Q.David Bowers
There seems to have been some problems with the check for $1,400.20, for during the following month, September, there was additional correspondence requesting the same funds, accompanied in one instance by a plea:
Having made a heavy purchase, we are short of ready funds and have $2,500 to pay. Could you conveniently send your check for the $1,400.20 now? If you could it would be grand and help greatly.
We hope you will pardon our asking for it, we would not have done so if necessity had not urged it.
We See you have the nomination for Congress. Will be no doubt of your election, so accept our congratulations.
On September 24th, after examining the coins of the Garrett collection on display at Princeton, they wrote:
The line of Proof gold coins in the United States is broken for about ten years in your collection, we hope that some of the following may help to fill the omission. They are from a private collection, and it is seldom they can be had, and as it is so we would advise their purchase as the smaller denominations are more readily obtained than these $10 and $20. We have and can send-an early order requested as we will hold them pending your reply-$l0 all Proofs, $15 each, select such as you desire, 1890, 1891, 1892, 1893, 1894, 1895, 1896, 1897, 1898, 1899, 1900. $20 Proof 1897 $22.50. $20 1861 Very Pine, chafed on obverse $21. $20 1862 Proof but hairmarked $24.
On October 13, 1904, the Chapman brothers wrote again with much the same thought in mind:
There were ten years of United States gold coins which your collection lacks. I cannot find the memorandum I made at the time, but it seems to me it was 1888 to 1898 inclusive. There is an opportunity presenting itself at the present time in the collection of Mr. Woodin [William H. Woodin was a leading collector of the time; decades later he was to become Secretary of the Treasury during the Franklin D. Roosevelt administration] which we sell on October 20th, to secure the $5 pieces of these years, and as we have secured the $10, it would be well to embrace the opportunity to fill up the line that much. Kindly pardon our writing to you in regard to them, but the opportunity to secure this Proof gold rarely presents itself and as you have the sets prior and subsequent to these ten years, it has been the cause of our troubling you again about them.
The Chapman brothers wrote yet a third time on February 15, 1905, to convince him to buy the Proof gold coins:
Would you now take an interest in the series of brilliant Proof $10 gold pieces which we have from 1887 to 1905? We believe that if you will examine the collection at Princeton you will find these years to be missing. Any of them you wish to purchase we will sell at $15 each. There were ten years that you told me after your father's decease you did not get the gold sets, and this is an opportunity that seldom presents itself. We also have $20 gold of 1897 as well as a gold Proof set of last year and this year, and a few colonial coins which may be of interest to you. If you would like us to send them on approval, we will do so with pleasure.
Robert Garrett was not enthusiastic about the proposal, and on February 21, 1905, the following letter was sent to the Chapman brothers:
I received in due time your letter of the 15th. I beg to say in reply that I do not care at the present time to purchase the Proof coins to which you refer. Some of them are missing in our collection, though not all, but even so I do not feel willing to make this expenditure just now on the collection, I hope it will not be long before I shall have all opportunity to confer with you again concerning the cataloguing of our coins.
After considerable correspondence, Robert Garrett arranged with the Chapman brothers to have the T. Harrison Garrett collection catalogued. The collection remained essentially as T. Harrison Garrett had left it in 1888, with the addition of a small number of specimens purchased by his son Robert. The Garrett Collection at the time was on loan exhibit at Princeton University in New Jersey, a fortuitous circumstance as the balance of the Garrett holdings in Baltimore, mainly medals, were damaged or destroyed in the great fire which leveled the business district of that city in 1904. In their letter of February 23, 1905, the Chapmans approached the question of cataloguing the collection from a personal viewpoint, signing themselves, as usual, "S. H. & H. Chapman":
Your letter of the 21st received, and it caused the suggestion to arise in my mind that if the collection was to be catalogued this summer, it will require much time to accomplish it, and possibly you could give me the name or address of a real estate man at Princeton or inform me whether it would be possible to rent a small place for the summer months, say the middle of June to the middle of September, and at a reasonable figure. We had expected to go to Lake Placid and occupy my cottage there, but it may be possible to arrange for the family to stay at Princeton and rent the cottage [to someone else] at Lake Placid.
Will thank you very much for an early reply to this as the gentleman who had the cottage last year is desirous of having it again this year.
Robert Garrett's response on February 27, 1905:
It is probable Mr. Thornton Conover, whose office is on Nassau Street, Princeton, will be able to give you all the information necessary concerning houses that will be for rent during the coming summer. Before you make any arrangements through him, however, I hope we can go over more in detail the question of preparing a catalogue of our collection of coins. I realize that it is hard to estimate the cost of such work especially when the exact size of the collection is not known, but before finally deciding to ask you to do this work, I should like you to give me some idea of the probable cost.
This reply dated March 4th, from the Chapman brothers gives an interesting insight into the problems of cataloguing a major collection:
We have been giving the matter consideration ... but before we are able to make any estimate as to the cost of it we find it is necessary to understand more clearly what you desire the catalogue to be.
Do you wish it merely as a list for your own keeping, or do you wish it as a scientific catalogue of the collection to be published as a museum catalogue?
If the latter, do you wish to preserve it merely in manuscript or have it immediately printed and have us revise the proofs, or do you wish a card catalogue of it solely for preservation in the museum? Do you desire the specimens numbered?