The Columbia herald. [volume] (Columbia, Tenn.) 18??-1935, 1911-10-27
SMALL FORTUNE IN
A COIN, PROPERTY
OF A POLICEMAN
A SILVER HALF DOLLAR WHICH
IS VALUED AT
$4,000.
Officer Had Money for Seven Years
Unaware of Great VaIue-Much
Elated over Discovery, Will Hold
Onto ana Guard It.

ATLANTA, Oct. 21.-For the past
seven years an Atlanta policeman has
been walking the streets with a for
tune chuched away in a trousers
pocket and didn't know 1t. 1t
is not huge roll of greenbacks, nor
is it bag of gold-merely an ordi-
nary silver COMA half dollar. The
coin bears the date 1853" and herein
lies the fortune-its being derived
from it's remarkable rarity.
The owner of the coin is Bicycle
Policeman G. Allen Maddox, popu-
lar member of the morning watch,
who also possesses some other old and
rare pieces of money.
According to the report only two
other 1853 coins are known to be in
existence. The owner of one of
these coins is said to have refused
an offer of $4,000.
One of the coins is owned by Chas.
l.. Cross, a grocery clerk in Los An
geles, Cal.
Policeman Maddox has kept the
coin these many years, believing that
it had some added value, but had no
idea that he was carrying about such
a fortune. He is much elated over
the discovery Of wealth hidden in the
little coin and will now guard it with
more jealous enthusiasm than ever
before Whether he will pdace the
coin on the market or hold it until its
value increases still more, he has not
determined.
officer Maddox has another half
dollar made in 1884 and one bearing
the date Of 1850, but neither of these
has such value as attaches 70 the
1853 half dollar.
The following story appeared in the
Los Angeles Times concerning the
1853 coin owned by Charles l.. Cross:
THE grimly humorous goddess of
fortunes good and i'll never wrought
for the heroes of a Scheherazade or a
Hans Anderson a stranger trick chan
that by which she recently thrust a
fortune into the pocket of an unsus-
pecting grocer's clerk of Los Angeles.
He is Charles L. Cross, a clerk for
Frank A. Vale a grocer of South
Main street. For nearly s. years he
has carried as a lucky pocket piece a
silver half dollar of the same date as
the year Of his birth, 1858,
"And 1t has justified his faith In its
luckiness' at last, for from being
merely battered and war-worn four
bit piece OF ancient vintage and doubt
full beauty, it has suddenly leaped to
relatively enormous value as the sec
ond known coin of that date in exist
ence. In cold cash, it's increased
worth is $4,000 per cent of it's face
figures.
twenty-five hundred dollars was
refused with scorn by the owner or
the only other 1853 half dollar known
to exist-rated as the most valuable
coin now in the exhibit of the Amerl-
can Numismatic association of Chica-
go. There are few individual coins
of greater value by record of their
rarity than the 1853 half dollar, even
this historic dollar of 1904 taking
back seat when it comes to relative
scarcity.
more than half a century ago, in
his native town of Niles, Mich, the
coin was given to Cross as a birth
day present because it was struck in
the same year of his birth. It went
into the pocket of Young Cha,les'
first pair of pants, and in the trous-
ers pocket it has remained ever since.
The trousers have changed from time
to time, but the coin has never left
his possession even over night
Gross is now IS years old and his
life has not always been an easy one
He has seen the time when his luck
piece was silent in his pocket because
there was not even a penny there to
jingle with it. There have been
times when he has taken the four
bits from its resting place and was
b0ut to sacrifice it for its equiva-
ent in bread and beans because ex-
sept for it he was absolutely dead
broke, hungry and without where to
ay his head.
Through it all, however, he has
,lung stubbornly to the coin and sue
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