NOTES FROM E-SYLUM READERS: SEPTEMBER 14, 2025

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V28 2025 INDEX E-SYLUM ARCHIVE

The E-Sylum: Volume 28, Number 37, 2025, Article 11

The first reader response to last week's issue was in reply to the very last thing I asked - the non-numismatic cocktail party question, "Can you name the only two countries in the world with an X in their name?"

Pete Smith was the first reader with the correct answer: Luxembourg and Mexico. Chip Howell was the second, on Tuesday afternoon. Thanks. -Editor

"You once reproduced the Saxton first photo of the Philadelphia Central High School from the Mint window. It was the best copy I had seen and I meant to ask you to please send me a copy."

Nick had asked me during the ANA convention and I didn't have time to respond until this week. It's an historic photo (first known photograph taken in the U.S.) and I sent him the highest resolution copy I could find. See the article linked below for more. -Editor

Doug Ward submitted these comments as a follow-up to last week's discussion of the 1804 Dollars. -Editor

It's great to hear that work continues to unravel the mystery of the 1804 Dollars. I don't think Mr. Sholley or Mr. Dannreuther has read my article in the recent ANS Magazine regarding the 1910 pattern plot: "Of Patterns, Plots and the Most Singular Lot?" The coins given to Woodin came from the Mint, rather than from Col. Snowden. That conclusion came from documents from A. Piatt Andrews' estate found in 2022 in Stanford's Hoover Institute & Library, as well as auction records research.

Stacks Bowers Unpublished 1804 Dollar Obverse

I believe that the book 'The Fantastic 1804 Dollar' states that the Class II & III 1804 Dollars were struck at an earlier time and then the edge lettering was applied later to the Class III dollars, causing them to become cupped. (Is the Stack specimen cupped?) It's very possible that Lindeman promoted re-striking of those dollars, which were hidden away and later completed. The dies were destroyed by Snowden, with Lindeman's approval, in 1869. I suppose it's possible one or more Class III dollars were struck at that time and would not be cupped? In the event they were struck earlier, the later completion would also have involved Snowden. The two were very much linked and after 1866 Snowden ran the show in the Mint coining room, where patterns and restrikes were concerned. Record numbers of pattern pieces and many restrikes were struck between 1869 and 1872, when Lindeman was absent. All that's necessary for Mr. Adams to be the source of the Stack dollar was that Snowden possessed an 1804 Dollar, which did not appear after 1910.

Below is an excerpt concerning Edgar H. Adams from Q. David Bowers' A. N. A. Centennial History, Vol. 1, page 256;

"Then came Edgar H. Adams, arguably the first "pure" student of American numismatics, whose energy took him from Hard Times tokens to territorial gold to patterns to just about everything else. In the opinion of the present writer, by the end of 1912, Edgar H. Adams stood as the foremost scholar in the field. Adams himself was modest and never boasted of his many accomplishments. If a drawn conclusion was tentative, he expressed it as such, and if a correction was called to his attention, he was the first to admit his error and credit the person providing the proper data."

Also, a correction; more that 15,000 pattern coins were produced from 1,100 patterns by Snowden between 1868 and 1885, rather than 20,000 (the estimated total number form more than 1,700 total patterns). I can produce the accounting documentation for this, if interested.

Ryan Kordziel: 3rd Place Numismatic Literature Exhibit
Kerry Wetterstrom writes:

"The exhibitor for the 3rd Place Numismatic Literature category at the ANA was Ryan Kordziel. He was a first time exhibitor and hopefully gained a lot from the experience."

Thanks also to Len Augsburger, who also passed that information along. Congratulations! We hope to add these exhibits to our NBS website, and we'll identify all the winners. -Editor

"What man is the happier - He that hath a collection of unexcelled quality and quantity or he who has thirteen daughters? The happier man is the man with thirteen daughters because he knows that he has enough. The collector, on the other hand, is never satisfied. He would not be a true collector otherwise."
-Philip Hofer, Harvard's greatest book donor.

"Looking at my library, I can relate to Hofer.

"Quote found in "In Praise of America's Collectors. Their Secrets Reveal How To Be a Successful Collector." (Arthur Warren Schultz, 1997.)"