The daily morning journal and courier., 1903-11-12

friend, IT you ever come dcFoss ali 1oVf silver dollar. grapple it hard and fast. I can tell you" he said. that one Of them has a fictitious of at least a thousand times its weight in gold and the possessor of one who Is sordid enough to wish to sell it can get princely sum for 1t if it's genuine (and there have been counterfeits made of this precious dollar) I find in the libraries solid evidence of the fact that the real, pure, unalloyed 1894 dollars are among the rarest coins in the universe-l mean, os course. United States coins. There were originally somewhat less that 2O,- 900 of them coined, and the few in exis- tence to-day are in carefully guarded cabinets of well-to-do coin collectors. It requires wealth to acquire a coin and medal cabinet. That's why am without one. All countries have them in their national museums, but that is rather poor satisfaction for the indi- vidual.
 Now, here's another thing" said the amateur deliver into numismatics. "If you ever get any old pennies in change when you buy your cheese and crackers from the green grocer's shop on the corner, scrutinize those old cents with an eagle eye. They may be angels in disguise. Some of those old pennies are very valuable. I know farmer who has a place in Maryland, not far from the Chesapeake Bay, who not long ago, while ploughing in one of his fields. un-
 earthed an old English copper coin of
 the Revolutionary period. His theory
 was that 1t was dropped there by some
 soldier when the English were overrun- ming that part of the country. This
 farmer. however, had no soul for the antique. He put the coin in his pocket, and acting upon the advice of a friend, tho next time he went to Baltimore to
 arrange for sale of his tobacco crop he sold the coin for, somewhere in, the neighborhood of S5. would have
 given him $50 for tiff had possessed that amount of wealth." the amateur added, somewhat mournfully. A
 Just think what grand thing it
 would be if you could come into possess sion Of a collection of the coins issued
 by the American colonies, the silver and copper pence and half-pence. be-
 fore the revolution. It isn't difficult
 to get a glimpse of them in any we'll
 regulated museum. The old pine tree shilling Of Massachusetts and the
 sixpence and threepenny coin are very
 rare in private cabinets. Let any person
 produce one of them and a thorough
 bred numismatist would go great
 lengths to get it.
 "The manufacture of a great many New England coins antedates the seven- teenth century. A shilling of those days
 ninted in Hulls mining house, Penn
 broke Square, Boston, would bring to-day at least hundred dollars, but l where is the person who carries one for a pocketpiece? I have seen many of these colonial coins locked up under glass roofs" said the student of
 nunisniatics, and some of them are
 most quaint looking specimens
 of money New York, when it was called New American, had her pine tree shil- ling. Vermont he- muled coppers,' and
 Massachusetts had a lovely penny. on the obverse side Of which was a noble looking aborigine, bow in one hand and arrow in the other, and on the reverse
 a peculiar looking American eagle, hay ing bunch of arrows in the right claw and an olive branch in the other. On the obverse face there were also star and the word sCommonwealth.' I think 1t is a prettier coin than any pen ny in circulation today.
 Maryland and Virginia were not be- | hind In .heir coinage, In the former
 the Lord Baltimore shilling, sixpence, groat. and penny were unique produc- tions. Virginia coinage Of those days,
 as gather from the books" he contin- ued, twas mainly of English origin and coined in multitude of hale pennies
 were coined. The, old California gold slug. though not ao rare. is a. curio of coinage. It is not a. lawfully authorized coin, but bears the United States stamp indicating its degree of fineness AS a matter Of course there are numerous dimes. half dimes, quarters, and half dollars in silver that have more than
 their face value. know a lady in this
 city who has half-dollar coined in l 1920 that for some reason Of other she
 places high value upon, and intends l to leave as a legacy to her grandchl1d,
 in the hope that when It (the grand l child, not the 50-cent piece) becomes of
 age the coin will rank high in the nu- mismatic scale.
 "Well." said the gentleman after this
 dissertation. T believe have put in a
 nutshell most all I have gathered
 about the value of the old American
 coins. Sorry. though, you haven't one
 of those old 1894 silver dollars. ."--Wash- l i,, .-