Q. David Bowers
In the line of bags. of Carson City dollars, I handled every-thing but the '79 and '89. I knew of a bag of 1879-CC that they told me about at the Mint. Somehow, they were saving it, I don't know for what reason, on some instructions of some one. It got away from the Mint, apparently unintentionally, and it landed somewhere out in Montana or in Seattle.
The San Francisco Mint was storing other CC dollars, but they were being held back for some reason. People at the Mint were' really getting numismatic by then. And, I think they were getting too many calls, and everyone was calling in to pick up CC dollars.
While the San Francisco Mint was paying out lots of San Francisco dollars and some Carson City dollars, I never saw any bags of New Orleans or Philadelphia dollars there.
I remember a nice deal I had with John Rowe in Texas. He came to see me, and I sold him 28 bags of San Francisco Mint coins, nearly all the different dates, which he was buying for an investor.
I used to know LaVere Redfield, who was from Reno. He would get his dollars from the casinos there. The system worked in this way: In the very early 1950s the casinos in Reno would get 50 to 150 bags of silver dollars each week from the San Francisco Mint. Then, demand increased, and the Mint would ship 500 bags a week, then 1,000 bags; The reason that I know this is Coontz used to tell me, "Hey, there's some good stuff; why don't you get 'em from these guys in the casinos?"
Coontz could only handle so much in his cashier's department, or he didn't want to flood his place up with silver dollars, because I 'think there was a limit to how much he could have in there. But they would know what was being shipped out of the Mint, because the dates were marked on the outside of the bags.
I never handled any quantities of Uncirculated Liberty Seated dollars, but in one of the casinos in Reno a bag of 1859-Os turned up. This bag must have come from storage in the San Francisco Mint, but I never heard of any O-Mint dollars being stored there. . .
Bob Johnson, whom you know, was also very active in silver dollars in San Francisco. Knowing that you would be interviewing me, I asked Bob Johnson to get in touch with Coontz, the cashier, but Coontz had died. He had the records of what was available until about 1955-what went out, and everything else, and at one time he told me that if there was no use for them at the Mint, he was going to give me the records. However, he died without doing this. If Bob Johnson can find the records, they will have a lot of good information.
Robert Johnson Remembers
Robert ("Bob") Johnson shared his memories in an interview.(March 13, 1992.)Bob is an old-timer in the business and over the years has handled many important properties. At one time he served as president of the Professional Numismatists Guild.
After talking with John Skubis, I thought I would try to get some information for you. I called a friend over at the San Francisco Mint on Duboce Street, and she couldn't tell me much about Coontz-his name was Isaac]. Coontz. Then I got to thinking that a fellow that worked for me died three years ago, a wonderful man, great friend, Robert B. Bridges, who worked at the Mint from 1938 to 1972, he ended up to be assistant superintendent.
He was in the same department as Coontz and knew him quite well. Now Bob unfortunately died about three years ago and Dave, if he were still alive I think we could have gotten a lot more information, but I'm very friendly with his wife Rose. Asa matter of fact, she comes in a couple of days a week for me, and she's a wonderful lady and has a great memory and she was able to tell me a little bit about him. They were social friends.
She told me that Mr. Coontz headed up the Assay Department at the Duboce Street Mint and he did this for quite a while; Bob Bridges worked under him for many years. Coontz lived in San Francisco, was married, but, unfortunately, he died over a dozen years ago; Dave, and his wife did too: There is no trail left from the family. They had no children. But she was able to tell me all this and what a fine gentleman he was. ... He lived in San Francisco, on 28th Avenue, in the Richmond district.
I did manage to get quite a few silver dollars in the 1950s, but the silver dollars that were available did not come to me from the Mint; they came from the San Francisco Federal Reserve, and I had to order them through my bank.
It's kind of funny, we got solid date S-mint bags, and I recall-unfortunately from today's standpoint, and you remember this, I know-there was no premium at all attached to bags of most Uncirculated San Francisco Mint dollars. What we were really looking for were circulated bags that we could skim for perhaps '1893-S; and 1895 mintmarks, and Other mintmarked coins.
We also wanted the rare o mints, which later became not rare. We were quite disappointed when I would order, say, five bags of dollars, and they would all turn out to be Uncirculated 1879-S, 1880-S, and 1881-S. I do remember getting bags full of Uncirculated 1886-S, 1887-S, 1880-S, 1889-S, 1890- S, and 1891-S, but there was no way to sell them for a substantial premium. The market wasn't there. Few dealers had the money to tie up in the holding of bags of silver dollars.
I was far more interested in dealing in Lincoln pennies and Indian cents, and other numismatic coins, which were very popular then. So, as a result, I probably ran through at least a hundred bags of silver dollars from the Bank of America and the Federal Reserve, and then I got distracted. I found nothing really good, say like a '96-S bag or, God forbid, a '95-S bag or something like that.
I do know that in the San Francisco Bay area John Skubis did run into a bag of '03-S. I did buy some '03-S dollars locally from another dealer who bought them from John. There were a lot of '03-S dollars around for a short period of time.
8 dollars around for a short period of time.
I also had some dealings with the casinos in Reno, and for the First National Bank of Nevada I was able to handle some silver dollar hoards. They still have some material, as far as I know-sunless they've disposed of it elsewhere, which is entirely possible. That's about it for what I remember. As you recall, Dave, dollars were not as popular in the '50s and early '60s. Things changed when the better dates like '98-O and 1903-O came out all of a sudden and became just quite ordinary. Before then, I remember trying to find worn examples of these in bags.
When you put this in your book, I know it will be hard for readers to believe certain things-like my taking back to the bank Uncirculated bags of 1886-S and 1888-S dollars, or 1922-S dollars [also see Robert Johnson's recollections printed under Peace dollars].
With regard to Liberty Seated dollars, I would occasionally find some mixed in with circulated Morgan dollars. These were worn coins and were usually dated 1871 or 1872, no S-Mint or CC-Mint coins. We were lucky to find one or two Liberty Seated dollars in a bag of a thousand, and I won't say that was consistent. A certain bag might have one or two and others might have none.