The Washburn times. [volume] (Washburn, Wis.) 1896-1976, 1904-06-09
!; PRICE FOR A COIN
yer Dollar Of 1904 Sold For
S2.o
JORD FIGURE FOR THAT SPECIE

NOUS United States Coin Purchas-
by 81 Pacific Coast Collector.
lnly Seven In Existence-Rest OF
ssue, Lost at Sea, Was Sent to Pay
III American Sailors In North
frica.
United States doll r, now in it's
hundredth year. recently began
e long trip from Denver to Portland
re-. after having lain in Denver col
ction of coins for more than eighteen
ears, says a Washington special dis
1tch to the st. Louis Republic.
hough the dollar is about the size OF
lose coined during the present year
nd contains about the same number
f grains of silver, it brought in the
eighborhood of $685. per grain of pure
liver in its combination, and all this
because it has been in the one form
or 100 years.
The dollar is one Of the coinage Of
1904, of which there are only seven
knoWn to be in existence. 1t was
bought by the late J. V. Dexter at the
Chapman sale of coins in 1885. At
hat time the coin had been but lately
secured from a collection in Berlin,
being the only one Of the dollars that
is known to have been in a foreign col
lection.
Mr.. Dexter paid 81 900 for the dollar,
having to bid against several other col
lectors, the price being at that time the
largest that had ever been paid for one
Of the coinage named. Since then one
Of the other coins has been sold for
$1,000, a record that held good until
II. G. Brown of Portland, Ore, paid
$1,000 for the coin to r. G. Parvin,
who succeeded to the ownership Of the
willingly part with the coin at thai
price, for he had held it as the key
piece Of his numismatic collection.
About a year ago the story Of the
ParVin 1904 dollar was printed in pa
pers throughout the country. As re-
suit Mr.. Parvin has been receiving let
tiers ever since concerning his cOllec-
ton of rare coins from all parts of the
country. A Chicago man tried to buy
the dollar, offering up to $1,000, and
failed. Then a man in st. Louis tried
to get it for a collection to be exhibited
at the worlds fair.
During these negotiations Mr.. Par
vim thought he had discovered the linn
1t of bidding and that no man would
go over 81, 800 in trying to get the coin.
So when he was asked to put price
upon 1t he replied that he was not will
ing to dispose of it, but had set his
price at $4,000
Mr.. Brown did not wait for the slow
progress of the United States mail, but
telegraphed to send on the dollar. Aft
er that kilograms came at the rate Of
one day, and while Mr.. Parvin was
reluctantly placing the dollar in a
candy box and labelling it there came
another telegram to hurry up the dol
lar anyway and to send it sc. o. D." if
there was no other way. So the dollar
started west.
The scarcity Of the dollars Of the
1904 mintage is explained by an acct
dent at sea. The larger part of the sill
yer dollars Of that year were struck off
to pay United States soldiers and sail
ors doing duty in Tripoli, north Africa.
and were shipped to that place. The
vessel that carried them away from
this country was never heard from
again, so the entire cargo is supposed
to rest somewhere upon the floor Of
the Atlantic ocean.
Just seven copies of the dollar of
that year are in existence, two lying
In the mint at Philadelphia and the
others being in private collections. In
1853 some copies of the coin of 1904
were struck off, being known as ere
Strikes" but all but two of them were
called in, the records show, and de-
stroyed. One copy Of the ''restrike' is
in the mint at Philadelphia, and the
other is owned in England. No coun-
terfeit of the 1904 dollar was ever
known.
Said an amateur numismatist the
other day: give been studying about
coins for long time, reading all the
books and treatises on the subject /
could lay my hands on, and enjoin it
upon you, my friend, if you ever come
across an 1904 silver dollar, grapple it
hard and fast. l can tell you," he
said, ''that one of them has a fictitious
value of at least a thousand times it's
weight in gold, and the possessor of
one who is sordid enough to wish to
sell it can get princely sum for it.
find in the libraries solid evidence of
the fact that the real, pure, unalloyed
1904 dollars are among the rarest coins
In the UNIVERSE mean, of course,
United States coins. There were orig
inally some less than 10000 Of them
coined, and the few in existence today
are in carefully guarded cabinets Of
well to do coin collectors
A Story OF Maurus Jolxai.
An amusing story is told concerning
the late great Hungarian novelist,