Q.David Bowers
It will undoubtedly interest you to learn that I have sold all of the United States gold and nearly all of the United States silver of the Newcomer Collection. I only have a number of the other great rarities of the pioneer and colonial pieces left. I'm planning to be East shortly.
A day later, October 18, 1932, B. Max Mehl wrote enclosing a copy of a letter he received from the former owner of the Moffat bar. This letter, unsigned, was dated October 15, 1932, from Pacific Grove, California:
Regarding the history of the Moffat ingot I sold you, I regret to say that I can give you very little information concerning it, except that it was purchased by myself from one of the oldest members of a very prominent family dating back to 1849. This party mentioned was a trader conducting a general merchandising establishment in the Sutter Creek district, 60 miles northeast of Sacramento, California, and as far as he could remember, the bar in question was the only one of the $14.25 denomination that he had ever seen and had been kept in his possession as a relic until one year ago when I purchased it from him. As to the name, I am unable to give it, as I kept no record of same. I may say, however, that I never could have bought it from him had it not been for the old story we hear every day (depression).
This piece was not to be included in the Garrett Collection, for on October 26, 1932, Garrett responded:
Of course I am very much interested in the discovery which you have made of a Moffat bar, but I am sorry to say that at the present time I cannot consider its purchase. Perhaps later on I should be able to take up with you some of the Newcomer pieces, but for those also, as far as I am concerned, the present moment is not propitious. Besides all this, I am going back to Rome in a few weeks, and I am so busy that I have not yet even had time to even look at my coins. I congratulate you on having sold the Newcomer gold and silver. If you are in the East before I sail about the end of November I should be very glad to see you.
Mehl sent additional correspondence from time to time concerning the Newcomer Collection, but for the next several years nothing substantial was purchased from that source.
Mehl sent on February 20, 1937: Under separate cover by insured mail I am sending you an especially bound advance copy of a booklet that I have just issued on United States commemorative coins, and which I trust will prove of interest to you. Please accept it with my compliments.
John Garrett thanked him and added a sentiment concerning the commemorative situation, which had developed into a numismatic scandal by that time.
Thank you very much for your booklet on commemorative coins, which I have looked through with much interest. I started adding these coins to my collection years ago and kept it up for a long time, but when it became a racket I gave it up. I think it is a pity that it should have been so unworthily overdone.