Gloucester County Democrat. (Woodbury, N.J.) 1878-1932, 1885-10-01
$1,000 COIN COLLECTORS.
A Dealer in Curious Money Talks
About His Business.

The boards are covered with white paper,
and the coins are held in place by shori
nails, three to each coin, pressed into
the boards, and clasping the bit of metal
with their heads. Coin stalls are com
mon in European cities, and the coping
of the wall that borders the Seine on the
Latin side of Paris are placed numerous
/ glass cases in which coins are exposed
to view; but in this country coin deal
ers are few and the owner of this par
ticular outfit is one of two who sell their
goods in the open air in New York. He
was formerly circus rider, but having
received fall that disgusted him with
that way of making living, he drifted
into the coin trade. He is at his post at
all times, except in rainy or snowy
weather, for the coins would not stand
exposure to the elements. When sud-
den shower makes its appearance the
boards, with their crust of numismatic
oddities and treasures, are stacked to-
gether, covered with cloth, and myster-
iously vanish somewhere in the neigh.
borhood. Tempting as the display may
may be to thieves, they rarely attempt
to appropriate specimens.
81 had one batch Of. coins stolen, 2 said
the dealer, ''but it was out of a safe in
that building across the street. 1t was
collection that had stored there while
was making up catalogue. l only
know that one day at noon they were
gone, and none of them has turned up
since. They were worth 81, 200. Ididn't
feel very good over it, you may be sure.
Thieves would take coins if they could
get them, of course; but there are so
many of them that would be of no use to
anybody but collector that the thieves
prefer silyerware or something of that
kind. A friend of mine in Ohio lost
collection of American cents fortnight
or so ago, but the burglars would never
have touched them if he hadn't rolled
them up and marked the value, 800,
on them. 1t was one of the best collec-
tions of cents in the country"
"Then a pretty complete collection of
American cents is worth 81, 5OO?"
: Easily. Good cents are getting
scarce-that is. the old cartwheel cents
agR&ao arg sqRqa qRqau Sa5eeteS VlJk0e llike tge 1899
dition. It's the condition Of the piece
that makes the worth of it, though
young collectors don't understand that.
Then complete collection of cents
means more than just one cent of
each date. There were some years when
there'd be, l suppose, twenty varieties.
The differences would be too little for
you to notice may be, but collector
would know them as quick as wink.
There are little variations in the size of
the letters or figures, or stars or shape OF
a leaf or curl of hair, made in repeating
the dies to replace worn or broken ones.
Sometimes trifing thing, like large
value of the coin. Ever hear about the
cow lick five-franc piece of Napoleon
III.9
"When he was president of France, in
1851, new coins were struck with his
head on them, and the first five franc
piece was taken to him for approval
He said it was all right, and told the
mint master to 60 ahead with them, but
little later he noticed stiff looking
lock of hair over the temple, such as we
would call cow lick, and he sent word
to have new die made with more or
derly hair. That was done, but in the
meantime twenty-three of the pieces had
gone out into circulation, and suppose
thirty dollars would not buy one of them
from any of the men who own them
now."
SIS there much counterfeiting of rare
coins2"
''Well, not much nowadays. They
wouldn't be rare, you know, if they
were copied very much. and the exact
number and ownership of some of tn
rarest are known to collectors, so that
one of the same kind appears in sale it
can be spotted as bogus at once. The
things that jewelers. sell for old coins
are SO bad that nobody who knew any
thing at all about coins would ever
mistake them for genuine pieces. There
was factory of bogus Greek and Roman
money in Padua two or three centuries
ago, and the work was mighty good,
too; but this thing has been reduced to a
regular science, SO that an expert will
take doubtful coin and in fifteen or
twenty minutes will tell you whether it
is genuine or bogus; whether it is Ro-
man, Paduan, or modern; whether the
patina, or green coating, is the result Of
age or acid; whether it is of the right
material and proper weight or not. Still,
there are some counterfeits made even
now that are pretty clever"
.sWhat coins are in most demand2"
s'In this country, American coins. It's
next to impossible to get complete set
of the coins of any other country, unless
| it might be some of the South American
republics, but here the principal coins
are all valuable. We're only little over
hundred years old, and our money
hasn't had time to grow scarce. Some
of our coins are going to be scarce.
"You can't get them from the mint
nowan
| 'sNo, indeed. You can get this years
set, but no other The dies are smashed