Q. David Bowers
A Treasure-Filled Vault
Let me also tell you that I had a gentleman that I knew who worked at the Philadelphia Mint who tipped me off back in '62, I think. I don't remember the year exactly. I think it was 1962. He said that they would open a vault in the Philadelphia Mint which had been joint sealed. By joint sealed he meant that three people sealed the room when the dollars were transferred from the New Orleans Mint in 1929 to the Philadelphia Mint.
I think the vault room contained 10 million silver dollars that came from the New Orleans Mint, and he advised me if I had any O-Mint dollars in my stock to get rid of them. I had just sold an AU 1903-O dollar for $800. I had another hot coin in stock that I recollect was an 1898-O. The '98-O was like a $300 or $400 coin in Uncirculated condition if you could find one, but they were extremely rare. The 1904-O was also a $300 coin. As soon as I heard this .news I ran to a coin show in Detroit and dumped all of my rare. O-Mint circulated silver dollars. In those days I was pretty big in dollars and had a large stock of them. I think this was in August or September 1962. I don't remember the month. But that was right before the general release of these O-Mint dollars in Uncirculated grade. Immediately afterward, within 10 days or two weeks of that conversation, I called you and told you that the previously rare New Orleans Mint dollars like 1898-O,1903-O, and 1904-O had been released and sold you a bunch, of all the different dates I had.
Getting Rare New Orleans Dollars
While these rare O-Mint dollars came through the Philadelphia Federal Reserve Bank, they were first reported out of Michigan. What had happened is I went to my bank in Philadelphia and found out that I couldn't get any of the O-Mint coins from my Philadelphia bank because the bank was loaded with used stuff. It was their policy to move out all of the worn coins before letting loose of Uncirculated coins. I had a banking connection in Baltimore, and I Went to him and told him: "Find out how many bags of silver dollars are in the Baltimore branch of the Federal Reserve," and the report came back that there were only 27 bags.
I then told him to order me 40 bags of silver dollars. As expected, I got 27 bags of used dollars and 13 bags of brand new O-Mint dollars. What I did with the used 27 bags is this:
I had an account in New York. I transported the used coins to New York and gave my account representative in New York a case of whiskey to take the 27 bags of silver dollars off my hands at face value, so I could have the money to go back to Baltimore and get 27 bags of brand new O-Mint dollars, which is exactly what I did. Then I went to the banks and started to make loans, face value against face value, in other words. Girard Bank loaned me $50,000 but I gave them 50 bags Of silver dollars as collateral. The biggest transaction that they made after that was the financing they did for a big West Coast dollar deal involving 485 bags of silver dollars in escrow as security for the loan.
Uncirculated Carson City Dollars
I remember selling Carson City dollars in the late 1950s, around '57 and '58. Charlie Dochkus [Philadelphia dealer] had a connection down in Washington, and he could get me any bags I wanted of Carson City dollars from 1880 through 1885. I didn't have to buy them by the bag; I could buy 10 rolls [20 coins per roll] of this and 10 rolls of that.
For years the guys that worked in the Cash Room of the Treasury Department in Washington, on Pennsylvania Avenue next to the White House, had access to Carson City dollars that were stored there many years earlier. They opened a room or vault that had all of these CC dollars, and friends of people at the Treasury, like Charlie Dochkus, could get them. They were not expensive. I remember Charlie used to charge me about $1,200 per bag of 1,000 coins for CCs of 1882, 1883,and 1884, and $1,500 for 1880, 1881, and 1885. Often he would send me 10 rolls of each but charge me the bag rate.
1878-CC and 1879-CC dollars were not available from the Treasury in Washington. I do remember buying a partial bag of Uncirculated 1879-CC dollars, but they came from a Pennsylvania dealer by the name of J. Grove Loser. You probably remember him. He probably got them from the Treasury at an earlier time when 1879-CCs were available. I know he had at least two full bags at one time ..
I used to buy and sell CC coins of the 1890sby the rolls, and my source was John Skubis and Arnold Rosing out in San Francisco. I imagine that I had at least 10 bags of each date 1890-CC through 1893-CC. I advertised them allover and did a lot of business.
Sometimes I would advertise a full bag of CC dollars. I remember that in 1957 I ran a full-page ad in Numismatic News offering a bag of '85-CC dollars for $1,700 a bag, and I sold three bags. I had paid $1,500 per bag, so I made $200 apiece.
End of the Cash Room Bonanza
From about 1954 (for sure), or perhaps earlier, up until 1958, the guys in the Cash Room of the Treasury Department in Washington had a few favorite coin dealers with whom they did business. One of them was my Philadelphia fellow-dealer and friend, Charlie Dochkus, Charlie could go to the Treasury and buy bags of CC dollars.
Now, here is what happened to that deal: Sometime in 1958 Charlie called me up and said the deal was over. One of the high officials had come into the vault and saw these silver dollar bags all scattered about. Some bags were opened and had only part of their contents. In this way, the guys in the Cash Room could sell coins a few at a time, for not everyone wanted to buy full bags.
Charlie Dochkus looked like a banker. He wore a big Hamburg hat and was large and strong: He had a large black satchel that was strong enough to accommodate a 60-pound bag of silver dollars. He would go to the Treasury, see his friend at the cash room and, for example, get 60 rolls of Carson City dollars that he wanted. He would then take the train back to Philadelphia and sell the coins to me. He did not make much money. Sometimes I would pay him a couple hundred dollars' profit on a deal, and for this he made a round trip to Washington. I don't know what he did for his friends in the Cash Room. Perhaps he took them to dinner. There was nothing wrong with Charlie's making a $200 profit on a deal in 1956; that might have been two weeks' pay for some people back then.
Anyway, he told me that the deal was off; that a Treasury official had come in and he wanted the room with all of the CC dollars sealed up. But before they sealed the room, the guys managed to get out three bags of CC dollars, an '80, an '81, and an '85, which Dochkus brought to me. I took those three bags and put them in my basement, and I was going to save them for posterity, but as soon as I was able to double my money I sold them.
It wasn't until 1964 that the remaining CC dollars were "discovered" in the vaults in Washington and public notice was given of it. But the people that worked in the Cash Room knew about it for years. Like I said earlier, I bought a bag of '79-CCs from J. Grove Loser, who probably got them there.
Somewhere among my things I have the first issue of the paper the Flying Eaglet, published by Frank Spadone in 1957. Chester Krause later bought it and changed it to become Coins magazine. I had a full page in the first issue, listing all the Carson City dollars, possibly with the exception of the '89. Les Fox later reproduced the ad in the first edition of his Silver Dollar Fortune Telling book.
The money that the people in the Cash Room made could not have been much, and was probably like coffee money for them. This, to my knowledge, never occurred in the Philadelphia Mint or the Philadelphia Federal Reserve because, you know, Charlie Dochkus did not have any strong connections here. At least he never said he did. However, occasionally some good dates would come out of the Philadelphia Federal Reserve. I remember buying 1903 Philadelphia coins in quantity from Charlie; he must have had a bag of them. But I didn't know where it came from, whether it came from Washington or whether it came from Philadelphia.
Charlie had been a coin dealer for many years, including in the Depression in the 1930s. He was very, very knowledgeable. I wound up with his library which was immense. It was a fabulous library. He also had many wonderful classic coins, such as some of the rarest colonials in existence.