John Reich Collectors Society Annual Meeting, Boston ANA

The annual meeting of the John Reich Collectors Society will be on Wednesday, August 11 at 8:00 AM.  If you are a member of the JRCS, a collector of bust coinage, or have an interest in early United States coins, you are invited to attend.  Typically, people in attendance at the meeting introduce themselves, various announcements are made, and there is an educational presentation.  At the meeting this year, we also expect to award the Jules Reiver Literary Award to the author whose article in the John Reich Journal was voted to be the best of the year.  Also, the two inaugural members in the JRCS Hall of Fame will be announced.

Meeting time and location:

The meeting will be held in the Sheraton Boston Hotel's "Exeter Room" at 8:00 AM on Wednesday, August 11. The hotel is at 39 Dalton Street in Boston, within walking distance of the convention center.

Third Known 1806 B-8 Quarter with Cud Discovered

Rich Uhrich announced that a consignor (who wishes to remain anonymous) has discovered the third known 1806 B-8 quarter with cud.  The B-8 die marriage is an R-6 and coins with this late die stage featuring the cud are quite rare.  Uhrich stated that it is believed that the die crack causing the cud happened early in the die's life, so not many coins were produced from this die pair...which accounts for the coin's scarcity.

Uhrich will auction the coin at the 2010 ANA Show in Boston using a sealed bid format. Images of the coin are below.  As usual, you can click on the image in order to open a larger size image.

Editor's addition 8/15/2010:  The coin sold for $18,666.  Congratulations to the new owner!

There's a neat article on "COINLINK" that mentions this coin.  Here's a link:  Link to COINLINK article

1832 LM-9.2 Crosses Auction Block at Heritage

An unattributed 1832 LM-9.2 half dime (NGC AU-58) recently crossed the auction block at Heritage, where it sold for $4,025 including buyer's premium.  To my knowledge, this is the finest known example of this elusive die remarriage.  Your editor was the winning bidder for the item.  My images of the coin in hand are below.  You can click on an image to view a larger version.

Controversial Figures from National Archives Regarding Mintages?

Brad Higgins visited the National Archives and examined some items of interest.  In another post, you can see a document concerning the employment of John Reich.  In this post, the focus is on information Brad found in a ledger.  Two images from the ledger are posted below.  The identifying information concerning the ledger:  NARA's catalog number:  RG104 G-04-06-3; Title is "Coinage and Expenses 1795-1835."  Interestingly, there were only two pages in the ledger that had any writing on them...and those are the two pages imaged below.

Also included is an image of a warrant that Brad found in "Bullion Waste Book B" which has data from 18 July 1794 to 31 December 1806.

The data are cumulative coinage totals of all denominations through December 1795.  Readers of this blog may wish to compare the mintages reported in this ledger to those reported by various numismatic researchers.

You can click on these images to enlarge the image.

John Reich's Memorandum of Employment

Brad Higgins recently sent me some interesting photographs and information gathered when he was examining documentation of the early Mint. I'm working on a blog post on one set of photographs about mintages, but wanted to post this information more expeditiously.  Brad writes:  I have included "a draft of John Reich's memorandum of employment; I believe the formal copy doesn't exist. It is not in the hand of Patterson. Close examination will reveal that this was a mere scrap of paper when the draft was written in 1807. Mention of this draft can be found in Stewart Witham's tome on Reich."

Here are the images of the scrap paper.  The second image is the "flip side" of the paper shown in the first image.  As with all photos in this blog, if you click on the photos you can view a much larger version.

 

2009-2010 Jules Reiver Literary Award

In the most recent JR Journal (Volume 20, Issue 3) there is a ballot for the Jules Reiver Literary Award.  JRCS members are encouraged to complete the ballot and mail the ballot (along with dues payment) to Steve Crain ASAP so that votes can be counted prior to the Boston ANA in August.

Annual members received a dues notice and an address to which payment and the award ballot should be mailed.  Life members did not receive the address.  Please mail the ballot to the following address:

Steve Crain
PO Box 1680
Windham ME 04062

New Bust Quarter Book

The authors of a new book on bust quarters have developed a brochure that provides information about the upcoming publication.  I've placed an image of that brochure in this blog.  All you need do is click on the image in order to get a large-sized picture that you can view and print.