Q. David Bowers
The Experience of John Skubis
In an interview with the author, John Skubis, long-time professional numismatist in the San Francisco area, recalled handling trade dollars in the 1950s: (Interview with the author, March 13, 1992. Robert Johnson, together with Arnold Rosing, John Skubis, Earl Parker, and Leo A. Young, was one of the most active professional numismatists in the San Francisco area in the 1950s.)
You might be interested in knowing that I used to be offered a lot of trade dollars. These would come in from the Orient and were quite common. I had chances of buying 200 or 300 pieces at a whack, or maybe even more. They were a hard item to sell becausewhen I got interested in coins, it even surprised me when I found out that supposedly the trade dollar wasn't even legal tender. And, because of that, there wasn't too much interest in them.
I could have bought as many trade dollars as I wanted for $1.40 or $1.50 each. Quite a few of these had chopmarks. Some were Uncirculated and very attractive, and others were worn. Probably in the course of a three, four, or five years, I think I would have had the chance to buy maybe up to 1,500 or 2,500 pieces.
I suspect that additional quantities of trade dollars exist in the Orient today and will come to light in the future, especially when China increases its trade with the Western world. As documents reprinted in the present text verity, trade dollars were originally used in many other places besides Hong Kong. When (and if) such pieces come to light, they will probably be of the higher mintage dates and will be in proportion to the original production figures.
The Experience of Bruce Amspacher
Bruce Amspacher gave me details of a hoard of trade dollars with which he was once involved: (Letter to the author, May 4, 1992.)
This letter is in response to your letter of April 27 regarding the "CC" trade dollar deal and other things. I remember the deal pretty well, and verified a few things with John Hamrick (see attached). I worked for Fred Sweeney in 1973. At the Boston ANA Convention, World-Wide Coin Investments (Hamrick's company at the time) had a giant deal of trade dollars. Fred purchased the "cc" segment of the deal for about $120 per coin as a "take 'em all" price. There were 19 rolls (380 coins) available at that time. The breakdown went something like this.
1873-CC 15 coins, 5 Uncirculated (of the 15)
1874-CC 80 coins, 15 Uncirculated
1875-CC 150 coins, 40 Uncirculated
1876-CC 90 coins, 15 Uncirculated
1877-CC 45 coins, 10 Uncirculated.
Surprisingly, the deal was a slow seller as a retail item, and almost hopeless as a wholesale item, due to the worry that many more might be coming at cheaper prices. Many of the coins were lightly cleaned, but not abrasively so. This wasn't the negative it would betoday, as bagmarks (or lack of them) were much more important 20 years ago to the grade (or salability) of a coin than cleaning was. A few hairlines from cleaning? So what?
As John Hamrick notes in the attached sheet, there were 2,000+ coins in the total deal, counting the "P" and "S" mints. The chopmarked coins were unbuyable at the time. World-Wide wanted $65 per coin, and we had some in stock that were advertised at $59 in the same grade. I have no idea as to what number or percentage were chopped. No "cc" coins were chopped that I know of.
At a later date, sometime in 1974 or early 1975, Jim Halperin purchased many of the other trade dollars from the deal and sold them to First Coinvestors, Inc. An FCI employee told me several years later that the entire deal was still in FCI's safe, having never been offered for sale.
I hope that this information helps.
John Hamrick's note follows:
There were over 400 [Carson City] coins altogether if! remember right. The coins came from a bank in mainland China. There were some chopmarked also. Hope this helps. Counting other mints, we probably got over 2,000 trade dollars from the same source.
The Experience of Douglas Cass
Douglas Cass, professional numismatist, shared the following recollections concerning purchasing trade dollars in the Orient in the early 1980s: (Interview with the author, August 25, 1992, lightly edited.)
I first went to Hong Kong in connection with the Money Company show put on there by Dick Nelson. He had these great package deals for travel, and it sounded like a great way to get to the Orient. I went and fell in love with the place and the whole Chinese culture. I went to several shows.
After the first shows were held, word of them spread, and agents for smugglers from mainland China started bringing coins to the dealers there. Apparently, many coins were coming out of mainland China, possibly with the knowledge of the government, although this was not stated. For a period I went to Hong Kong four times a year. I met all of the people that dealt in coins in that city. I went to all the moneychangers and banks and ended up getting closer and closer to the sources, I guess you could say.
There was no single source. There were a lot of independent smugglers, although behind them there were rumors that there was one big guy. One of my most interesting experiences was visiting a large storage room, very large by Hong Kong standard-where most facilities are small and cramped. In this large room behind a jewelry store there were rows upon rows of-large bags of silver coins. All types of old silver pieces were coming out of China at the time. The bags were all covered with mud, apparently from being in the bottom of boats or from where they were hidden before they were brought out, or whatever.