Q. David Bowers
Detailed descriptions of early silver dollar die varieties were first published in November 1881 in Capt. John W. Haseltine's Type-Table of United States Dollars, Half Dollars, and Quarter Dollars. Around 1876, Haseltine first contemplated writing an extensively illustrated book on die varieties of higher denomination silver coins, and he set about building a reference collection for this purpose. In 1881, he decided to sell his holdings, with the result being an auction sale catalogue with the Type-Table title.
Of all nineteenth-century dealers, Haseltine was the one most closely identified with silver dollars. Living in Philadelphia" he had close connections to the Mint, directly and also through his father-in-law and fellow dealer, William Idler. Apparently, both were able secretly to buy numismatic delicacies directly from Mint employees. Over a period of time they handled such fancy pieces as 1801-2-3 novodel "restrike" silver dollars, 1804 dollars, Gobrecht dollars, and 1884 and 1885 trade dollars. A case is made in Chapter 6 for Haseltine being the main "distributor" in the mid-1870s of 1801-2-3 Proof novodels and 1804 Class III dollars. During the first decade of the twentieth century, Haseltine was a partner with Stephen K. Nagy (also of Philadelphia) in the sale of rarities, many of which came from the Idler estate (Idler died in 1901) or from Haseltine's private holdings.
For many years, Haseltine numbers were used by some numismatists to identify varieties of early silver dollars, although the vast majority of auction catalogues and price lists omitted Haseltine's specific die variety attributions. Other catalogues-certain of those issued by B. Max Mehl serve as 'examples used Haseltine numbers sporadically. As a latter-day observer of the early twentieth-century numismatic scene, I have concluded that if the consignor attributed his Or her early dollars to H numbers, Mehl used them. Otherwise, Mehldid not have the inclination. to look them up on his own. In general, no matter who issued an auction catalogue, it was more apt to omit Haseltine numbers than to include them. Although this is partly because it took work to classify early dollars by varieties, perhaps a more important reason is that few collectors cared about different dollar dies, and rarities were likely to bring little more than common issues. In a word, it was not worthwhile. for a dealer to classify them. This apathy continued for decades.
With regard to the original publication in 1881 of the Type-Table, it seems that Capt. John W. Haseltine should have at least given a fellow numismatist, J. Colvin Randall, a credit line in the finished work. In his auction catalogue for his June 29: July 1, 1885 sale, W. Elliot Woodward, who was always quite free with his opinions, noted this:
In the collection of American silver coins following there are no duplicates; each piece is distinctly different, and the differences are very briefly noted .... In a private letter Mr. Randall writes me: "The idea of a correct work on types and varieties of United States silver dollars, halves and quarters, originated with me. H. and myself were to publish the work together, but without any consultation whatever with me, he issued for his own benefit what he styles the Type-Table Catalogue."
In 1950, Milferd H. Bolender, who by that time had been a full-time professional dealer for nearly 20 years, published The United States Early Silver Dollars from 1794 to 1803, an expansion and updating of the 1881 Haseltine work. In the introduction to his book, Bolender noted that he was able to find 114 distinct die varieties covering the 1794-1803 span.
Bolender, born in 1894, started in numismatics as follows, per his own account:
My first silver dollar, a 1795 with a hole, was acquired by me in 1906 from my grandfather, who gave me a bag of old coins, his collection, because I made the best grades in school of the seven grandchildren. That started me collecting.
At the age of 15, Bolender became a part-time coin dealer. Later, he worked in construction, and in the World War served with the United States Army. In 1919, he began teaching school, a vocation he followed for the next 13 years, until his coin business grew to the point at which he could enter it on a full-time basis. Totally, he spent 57 years as a rare coin dealer, a tenure equaled by few others in the trade, and conducted 197 auction sales. He lived in Illinois, later (upon retirement) moving to California.
In telling of his life, Bolender went on to say that he became interested in early silver dollars by die varieties, but found that specimens described according to Haseltine numbers were very often attributed incorrectly. "In one large shipment of early dollars to me, every Haseltine number was incorrectl'" Dealers were often too busy to attribute early dollars by die variety, Bolender continued. Therefore, he took matters into his own hands, and using the Haseltine work as a foundation, prepared an easy-to-use reference complete with illustrations. By his own account, his data were based upon observing 5,000 coins over a period of 40 years. Actually, this amounts to only 125 coins per year, certainly a paltry figure. If the 5,000-coin figure is true, this explains why certain coins that Bolender considered to be very rare are rather plentiful today.
I saw Mr. Bolender at several conventions in the 1950s, before his retirement in 1960. He was a quiet man, but was always willing to reminisce about the "good old days." From 1961 to 1964 he conducted a column, "M.H. Bolender Writes," for Numismatic News. His death occurred on November 15,1977, at the age of 83, in Spring Valley, California.
In the era of Bolender's predecessor, ].W. Haseltine, there were only a few coin dealers, and most lived on the East Coast within a day's journey of each other. Groups of rare coins tended to be clustered among a small group of dealers and collectors. M.H. Bolender lamented that things changed radically between the 1870s and his own research efforts in the 1940s. By the latter time the supply of early dollars had become widespread among thousands of different collectors and hundreds of different dealers, and examining a significant quantity of pieces was a greater problem.
Where applicable, M.H. Bolender preserved in his book the numerical listings of Haseltine, simply converting H numbers to B numbers. Hence, 1795 H-1 in the Haseltine Type-Table is equivalent to 1795 B-1 in the Bolender book. In instances in which numbers assigned by Haseltine were proved by Bolender to be incorrect (in several instances, Bolender found that Haseltine had acted upon incorrect information or had mis-identified as a new discovery an already known die), Bolender eliminated the old Haseltine number from his new Bnumber sequence. Hence, while among 1800 dollars, Haseltine had H-1, H-2, H-3, H-4, H-5, H-6, H- 7, H-8, H-9, etc., through H-19, Bolender concluded that H-6 and H-7 were misattributions by Haseltine, as was H-9. Accordingly, the Bolender sequence omits these three numbers, and reads B-1, B-2, B-3, B-4, B-5, B-8, B-10, B-11, B-12, etc. This makes it easy to compare an old-time listing by H numbers, such as the 1945 sale of the F.C.C. Boyd Collection, with Bolender numbers.
In many instances, Bolender was conservative in his rarity estimates. He observed that "in some cases only one or two specimens are known to me, but I have declined to imagine that no other such coins exist." Bolender used an eight-point rarity scale, Rarity-1 through Rarity-8, but did not state what the numbers meant, other than Rarity-1 coins were considered common, and Rarity-8 ones very rare. It is possible that he borrowed Dr. William H. Sheldon's rarity scale, which also culminates with Rarity-8, but if he did, he made no mention of it.
In numismatics, too many writers fall into the trap of making precise statements such as "only eight examples are known." It might be better to say that "only eight specimens are known to me," or to give a range such as "probably eight to 12 specimens are known." As Dr. William H. Sheldon said in his Early American Cents book (1949), if Jones was seen, then he Was there. If Jones was not seen, then he also might have been there. To the credit of Bolender, he did not deal with absolutes. He simply reported what was known to him, based upon his rather limited observations.
Rarity ratings, including these I give in this book, should always be taken with a grain of salt. There are always new discoveries to be made.