in length, and contains a 
   wealth of information which cannot be found in any other 
   single source.  Several chapters in my book will be devoted 
   to the assaying firms who made the gold ingots recovered 
   from the wreck of the S.S. Central America."  

   The book will be available this year.   So, you think all the 
   good numismatic research projects have already been done 
   to death?  Here's one that a non-numismatist picked up and 
   made his own, discovering several stones left unturned by 
   previous researchers.   What other topics are ripe for a 
   re-examination? 

  Wayne Homren, Editor

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