Q. David Bowers
Numismatic Information
The rare 1884: The trade dollars of 1884 and 1885 furnish a separate situation apart from Mint-authorized trade dollar issues.
For many years reference books, catalogues, and articles have claimed that just 10 specimens were struck dated 1884 and just five dated 1885. These are believed to have been produced secretly at the Mint and were not included in any of the official reports. In fact, the very existence of these coins was not publicized to numismatists until 1908 when Capt. John W. Haseltine (in partnership with Stephen K. Nagy), a Philadelphia coin dealer with close connections to the Mint, startled the hobby by announcing they had been found among coins in 1884 and 1885 Proof sets owned by his father-in-law, William Idler. (Idler was a professional early in the game. In the 1860s he advertised as a dealer in coins, medals, minerals, paper money, and antiques at No. 109 South 11th Street, Philadelphia.) However, in 1907, the year before, Haseltine's partner, Nagy, had sold one to Virgil M. Brand in an unannounced transaction.
Farran Zerbe, editor of The Numismatist, wrote an article on the subject of 1884 trade dollars and noted that seven of the 10 known pieces had been sold within a few months by a single dealer at prices ranging from $150 to $400. It was not revealed by Zerbe, if indeed he knew it, that Virgil Brand was the main buyer. (Brand, a wealthy Chicago brewer, began collecting coins in 1879, began keeping extensive records of them (now preserved by the American Numismatic Society, New York) in 1889, and by the time of his death in 1926 had acquired over 350,000 coins of the world. At one time he had five, possibly six, 1884 trade dollars.)
No one can be sure exactly how many 1884 and 1885 trade dollars were struck, absent official records. What we can be sure of is that only 10 1884s and only five 1885s are now known. The clandestine coiners had a good thing going; why would they have made so few? Obviously, to minimize chances of detection and exposure under the current director, who was less ready to play such games than Linderman and the Snowdens had been.
Stephen K. Nagy, the Philadelphia dealer who was once closely associated with certain officials at the Mint, told me years ago that in some future day the "true story" ofthe Mint-made rarities such as the 1801-1804 dollars, 1884 and 1885 trade dollars, and 1877 $50 gold pieces would come to light. However, he died without making such information available.
Ed. Frossard defends the Mint: In 1884 the Philadelphia Mint was at a low ebb with its ethics, a situation built upon at least 26 years of private profiteering and deceit by Mint officials, culminating in the worst way with the machinations of Mint director and numismatist Dr. Henry Richard Linderman (who served as mint director until December 1878). Often, what Mint officials said about quantities coined, dates of mintage, or destruction of dies, was greeted with suspicion and disbelief; Linderman in particular had destroyed even his successors' credibility.(Although the Mint had poor credibility with certain knowledgeable numismatists at the time, most of the machinations we now (in the 1990s) know existed, through the research efforts of Don Taxay, Walter H. Breen, and others, were not known in the 1880s. As R.W.Julian has pointed out (letter to the author, August 12, 1992), "much of the problem with Linderman's reputation is ex postJacto, not something at the time." )
Writing in the March 1884 issue of Numisma, dealer Ed. (Edouard) Frossard took issue with the anti-Mint sentiment:
Our critic of the Sandham sale recently, almost openly, insinuated that trade dollars have been quietly manufactured at the Mint during the present year; in other words, that not-withstanding the positive assertions of the Mint authorities to the contrary, a trade dollar with the date 1884 does exist.
We hold that the plain but positive statement of the Mint officers on the point should be considered conclusive evidence, and they say that no trade dollars have been issued in the Philadelphia Mint, nor in any mint of the United States during the present year.
But as doubts on this point may exist in the minds of those who heard the report, we are authorized to make the following offers: $100 cash each for any number of United States trade dollars of 1884, coined at the Philadelphia or any other United States mint; $25 cash down to anyone who will show us such a dollar.
It is time that absurd and untruthful if not slanderous statements about so-called "deals" at the National Mint should cease. The present management has proved itself most honorable, impartial and just, and no one has unusual facilities to obtain pattern pieces and Proof sets, all collectors in this respect being treated alike, i.e., what is obtainable by one at the Mint is obtainable by all.
It is true that certain dealers and collectors have lobbying friends in Washington, men who hang about the Coinage and Finance Committee rooms, also the Treasury Department. These men are at times enabled to secure pieces not issued to collectors at the Mint, but with this the Mint officers have nothing to do. They are required by law to furnish the Coinage Committee of Congress a certain number of specimens of the pattern pieces, essays, and regular coinage of each year; what Congressmen do with these is none of their concern.
They are no more responsible for the action of these men than for the laws they frame.
A careful study of the subject led us long ago to the beliefthat all trumped up charges of favoritism in the distribution of pattern pieces made against the present Mint officers, wereeither purely malicious, or arose from a total ignorance of theduties of those officers and of the rights and privileges enjoyed by the legislative bodies at Washington.
Certain Mint officials must have howled with laughter when they read what Frossard wrote!
Among his contemporary colleagues, Frossard's expertise was a laughing stock because of his advocacy of the NOVUM BELGIUM as a genuine 1623 product (it was actually a fantasy "colonial coin" made about 1858 by the teenaged C. Wyllys Betts). His credibility-already laughable because of his defense of the Mint quoted above-vanished. after exposure of his role in the sale of forged documents, including the production of a catalogue entirely devoted to describing as authentic, fabrications of relics said to have been associated with John Trumbull, early American artist (1756-1843), painter of The Declaration of Independence.
From Woodward's catalogues.(Citations provided by Carl W.A. Carlson.) Dealer and auctioneer W. Elliot Woodward, no fan of the Mint and its questionable practices, apparently had heard that 1884 trade dollars had been struck, for in his catalogue of the Twining Collection, April 27, 1886, Lot 1053; he noted this:
1884 Brilliant Proof Set. Trade Dollar, neglected. None yetissued to favorite collectors, and none yet offered by the regular mint peddlers.
More on the .subject appeared in the catalogue for his 94th Sale, August 16-19, 1887, Lot 1123: 1884 Splendid Proof Set. Standard Dollar. No Trade yet issued, or at present known. Will probably come out at the convenience of the mint authorities.