Gloucester County Democrat. (Woodbury, N.J.) 1878-1932, 1884-08-21
A CORNER IN NICKELs.
A TRUE STORY.

Not long ago the government of the
United States began to coin nickel FIVE
cent pieces of new pattern. But after
few thousand had been struck off it
was decided that they were unsuitable,
| and the coinage was stopped.
The fact that so few were sent out
made these fve-cent pieces very valuable
to persons forming collections of coins,
because they were so uncommon that by
and-bye none could be picked up among
the change handed about in trading.
Many wide-awake boy got hint of
this and profted by it. How it caused
one of the schools in certain Connecti-
cut town to become sort of bourse or
Wall street, and two youngsters in par
ticular to resemble spectators, is the
little story have to tell
One of the boys we will call Wyx and
the other Jordan. The former was a
bull, )" the latter 'sbear," in the
money market which sprang up in this
emergency as quickly as, during the late
war, a trade in gold was organized in
New York, where profits were gained
or lost according as the value of the gold
dollar in greenbacks rose or fell.
Wyx's father was banker, and,
therefore, he became ''posted" on the
value the coins would probably take a
little ahead of the others, and, in addi-
ton to supply procured at his fathers
bank, he went about for several days
buying nickels of his school-fellows and
everybody else he could meet, paying six
and seven cents apiece for them, until he
thought he had secured all there were in
that neighborhood.
He also felt pretty sure that none of
his schoolmates could get many, if any
more, while he had chance to do SO, on
account of his fathers position. As the
men who deal in money and railway
stocks in the city would say, he tried to
make "corner" in these coins. If he
succeeded, of course he could ask what
he pleased for them (for he would have
no opposition), provided anybody
wanted to buy badly enough to pay a
high price.
There is a great risk in making cor
ner in some article which is not neces-
sary. Ii more than moderate figure is
asked people will refuse to purchase,
and the wrong doing of man who seeks
to charge too much will thus correct
itself, even where he has monopoly. 1t
therefore happens that men who attempt
to make corners usually choose some
thing which people must have at any
price-such as wheat, or lard, or pig
iron; yet they rarely succeed, because
when man takes that position he arrays
the whole country against him, and no
matter how rich and powerful he may be
it is all but impossible to gather into one
corner, as you would pen field of
sheep, all there is of one kind of thing
In a great region like the broad United
States.
But I have been led into a long di-
gression. Let us get back to the attempt
at a corner in new nickels which oc-
CURED in that Connecticut school dis
trict.
Thinking that he had bought in all
there were afoat in the neighborhood,
and that now was the time to sell at a
profit, or to- realize" as the brokers
call it, Wyx announced one day that he
was coming to school next morning with
heaps of nickels, which he would sell at
ten cents apiece.
The boys began to be sorry that they
had been SO hasty during the previous
ten days in letting Wyx have their half
dozen or SO each, at only cent or two
advance, and having grown excited over
the way the value had risen, were now
quite willing to buy their coins all back
at the advanced rate, and a lot more
beside, believing they would go still
higher. 1t therefore looked sure that
Master Wyx was to make a great deal OF
money. Certainly that is the way he
regarded it, and he strutted about with
his hat tipped on the back Of his head in
the most approved Stock Exchange
swagger.
In these operations, let me say, both
seller and the buyers were taking the
/, Il course. Acting on his belief that
f.vgsins would become worth more a
\ sbowF hence than they were, Wyx had
bonest,d d sense in securing all he could
\ matter and pay for. Now as a
N b.nneu. and as Wyx foresaw would
-.1esble risen, and were really
r~.fu sndI /Prs down town at ten