By GLENN COLLINS for the NYT

They didn’t exactly hire two guys with a truck to secretly move one of the world’s largest and most valuable coin collections over the weekend in Manhattan. But they did use five standard-issue moving vans.

No armored-car convoys. No helicopter gunships. No National Guard outriders flourishing automatic weapons. Just sweaty movers, in blue shirts with their names stitched at the front, schlepping 425 plastic packing crates that were filled with treasures trussed in humble bubble wrap and garden-variety vinyl packing tape.

Yes, the New York Police Department provided an escort, but during more than eight hours on Saturday, one of the great hoards of coins and currency on the planet, worth hundreds of millions of dollars, was utterly unalarmed as it was bumped through potholes, squeezed by double-parked cars and slowed by tunnel-bound traffic during the trip to its fortresslike new vault a mile to the north. In the end, the move did not become a caper movie.

“The idea was to make this as inconspicuous as possible,” said Ute Wartenberg Kagan, executive director of the American Numismatic Society. “It had to resemble a totally ordinary office move.”

The collection of 800,000 coins, bank notes, medals, commemorative badges, pins, historic advertising tokens, campaign buttons and other artifacts has been amassed during the 150-year existence of the nonprofit society.

It was transported from the society’s high-security headquarters at 96 Fulton Street, in the former Fidelity and Deposit Company building at the corner of William Street, to its future home, a secure $4 million vault and exhibition space 22 blocks away, on the 11th floor of One Hudson Square, at Varick and Canal Streets.

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(New Iberia, Louisiana) - A recent close examination of coins recovered a year ago from the 1846 Gulf of Mexico shipwreck of the SS New York has revealed some of the finest known Southern branch mint gold coins and a nearly complete set of Bust half dollars.

The New York was a side-wheel steamer that foundered during a hurricane about 60 miles off the coast of Cameron, Louisiana in 1846. Four New Iberia, Louisiana area residents found the 365-ton wooden hull ship in about 60 feet of water two years ago. The four, who call their recovery operation, “Gentlemen of Fortune,” are Gary and Reneè Hebert, Avery Munson and Craig DeRouen.

“We brought up the ship’s bell in the summer of 2006, staked a claim and obtained a federal court judgment granting us title to the site, then brought up several hundred coins from the underwater mud last year. We recently sent them to Numismatic Conservation Services and Numismatic Guaranty Corporation for certification,” said DeRouen.

“This is the most important group of Southern gold coins ever found on a treasure ship. There are some of the finest known Quarter Eagles and Half Eagles struck in Charlotte and Dahlonega, as well as examples of gold coins struck at the New Orleans Mint,” stated prominent numismatic researcher and author Q. David Bowers, co-chairman of Stack’s Rare Coins in New York City and Wolfeboro, New Hampshire.

“The recovered coins are worth more than $1 million,” said dealer John Albanese of Far Hills, New Jersey who recently appraised them.

“They include an 1845-D $2.50 graded NGC MS-64; 1844-D $5 graded NGC MS-63* prooflike; and an 1844-O $5 graded NGC MS-64. There’s also a nearly complete set of Capped Bust halves with over two dozen different dates including an 1815, and quite a few foreign gold coins as well,” said Albanese. (more…)

By Wesley Millett and Gerald White, authors of book “The Rebel and the Rose“.

In April 1865, the Civil War ended for most Americans. The war, and its various aspects, continues to capture the interest and imagination of many Americans who are fascinated by the battles, leaders, and strategy displayed during that conflict. Mysteries endure, too, including the ultimate disposition of the Confederate treasury.

Much of the mystery was engendered by Union officials, who greatly inflated the value of the Confederacy’s treasury to several million dollars. This was probably done to increase the incentive to Union soldiers combing the villages and roads of the Carolinas and Georgia for the treasury, and for Confederate President Jefferson Davis, who had fled Richmond. The actual value of the treasury was probably not much more than $500,000.

The trek south of the Confederate government has been well documented in a number of first hand accounts written several years after the war. The authors were primarily participants in the evacuation of Richmond and they included Confederate cabinet officials, army officers, and treasury employees. Many of the accounts were published in the papers of the Southern Historical Society, in an effort to dispel rumors that Davis took the money for himself and his family. One treasury clerk ? in particular, Micajah Clark ? provided a detailed accounting of the disposition of the funds.

An aspect of the treasure that Clark omitted concerned the fate of 39 kegs of Mexican silver dollars. These were coins that the Confederacy received through the sale of cotton to Mexico. The Mexican coins had been transported to Danville, Virginia, and when the Davis party was forced to move further south, primarily by wagon, the more than 9,000 pounds of silver would have considerably slowed down the procession. For this reason, the coins were almost certainly buried in Danville, and evidence suggests, they remain there today. Read Full Article Here

By Tom LaMarre, Coins Magazine

Large cents dated 1793 have attracted collectors for at least 150 years. They were the first coins struck by the new U.S. Mint in Philadelphia, a city with a population of about 40,000 at that time.

Nothing involving the first cents came easily. Finding a skilled engraver was a challenge. So was the acquisition of the copper needed to strike the coins. Many 1793 cents are found dark or corroded.

Coming up with the right design for the cent was also difficult. It was a hit-or-miss effort involving a lot of trial and error. Designed by Henry Voight, the earliest cents had an obverse depicting Liberty with windblown hair. One critic said she appeared to be “in fright.”

The reverse was equally controversial. Its circular chain of 15 links - one for each state at the time - was supposed to symbolize unity. But the chain’s association with slavery made it a poor choice for a cent which had the inscription “Liberty” on the obverse.

The letter punches used for the inscriptions on the cent were made by Jacob Bay. On the first cents, struck from Feb. 27 to March 12, 1793, “AMERICA” was abbreviated as “AMERI.” The next chain cent variety spelled it out in full.

Adam Eckfeldt soon redesigned the cent, replacing the chain with a wreath and strengthening the modeling of Liberty’s face and hair. Eckfeldt also added a three-leaf sprig above the date. But the revised cent was only in production a few months before it gave way to the more successful Liberty Cap cent. Its designer, Joseph Wright, died from yellow fever later the same year. He was one of 5,000 Philadelphia residents who died during the yellow fever epidemic that lasted from August to November 1793.
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In the upcoming Heritage Long Beach Signature Auction is a popular Conder token highly desired by collectors of American colonial coins. The New York Theater Penny Token, graded Proof 64 Brown by PCGS, is a 35mm token often referred to as a penny because of both its size and the lettering on its edge.

The late Walter Breen estimated 10-12 pieces known, but in February 1993 Don Scarinci presented a census of 13 pieces in the Colonial Newsletter. The legendary John J. Ford Collection had two of the 13 known examples of this early and extremely rare penny token.

In 1794, John Kleeberg demonstrated that this token was one of the so-called Conder series popular in Britain in the 1790’s. Made for collectors, this token is generally found in high grades, and most known pieces are proofs.

Peter Skidmore struck The Theatre at New York penny tokens in London from dies engraved by Benjamin Jacob, who issued several tokens including one for himself in 1798 where he was identified as an “AUCTIONEER, IRONMONGER & c” at Welsh Cross in Birmingham. That token and the New York Theatre token were made with hand-cut letters rather than punches. Jacob also did an entire series of halfpenny tokens depicting London churches and gates based on copperplate engravings. The use of the final S on the New York Theatre token may signify the possessive Jacob’s. (more…)