Bowers and Merena will be offering Lot 3410 in their Baltimore Coin and Currency Auction next week. One item, possibly unique, is a 5 coin 1871 Standard Silver Pattern Proof Set.

Five-piece pattern proof sets of this type were distributed by the Mint to contemporary collectors. The number of such sets produced is unknown, but survivors are very rare with probably no more than six examples of each denomination known to exist. The specimens we offer here could represent an original set, inasmuch as the coins all trace their pedigree to the Harold P. Newlin and Garrett collections.

What is interesting, however, is that the coins were offered individually when Bowers and Ruddy conducted its first two installments of the Garrett Collection Sales in 1979 and 1980. Whether the coins comprise an original set or have been united to form an assembled set makes little difference–this lot represents what is almost certainly the only intact set of these pattern types in numismatic hands.

The obverse design of all examples is the same and features Chief Engraver James Barton Longacre’s Indian Princess motif with no stars around the borders. Liberty is seated left wearing a Native American headdress, her left hand resting atop a globe inscribed LIBERTY and her right hand supporting a liberty pole. Two flags are behind the portrait, and the date 1871 is below.

The reverse designs are identical with the exception of the denomination, which is centered within a wreath of corn and cotton. The word STANDARD is inscribed along the upper border. Struck in silver with either a reeded or plain edge. (more…)

By: Dennis Hengeveld - Republished with Permission from the Author

Gobrecht Dollars. They have fascinated both collectors and researchers since they were minted, first in 1836, and for the last somewhere in the 1870’s as re-strikes. And collectors love them. On the obverse, the coin design shows Miss Liberty, seated on a rock and with here right hand holding a shield. Sometimes there are stars around Miss Liberty, sometimes not. On the reverse, there is an eagle, flying onward in different positions, sometimes up and sometimes level. Here also, sometimes there are stars around the eagle, sometimes not.

The above text sounds a bit confusing, but that is also the case with the Gobrecht dollars. The originals are already confusing when you want to find out when they were minted, and how much. Because only very few were minted (always less than 1000 if you take die alignments in account) die cracks and the like are very rare, and you have to find other ways to find it out. Then there are the second originals, sometimes already designated as re-strikes. And after that the real re-strikes were made trough the early 1870’s.

The designer, Christian Gobrecht was of German ancestry, and was born in Pennsylvania in 1785, and early in his life he showed an interest and talent for artistic and engraving work. He perfected his talent when he worked for a clockmaker at the usual tender age by putting his engraving skills in ornamental designs put on watches. In 1811, he moved to Philadelphia, and after that he soon began to work for a bank-note firm. As early as 1816 his name was well known in engraving circles and he seems to have begun his die engraving work about this time, although there are no signed medals until the mid-1820s. When the mint’s engraver Robert Scot died in November 1823, Gobrecht was already well enough known to become a temporary replacement. Unfortunately for him, he was turned down in favour of William Kneass, who had better connections (which was very important at that time). The chief engraver received a salary of $1200 per annum (year) and Gobrecht thought even this amount was barely acceptable. Despite losing the top prize and turning down the assistantship, Gobrecht maintained a connection with the Mint in several ways. Not only did he make letter and figure punches for the engraving department, in 1825 he executed some fine Liberty heads (which again for him) unfortunately were not used on the coinage.

In mid June 1835, Gobrecht was hired has the second engraver of the mint. He was needed for this because during the 1834-1835 winter, Congress was debating that there were three more mints (Charlotte, Dahlonega and New Orleans) needed. In March 1835 the legislators decreed, and the president accepted it. Gobrecht would receive $1500 annually, and the first engraver William Kneass would receive an increase to the same amount.

In late August 1835 the director (Dr. Robert Maskell Patterson at that time) wrote the Treasury for emergency authority to hire Gobrecht because first engraver Kneass suffered a severe stroke, which incapacitated him for some months and after that he was never able to do detailed engraving work again and this the permission was granted in short order. (more…)

By Tom DeLorey

The most interesting field in American numismatics is, in my humble opinion, the broad spectrum of proposed designs, experimental alloys and finished or unfinished die trial pieces collectively known as Patterns. Some of these pieces are much more beautiful than the predictably uninspired work the U.S. Mint is producing today, while others recollect bold new ideas of form and function that a timid Treasury was afraid to adopt for fear of change and the reaction to it.

Just yesterday I held a specimen of an 1877 pattern half dollar in silver, Judd-1528, with a crested helmet that rivals in beauty the Athenian “new style” tetradrachms of two millennia before, brought up to date with a defiant American eagle engraved upon the side of the helmet. The reverse of the piece bears a Heraldic Eagle design as traditional as that of the $2-1/2 gold piece of 1796 and as up to date as the American Eagle silver dollar currently being produced.

Some people consider the first U.S. pattern to be the 1776 Continental Dollar struck in silver and/or in brass, the pewter version being the regular issue for the denomination. Unfortunately, nobody knows for sure what metal the Continental Congress actually intended to be the ultimate composition of this first U.S. dollar coin, and so many pattern specialists refuse to recognize any version of it as an actual trial piece.

The 1783 Nova Constellatio patterns engraved by Benjamin Dudley for Gouverneur Morris, assistant to the Superintendent of Finance for the American Confederation Robert Morris, have an equally valid claim to the title of the first U.S. patterns. Though the silver 1000, 500 and 100 units pieces and the unique copper 5 units coin were never authorized by the Continental Congress, Dudley had been placed on the government payroll to prepare a Mint in Philadelphia and is believed to have been paid for preparing the pattern dies.

Theodore Roosevelt wrote of Morris in 1888: “Gouverneur Morris was the founder of our national coinage.” His undenominated Nova Constellatio coppers circulated widely in the newly independent nation, and are generally collected as early American coins. A complete set of the Nova Constellatio patterns is currently being offered for sale by Stack’s in the neighborhood of $3,000,000.

The first universally recognized U.S. patterns are the various 1792 cents, half dismes, dismes and quarter dollars struck after the U.S. Mint was authorized but before it actually opened in 1793. The cents are extremely interesting for an experiment whereby a small plug of silver was placed inside a ring of copper to create a piece which had the intrinsic value of one cent without the weight of a cent’s worth of copper. (more…)