The Washington herald., 1914-01-11
Value OF coin
DUE TO BED0UINS
Dollars Of 1904 Issue Sent to
Tripoi to Pay United
States Sailors.
SPENT ON THE NATIVES


Minneapolis. Mimi. Jan. 1o-More
myths and fewer facts have been printed
and told of the 1904 American dollar than
widows mite and the Roman silver piece
ordered by Caesar for Cleopatra Just
after the famous general returned after
his conquest of the invading hosts of
Egypt, and whose circulation was limited
to a hundred pieces. according to a
numismatologist who makes his home in
Minneapolis.
ITO commence with" said this student
of the worlds coinage. after reading Of
the 1904 dollar said to have been found
In New Haven. Conn, recently and valued
at $500. there Is an American dollar
worth many times more than the 1S04
dollar-that Of 1ssS None today is
known, and among coin collectors 1t is
believed that none exists. Yet 1t is an
official fact that 1865 dies were made and
| six proofs as they are called. impressed
between the dies and reeding hubs Of the
United States Mint in Philadelphia. But
Congress failed to provide for a dollar
coinage that year. and none was officially
struck. What became OF the six proofs
none knows. but IL Is generally supposed
they were thrown back into the crucibles
of the mint, melted and poured again
into the smaller coinage OF that year
Just try some time and see II you can
pick up a silver half dollar OF 1863 Many
were made. but they are rare today.
Sailors Took Them Ashore.
But of the 1904 dollar. worth today
ny q ha Gnda oh g.
it, and with many purchasers in the
market. strange as II may seem, over
5000 were turned out. The reason of
their scarcity is that the entire output
was sent over to the paymaster of the
United States feet of three men-of-war
then lying of Tripoli, on the African
coast. The sailors who got them as pay
carried them ashore and II is thought
all were traded to the natives for such
supplies as were obtainable. much after
the fashion Of men-o'-warsmen even to
the present day.
Coins of that size were new to the
people of that far-away country, for moth
ing ever reached 1t except a few English
silver pieces, and England coined nothing
so large as our dollar. AS a result Of
this trading, the dollars were scattered
among the tribesmen from Tunis to
Egypt, and found their way ultimately
into the hands of the little bands Of
wandering Bedouins making their homes
in the oasis of the Sahara.
zone OF the few now existing of the
genuine 1904 dollars, remembering that
many spurious exist, was found hanging
to an armlet of a desert chief of the
Ghadames tribe, which makes its home
in the oasis that bears its name. 1t had
descended from father to son and now
is one of the prizes of the famous collec-
ton of the Banks Brothers, coin collec-
tors of Boston. 1t cost the brothers over
s., 900 and was purchased by them forty
odd years ago.
Traded to Natives.
"Coin collectors generally believe all
but probably a dozen or so were traded
to the African natives along the east
coast and made by them into ornaments
for personal adornment, much after the
fashion of the Navajos and Pueblos of
our own day. The few not thus destroyed
are thought to have been brought home in
the ditty bags of some homeward-bouud
memo -warsmen and preserved as pocket
pieces, gradually to be discovered and
sold at fabulous prices to collectors.
'It is not so strange" went on the coin
enthusiast, that this dollar should nave
been found in New Haven, Conn, for, II
genuine, this is the second 1904 dollar the
little City of the Elms has unearthed The
most perfect 1904 dollar known Ia in the
possession of a coin and stamp company
of New York, and occupies a place Of
honor next to the widows mite once
owned by Henry Ward Beecher, and
given by him to DR.. Funk, of the pub
fishing house of Funk Sc Wagnalls.
This 1904 dollar was found in an old
pewter rim, in the home Of an old lady
who lived at Savin Rock. q suburb of
New Haven. She only recalled. that her
father. a whaling captain sailing from
The Thimbles and Sachem's Head, Just
east of the college city, the former
popuIarly believed to have been the island
home of Capt Kidd, had given 1t to her.
telling her that his uncle, a bo,suf's
mate, who had shipped under Commodore
Perry in foreign seas. had brought II
home to him. The coin brought the
white-haired little lady something over
s2.ooe. One by one. here and there, 1894
dollars have been picked up. until prob.
ably a dozen genuine ones are known to
exist.
'But that does not prevent probably
several hundred ardent coin collectors
throughout the country from proudly ex-
hibiting what they firmly believe to be
genuine 1901 dollars. but they are spuri-
ous, for the coin has been sevsral times