Q. David Bowers
Granberg sold several collections over a period of time. He was a prime customer of Stephen K. Nagy
And John W. Haseltine, according to conversations I had with Nagy in the 1950s. Haseltine had a nice supply of rare 1836, 1838, and 1839 Gobrecht dollar restrike mulings in silver and copper, and a dozen or more of these were sold to Granberg:
Jack Collins comments: Writing in the Gohrecht
Journal, July 1977, Jack Collins traced the 1884 and 1885 trade dollars to the machinations of Mint Superintendent Col. Archibald Loudon Snowden. From there they were apparently sold to William Idler and were said to have been included in Proof sets of the years indicated, all of which were broken up to sell the pieces individuality.
If 1884 trade dollars were included in Proof sets of the year 1884, Idler put them there himself, for no Proof sets sold by the Mint to collectors contained this .denomination. It was popular at the time to invent all sorts of fancy stories and pedigrees to explain away the clandestine productions of theMint (the book, The Fantastic 1804 Dollar, by Eric P. Newman and Kenneth E. Bressett, vividly delineates how this was done for the 1804 silver dollar, for example; Don Taxay has also written extensively on the subject, see Bibliography).
Legality of the 1884 trade dollar: The 1884 trade dollar is not an illegal issue. No law was passed after 1883 which prohibited the production of Proof.l884 trade dollars (or for that matter, those dated 1885) for collectors. The Mint could have struck one coin, 10 coins, 100, or 1000. Had the Mint announced that Proofs were available, undoubtedly several hundred or more would have been sold, in keeping With other contemporary sales figures for silver Proof coins. While not illegal to own, the 1884 trade dollar was made under immoral circumstances, because Mint officials falsely claimed than none was coined.
Mint records examined by R. W. Julian reveal that one pair of dies for the 1884-dated Proof trade dollar was furnished to the coiner on January 3,1884. From these dies an unknown quantity of copper and silver impressions was made. It has been popularly suggested that the silver mintage amounted to 10 coins, but this is hearsay and is based upon the number which surfaced on the market in 1907-1908, and on the number now known.' The die destruction list of January 2, 1885 stated that the 1884-dated trade dollar dies were unused; specifically, the notation
"None struck" appeared. However, as 1884 trade dollars in copper were openly made, the statement that the dies were unused is patently false.
A 1992 brochure issued by the U.S. Mint and the Treasury Department, offering for sale Mint, sets, illustrated an 1875 trade dollar and noted that coins of this design were struck for a 13-year period, thus implicitly acknowledging official Mint parentage of the 1884 and 1885 (the 13-year period beginning With 1873, the first year trade dollars were issued, ends With 1885).
Carl Carlson the 1884 Trade Dollar
The following commentary-by Carl W.A. Carlsort appeared in connection with the sale of an 1884 trade dollar in Stack's sale of the Frank Sprinkle Collection, June 1988:
One of the classic rarities in American numismatics, the 1884 trade dollar has also long been regarded as one of the great mysteries as well. Aside from the copper strikes no specimens were known in numismatic channels until 1908, when Haseltine began dispersing the collection of his father in-law, William Idler. That collection is variously 'reported to have had four or six specimens of this issue, as well as most of the 1885 tradedollars. The general opinion is that these pieces were clandestinely struck at some later date, from dies "nocturnally" prepared using hubs and punches available in the die cutters' work room. Even the accepted figure of 10 specimens struck of 1884, and five of the 1885, have been regarded only as "reasonable estimates." Breen was unable to find any trace of their production in Mint records, not could he find any evidence of the manufacturer of the dies in 1884.
New evidence has come into our hands recently, shedding considerable light on this problem. We believe it is now possible to reconstruct events in 1884 with reasonable accuracy.
In the estate of Charles Barber there ate many letters and other documents of various sorts connected with Mint operations as well as other projects of Barber himself (such as his Preparation of huge numbers of dies early in this century for many foreign governments). Of immediate relevance is a small leather bound notebook, hand written throughout, the "Die Record Book" of A.W. Straub, foreman of the Die Makers' Room, covering the years 1880-1886.The volume is a day by-day record of dies received from the Engraving Department and released to the coining room. Most of the volume is concerned with the "business strike" dies, the record distinguishing between obverse and reverse dies within each denomination.
From. 1881 on the actual dies are numbered, and we find in 1883, for example, that 507 obverse dies and 367 reverse ones were issued for the 5-cent nickel coinage alone. In the back of the book are separate pages, by year, listing the Proof dies provided, again distinguishing obverses from reverses.
As an example of this part of the book, we note that in 1881 one pair of Proof dies per denomination was provided between January 10 and January 15; on January 27 a second set for the Morgan dollar was provided; March 17 saw a new die pair for the five-cent nickel Proofs; and on August 31 a new Proof obverse only for the $3 was put into service for the last Proof striking of that denomination during the year. Interestingly, no Proof dies were provided for the one cent, three cent nickel or dime in 1881, so presumably regular working dies were "shined up" in the Coining Room and used instead for the "Proof' strikes.
The list of Proof dies provided in 1884 begins on January 3 with a major delivery of dies from the Engraving Department. In the order listed this delivery included one obverse and one reverse Proof die for each of the following: trade dollar, standard dollar, half dollar, quarter dollar, dime, double eagle, eagle, half eagle, quarter eagle, three dollar, gold one dollar, five cent nickel. (It was common in this period for Proof dies for the one cent and three cent to be delivered late in the year if at all; in 1884 they did not arrive until December 19.1 Working dies were polished in the Coining Room used to strike the "Proofs" in the sets.)