Q.David Bowers
Two other pioneer collectors were James Hall of Allentown and Jacob Woole of Bethlehem, both in Pennsylvania, who had collections as early as 1820.
They bought the cabinet of coins and medals belonging to Bishop Huffel of Bethlehem, who had earlier assembled the collection in Germany, and divided it between themselves. It is not known whether United States coinage was represented among the specimens. Dr. Henry A. Muhlenberg of Reading, Pennsylvania, was also active at an early date. His collection was later sold at auction by Bangs, Merwin & Co., New York, June 9 and 11, 1863. By 1830 several Massachusetts collectors, including William G. Stearns of Cambridge, Matthew A. Stickney of Salem, and Henry Davenport and Jeremiah Colburn of Boston had all formed collections.
The Mint Takes an Interest
In June 1838 the Mint Cabinet was begun when Adam Eckfeldt, the chief coiner at the Mint, presented a few valuable pieces which he had collected earlier. At the time it was a practice to keep on hand representative samples of current and recent coinage, and these were incorporated as well. William E. DuBois took charge of the Mint Cabinet and supervised its formation.
Born in Doylestown, Pennsylvania, on December 15, 1810, DuBois was a son of a Presbyterian minister. From the age of six he was schooled in the classics. He early developed interests in languages, literature, and antiquarian pursuits. At the age of 16 he began writing for a weekly publication. At 22, then a law student, he was commended for his reporting of a famous trial. Subsequently he was admitted to the bar, but he gave up practice due to an affliction, which he carried throughout his life, which resulted in a weakness of voice. Unable to speak properly, DuBois became a prolific writer.
In September of 1833 Dr. Samuel Moore appointed him as director's clerk at the Mint. At the request of Jacob Eckfeldt, the assayer, he was transferred in 1835 to the Assay Department. In 1836 he was named an assistant assayer. Five years later he became the assayer's brother-in-law. In 1872 when Jacob Eckfeldt died, DuBois was appointed to take his place. DuBois died on July 14, 1881.
With his relationship to Adam Eckfeldt, the chief coiner, and Jacob Eckfeldt, the assayer, DuBois was in an ideal position to obtain factual information concerning the early operations at the Mint. Using this and other knowledgeable sources, he became a prolific numismatic writer. In later years he made many contributions to the American Journal of Numismatics.
In 1842 A Manual of Gold and Silver Coins and Bullion, by Jacob Eckfeldt and William E. DuBois, appeared. The publication was illustrated by engravings prepared by Christian Gobrecht, who had achieved recognition several years earlier for his work with 1836 pattern silver dollars and Liberty seated coinage.
Earlier it had been supposed that United States silver dollars were struck beginning in 1794 and ending in 1803. However, A Manual of Gold and Silver Coins and Bullion displayed a fine illustration of an 1804, a date previously unknown to collectors. Upon seeing the 1804 depicted, collector Matthew Stickney went to the Mint in 1843 and succeeded in obtaining an example of the previously-unknown dollar by trading a gold striking of an Immune Columbia cent for it. Apparently those with a collecting interest at the Philadelphia Mint recognized the appeal of the 1804 dollar, and in the next several decades additional specimens were made clandestinely. Typically, these were filtered out of the Mint through favored dealers and collectors, sometimes cloaked with the authority of a pedigree, "from a European collection," or something similar. For the next century the 1804 silver dollar was a constant source of controversy in numismatics. Its fame grew, and the piece acquired the designation of "King of United States Coins." In 1962 Eric P. Newman and Kenneth Bressett, in their book, The Fantastic 1804 Dollar, laid the matter to rest with a scholarly dissertation which revealed the origin of the pieces.
In 1834 the Department of State desired to send sets of specimen coins, called Proofs by collectors today, of the American coinage to the Sultan of Muscat and the King of Siam. Samuel Moore, director of the mint, ordered that sets be prepared containing one each of the authorized denominations from the half cent through the $10 gold piece. At the time, 1834, all denominations were currently being made except the silver dollar and the $10 gold piece which had been suspended 30 years earlier (the actual coinage had been suspended, not the legislation authorizing the coinage). Desiring to include a specimen of the dollar, the largest silver coin, and the eagle, the largest gold coin, and realizing that neither was being currently produced at the mint, Moore sought to determine the last date that these were regularly minted.
Checking the coinage records he found that in 1804 19,570 silver dollars were struck. 3,757 $10 gold pieces were minted in the same year. What Moore did not know was that while the 3,757 $10 gold pieces were indeed dated 1804 at the time, the 19,570 silver dollars reported struck in 1804 actually bore the dates 1802 and 1803. There was no such thing as an 1804-dated silver dollar!
In 1834 it was the custom to keep on hand dies from earlier years. There was no official provision for the destruction of dies. Some were destroyed when they were broken, others were discarded when designs were changed, and still others were kept on hand. Searching through the supply of back-dated dies, no dollar or $10 dies with the 1804 date could be found. So, Moore directed that new dies be made up with the 1804 date, thus officially completing the specimen set with the last-dated specimens of each denomination. Thus was born, 30 years after its date, the first 1804 silver dollar.
In later years additional specimens of the 1804 dollar were struck on several different occasions. Some of these were traded, the specimen to Stickney included, to enrich the Mint Cabinet. Others were disposed of secretly for private gain. Throughout numismatic history of the 19th and 20th centuries more space, publicity, and acclaim was given to 1804 dollars when they appeared for sale than any other rarities.
Following its formation in 1838, the Mint Cabinet continued to grow. In 1839 Congress appropriated the sum of $1,000 to augment the Mint Cabinet by the purchase of coins and mineral ores. Following the initial sum, $300 per year was given to maintain the exhibit. This amount was considered sufficient for the purposes of the Cabinet. In the words of one writer, George G. Evans:
More has not been asked for or desired, for the officers of the Mint have not thought to vie with the long-established collections of the national cabinets of the old world, or even to equal the extravagance of some private numismatists ...
Many important additions were made by taking coins from groups of pieces brought to the PhiladelphiaMint for refining or assay. In 1846 DuBois described a number of the pieces in a monograph, The Pledges of History. DuBois believed that a coin should be prized for its historical teaching or artistic merit and discouraged the desire to own a piece simply because of its rarity.
In the 1849-1851 era, when many different private coiners were producing gold issues in California and elsewhere, large quantities were sent to the Philadelphia Mint for assay or for conversion into bullion. Prize specimens were saved, thereby providing the Mint Cab-inet with numerous examples which later proved to be great rarities.