The daily morning journal and courier., 1904-02-01

ths same Den0mtnation-ss-n est of American Gold Pieces-A Beer Gold "pund'' Piece conaidered Rare Find,
 "A local nunaismatist has recently se- cured two remarkable coins, an Anerl- can ten-dollar gold piece of l1sS ana gold "pund' piece of the late lamenteo Transvaal republic.
 The Transvaal piece is interesting. The Boer government began the coinage of these gold lone pund," or pound pieces. in the year 1892, about the time of the discovery of the Witwatersrand gold field, a fact which is of itself quite interesting, when one recollects that the first twenty-dollar gold piece coined by our own government was in 1S49, when the yellow metal was discovered in Cal ifornia. They continued the coinage of these until the latter part of the year 1893, and the coin owned by the local collector is of that year. It bears on She face a wonderfully fine likeness (bust) Of President Paul Krueger, and on the back the arms of the Transvaal republic over the motto of Right Makes Might" in the Taal, or South African Dutch language. The arms of the Boer cornmonwea which are said to have been in part designed. or sig- gested by Krueger himself, consist of a shield, ha1ved, with the upper division quartered. Stamped in the lower half Is one of the large wagons used by the voor trekkers when, nearly a century ago, they left Cape Colony, and, turn ing their backs upon everything Brit ish, migrated to the higth veldt of the Orange and Vaal rivers: while in the upper left hand ouartering is a lion couchant, which Krueger is said to have regarded as the symbol peculiar of his power. Tn the right quartering is stamped the form Of one of the old voortrekkers, scanning the horizon of his new-found home beyond the Vaal, while over all this, and surmounting the shield, is the form of the peculiar little f'batteleur' (striker) eagle of South Africa, stamped in sharp, high relief. lAt the close of the South African war the British troops took possession of all the coins of this denomination they could lay hands upon, shipping them off to the mint at Cape Town to be melted down and recast into real English pounds, and. as a result, only limited number of them fell into the hands of collectors and numismatists. Even at the present time the Cape government is gathering up, melting down and re- stamping all coins of this character, in consequence of which they are bringing high prices. The face value of this Transvaal sspund' is $4S5, and they are selling, both here and in England, for twelve and fifteen dollars, and never less than ten dollars.
 The American ten dollar gold piece of 1795 is much more interesting. Some people entertain the mistaken notion that the American government began the coinage of gold and silver currency in 1776: but this is mistake for at that time and for some years after the currency of this country consisted en- tirely of scrip. The first copper pennies were coined in 1793: the first silver IT 1794, and in the year following the first gold coins (ten dollar pieces) were sSruck by the American government. To-day these coins are exceedingly rare and worth their face value several times
 
 a modern silver half dollar, and on first glance one is tempted to believe that they contain more gold than the mod ern ten dollar gold coins. but careful comparison of the two soon reveals the fact that there is no difference as to weight, one containing as much of the yellow metal as the other. The differ ence lies in the fact that the modern gold piece is very thick, whereas the first coin, minted in 1795, es exceedingly thin. The latter bears on it's face @ bust Of the Goddess of Liberty alto- gether unlike the lady which one en- counters on modern American coins She is big and fat and snub-nosed, and her Phrygian cap is of such size and shape and worn in such a peculiar man. iler that she looks more like fat Dutch frau wearing a sunbonnet than she does like the presiding genius of a great ma tions Over the head of the portly ii- vinity are the thirteen stars represent ing the states of the then infant repub- lie. On the hack of this coin th9re is what purports to be an eagle, holding ir it's talons an olive branch and in its beak wreath of laurel. That is all S1A6 and looked so much more like a jack snipe or buzzard or a fy-up- the-creel than it did like the monarch of the air that in 1797 new issue of gold dollal pieces was struck. bearing the same obese Goddess of Liberty on the face but genuine eagle on the back. Int latter is the familiar spread eagle" o our government seals and stamps, bear. ing upon it's breast the shield, with the Stars and Stripes; in it's left claw { sheaf of arrows and in the right lau rel wreath. One can readily imagine that an eagle must have been pretty bad for the people of 1795 (who wor, powdered wigs and took snuff to hay, found fault with it, and so it was; bu when our forefathers improved in thi matter they did very we'll, indeed an( the spread eagle of 1797, with out stretched wings and bearing in it's bil the E Pluribus Unum scroll. which re suited from their efforts, has endured from that day to this. In the 1797 tel
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