Q.David Bowers
Bidding in the sale of the Thomas Warner Collection conducted by the Chapman Brothers, Patterson DuBois, who took over the duties of his late father, William E. DuBois, as curator of the Mint Cabinet, acquired over 50 pieces of ancient and modern coins, including a 1798 United States dollar with small eagle reverse, a quarter of 1815, an NE shilling, an 1805 dime, an 1853 quarter without arrows at date, Proof cents and half cents of 1856, and an Uncirculated 1824 half eagle. At the time the Mint Cabinet had an annual appropriation of $300 from which to make purchases.
On April 7, 1884, Edward Cogan, America's first professional numismatist, died. He was survived by several children, including his eldest son Richard who was with the auction firm of Bangs & Co., and the youngest son, George W., who continued his father's coin business in Brooklyn.
In midsummer 1885 the collection of J. Colvin Randall, catalogued by W. Elliot Woodward, was sold at auction by Bangs & Co. The catalogue noted:
Randall, a most important dealer in coins. Handling vast quantities of coins, he has for the last 25 or 30 years been a most earnest and persistent collector, and has made it a constant practice to reserve the finest and rarest pieces which are fallen into his hands during all this.
Indeed, the collection contained a number of out-standing rarities. Baltimore collector T. Harrison Garrett acquired from the sale the finest known specimen of the 1853-0 half dollar without arrows and a 1795 silver dollar with a complete Proof surface, among other purchases.
In July 1885 the announcement was made that Ed. Frossard had made a business arrangement with George A. Leavitt & Co., of 787 Broadway, New York, and had been placed in charge of an expanded department with responsibilities concerning sales of coins and medals, postage stamps, antiquities, and related items. On December 31st of the same year Frossard's Numisma printed its swan song. It noted, in part:
Our principal aim has been to disseminate correct information, especially on the subject of American coinage; nearly all the articles published were original. In fact we now look back upon the last nine years of the most active and laborious, though not the most successful part of our life. This statement may seem strange to some, but most coin dealers will agree with us when we say that no business has greater claim upon one's time, and none requires more unceasing activity and attention than that of a coin dealer, and if to that you add, say, five hours of other distinct occupations, besides regular publications of a numismatic bimonthly, it must be granted that very little time is left either for recreation, reading, or study ...
To those who want a paper devoted strictly to numismatic literature and the current news of sales, etc. we warmly recommend the American Journal of Numismatics, published at $2 per annum, at Boston, Massachusetts. This has always been, is now, and probably will be for many years, the most advanced, temperate, reliable, and interesting of all American publications on numismatic subjects.
Around the same time a bonanza was reported at the San Francisco Mint:
A precious carpet has been destroyed in San Francisco. It had covered the floor of one of the rooms of the Mint and had been used for five years. The dust of the precious metals used in the coinage had, during that period, daily fallen upon it, and when it was taken up the authorities had it cut in small pieces and burned in pans. The ashes were subjected to the process employed with refining dust, and they realized $2,509. Thus the carpet after years of wear was more precious than when it was new.
For many years Dr. Edward Maris had collected copper coins of New Jersey. On June 21, 1886, the Maris Collection crossed the auction block in Philadelphia at Stan V. Henkels & Co. The prized collection of New Jersey cents, many specimens from which had been used to illustrate the Maris reference book on the subject, was acquired en bloc by T. Harrison Garrett.
The following year, 1887, saw the death of Charles Wyllys Betts. Born on August 13, 1845, Betts became interested in coin collecting while a youngster. In 1858 he discovered some dies for Fugio cents which had been located by the finder on the site of the Broome & Platt store in New Haven, Connecticut. The asking price for the group was $10, a sum that young Betts could not afford, so they were subsequently sold at Betts' suggestion to a collector from New York City. The dies changed hands several times. As of Betts' death in 1887 they were the property of J. Colvin Randall.
Betts entered Yale College in 1863 and graduated in 1868. He then went to Columbia College Law School in New York and graduated two years later, after which he was admitted to the bar. From there he went to Yale for a postgraduate course in the fields of science and literature. These studies were concluded in 1871. During his career as an attorney he took part in much important litigation.
Betts was endowed with a brilliance combined with a sense of caprice which led him in the early 1860s, while still a teenager, to invent some interesting fabrications of colonial American coins, one of which, the so-called "Novum Belgium" issue, considerably embarrassed Ed. Frossard, who proclaimed it as genuine and as one of the most important numismatic discoveries of all time. Writing to Frossard after the incident, Betts shed some light on his coinage endeavors:
It was in 1860 that I made my first attempt at die cutting, and the occasion was the receipt of a quantity of coins and medals from some New York dealers for inspection. After selecting those which my own collection lacked, I sold the rest to various collectors in New Haven, and thereupon in commemoration of this business enterprise I struck a medal with this obverse: "Connecticut" with three pine trees in center, and on the reverse my own name, with the words "Coins and Medals, New Haven, 1860." About a half dozen were struck in lead and one in copper. The latter is in the Yale College Collection and is a very good impression. The die is altered to 1861.
My next attempt at coinage was a leaden token with the inscription, "Colony of New Yorke," the latter words being on the obverse surrounding a head. One of these tokens I sent to Mr. Mickley of Philadelphia.