Q. David Bowers
Better-Date New Orleans Coins
Let me tell you about the bags of better -date New Orleans coins I handled, like 1889-O, '90-O, '91-O, and '92-O. The 1892-O was very common, although if you look at today's prices there is no way you will ever guess that. I must have handled at least 20 bags of Uncirculated 1892-Os. To give you an idea of pricing, I remember buying a bag from Max Humbert at Paramount in the mid-1960s for $1,700. In those days the 1892-O was a better bag, because the 1898-Os and 1904-Os had dropped to the point at which they were available in large quantities for $1,200 per bag. The 1903-O was always more expensive. I recall buying one of my bags of 1903-O for $18 per coin and selling them for $20.
However, although it sold for more, the 1892-O was not particularly scarce in bag quantities. I think the 1891-O was far scarcer, and the 1889-O was scarce. The 1890-O was very, very common in bag lots. I remember buying three and one half bags of 1890-O dollars in one deal with Charlie Dochkus. We were always buying and selling-a bag of this, 10 bags of that, and so on. We handled a lot of coins, but we were just "turning dollars." The profits were not large as we would buy one day and sell the next.
I was dealing in lots of other coins besides dollars. I remember that in 1957 I went to my banker and asked to borrow some money so I could buy quantities of 1950-D nickels, which were the hottest coin on the market at the time. He told me that if I wanted to buy a $200 face-value bag of nickels, he would loan me $200 if I would put up the bag as security. I told him that the bag was worth $3,000 to collectors, not just $200. He came to my office, but could not understand why anyone would want to pay $3,000 for $200 worth of modern nickels.
Years later, in 1963, I walked into his office and said, "Remember the time you told me that you'd be glad to lend me $200 on a bag of $200 worth of nickels." He said, "Yeah, sure. Glad to do that for you anytime." I said, "Well, I've got two Cadillacs parked outside. And there is $25,000 face value of coins in each Cadillac. I want to borrow $50,000 and I'm prepared to give you $50,000 as collateral."
The Girard Bank was happy to make the loan to me. I would take the $50,000 to Washington, buy 50,000 silver dollars, sell them, and then repeat the cycle. I put more bags up for collateral. Eventually, the bank told me that it was too much bother, and they didn't have the room. However, about 10 years later they did finance 485 bags of dollars for a West Coast dealer.
In the 1960s I don't think there was a bank in the country that wasn't connected with a coin dealer who didn't put bags away. As a matter of fact, one of the biggest hoards of bags that I had at my disposal was with the bank that I was doing business with in Baltimore. At the Seattle World's Fair-I believe it was the Seattle Fair-there were a million silver dollars on display. They had a thousand bags of 1,000 each silver dollars, if you recall. These went back into banking channels, and I had the opportunity to buy quite a few of the bags. However, I never found anything really worthwhile there. The good things, such as the Seated Liberty dollars, came out of the Federal Reserve and Treasury Department.
I did hear of bank employees who would cut a stitch from a seam, or otherwise peek into a bag so they could maneuver a coin to a small hole, to see its date and mintmark. However, I think that most bags that came out were not looked at. There were many nice surprises.
Las Vegas
I didn't do as much with San Francisco dollars. I bought 10 bags of 1878-S from Phil Carlino. These probably came from the Las Vegas casinos. The casinos used to send trailers to the [San Francisco] Mint and take 1,500 or more bags at a time-that's a million and a half coins. Las Vegas was by far the biggest customer for silver dollars in the 1950s. I do not recall that there was anyone casino in particular; they all had the money to buy them, and they all wanted them for their customers.
Often the casinos would store large quantities of dollars in their vaults. The Nevada gaming rules required that they had to have so much cash in the till, and the owners would rather have silver dollars than a lot of paper bills. Silver dollars were used in Las Vegas as late as 1965, when the Treasury was all out of silver dollars and worn coins were bringing $1,200 a bag. I remember going to a coin show in Reno, and at a nearby casino they were still paying off in silver dollars. I got a bunch of them, for I could sell them for $1.20 each.
1889-CC Dollars
I only ever heard of one quantity lot of 1889-CC dollars. I learned this through Ben Stack, who was in Las Vegas running his Imperial Coin Company. He listed Uncirculated 1889-CC dollars for $140 per roll, which is $7 per coin. I called him up and he sent me a roll. I later became very friendly with Ben, and we had lots of deals. He told me that he had bought a couple of bags which had broken in Las Vegas. One of the bags he sold to a dealer [Irving Davidoff] in New York City-a guy who made his living driving a cab, but who was a major handler of bulk dollars, too. I talked to the guy a few years ago, and he claimed that he still had the bag.
Ben told me that he got the 1889-CC dollars by putting an ad in the Las Vegas Sun. He wound up buying a bunch of them for $3 apiece. He told me he bought three bags totally.
I used to get 1892-CC and 1893-CC dollars from John Skubis and Arnold Rosing. They were very, very cheap, like about $2 per coin for the 1892-CCs. At one time I did a good business by advertising a full set of Uncirculated Carson City dollars from 1878 to 1893, 13 different dates. Then I ran out of 1889-CC, and I would sell 12-piece sets. Then I ran out of 1879-CC, and I would sell ll-piece sets.
I remember that one time I had a lot of 1879-CCs and would sell them for $60 per roll. I think I sold most of my 1894-O dollars for about $3 per coin. At the time I thought I would have many more bags of 1894-Os, but, apparently, only this one bag turned up. No one ever knew the facts back then, or what would be released by the Treasury next. There were a lot of rumors.