Montgomery County Coin Club

January 2002 Bulletin - Early Web Edition

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MCCC: A Collector's Club For the New Millennium

Next Meeting: Tuesday, January 8, 2002

December Meeting Report

• Mary Howard, wife of MCCC member Joe Howard
• Brian Bailey, a collector of US coins
• Marshall Robert, YN and son of Lt. Col. Leon Robert; Marshall collects Lincoln cents and German 10 pfennig pieces (of which he has a nearly complete set)
• Ken Glickman, who collects California fractional gold tokens and Kennedy halves
• Lore Rosenthal
• Henry Adler
• Bob Lande, the MCCC Guest Speaker this month

MCCC Officers for 2002

2002 MCCC Officers

• President: Jack Schadegg
• 1st Vice-President: Ed Russell
• 2nd Vice President: Don McKee
• Treasurer & Secretary: Simcha Kuritzky
• Sergeant at Arms: John Herman

2002 Board of Directors

• Rob Dorsey
• Tom Hall
• Andrew Luck
• Willy Massey
• Wayne Mitchell
• John Pylypec
• Kermit Smyth
• Kenneth E. Swab

Appointed/Volunteer Officials

• Librarian: Kermit Smyth
• Web Master/Reporter: Mark Zimmermann
• Historian: Tom Hall
• Greeter/Door Prize Master: Willy Massey
• Refreshment Management: Wm. 'Bill' Massey & Jonetta Russell
• Bulletin Hardcopy Editor: Jack Schadegg

Announcements

Librarian Kermit Smyth invited members to check out several new books acquired during the recent past: Q. David Bowers's American Coin Treasures and Hoards, plus volumes analyzing Love Tokens and Buffalo Nickels. A proposal has been made to acquire the Guide to Biblical Coins (fourth edition); please confer with Kermit for details. Willy Massey reminded everyone that donors of $5 or more toward the Library's purchase of The Encyclopedia of Modern Elongateds will receive a special "denomination set" of elongated US coins (including cent, nickel, dime, and quarter).

Door Prizes & Gold Raffle

• Swedish coin set --- six pieces from 1965, in denominations of 1, 2, 5, and 10 ore plus 1 and 2 kroner
• 1952 US Washington quarter
• five medals and coins, several of which were FAO (Food and Agriculture Organization) commemoratives, including a 1945-1975 anniversary piece from Thailand and other pieces from San Marino and Quebec

Door prize winners this month were Simcha Kuritzky, YN Marshall Robert, and YN Daniel McManus. The Gold Raffle was won by Andrew Luck, who before the drawing rubbed his ticket on YN Andy Luck's head. It worked! The Bison Chip this month went to Michael Dolnick. This is his first "leg" of the three needed to win the Bison Chip prize. Remember, you must be present when your name is called to win a Bison Chip.

Special YN-only door prizes were awarded to Young Numismatists Andy Luck, Nicky Luck, and Daniel McManus.

Congratulations to all!

Casing the Joint

• Herb Hall showed two numismatic Christmas items from the Isle of Man.
• Simcha Kuritzky exhibited chocolate candy replica Euro coins, including a 1 Euro design from Italy on a Leonardo da Vinci theme and an Austrian musical motif Euro. Simcha also announced that an article he wrote on the topic of oddly shaped coins has been published on the "heritagecoin.com" web site (presumably at http://www.heritagecoin.com). Simcha showed a diverse set of oval coins, holed coins, and coins with 4, 5, 6, ... , 22 sides. He reported that he is only missing a 9-sided coin. Finally, in recognition of the September 11 tragedy of three months ago, Simcha showed a 2001 Silver Eagle which had been modified to have a lithographed New York City skyline on the obverse and an American Flag on the reverse. Of the price of this piece, $7 goes to World Trade Center victim families.
• Leon Robert presented examples from his collection of insect motif coins, medals, and tokens. Leon has visited over 50 out of the 75 countries of the world which he knows have issued insect-theme coins. He also showed and discussed the catalog of a recent auction by a Belgian coin house of medals, tokens, and coins with bees and beehives, from the collection of Jean Nivaille.
• Jerry Grzenda displayed coins denominated in ECUs, the European Currency Unit which was proposed before the Euro was approved. Among the coins Jerry showed was an Irish 50 ECU gold piece. Jerry also exhibited a gold 1886 Masonic badge from Topeka Kansas, a Nixon medal dated November 1960, a poorly made counterfeit $10 bill from the Depression era and other counterfeit paper money. Jerry in addition shared coins from the Danish West Indies and discussed the history of those islands, which later became the US Virgin Islands. Finally, Jerry showed a souvenir dish from the 1851 Great Exhibition of London, the first World's Fair.
• John Pylypec told of his "recent adventures with counterfeit bills". He saw a counterfeit $100 which was quite convincing in some ways (it included a security thread and watermark) but was printed on poor quality paper and had only a crude version of reflective ink on the denomination. One week later, John reported, he learned of a counterfeit $50 which has been successfully spent at a local gas station; it was a two-sided photocopy effort, not as good as the counterfeit $100 he had seen earlier, and lacked a security thread. ("It looked like Monopoly money.") Finally, John noted that he found a 1995 double-die cent in change last week, after looking for one for years.

Refreshment Extravaganza

Bob Lande on California Fractional Gold

Territorial $50, $10, and $5 gold pieces now are rare and prestigious items, very expensive. Smaller denomination California gold pieces are both interesting and quite affordable. There are six basic varieties: $1, $0.50, and $0.25 tokens in both round and octagonal form.

But, Mr. Lande noted, California fractional gold "gets no respect" --- few reference books exist (the Breen & Gillio book is a couple of decades old) and few dealers handle these tokens. "Even the name is wrong!" Bob said, since technically the $1 tokens aren't fractional. "Clearly this is one of the overlooked stepchildren of numismatics," he suggested.

These gold pieces began to be issued in 1852. They generally contained about 90% of the face value amount in gold. (The difference was kept by the producer, to pay for making the token.) Gold tokens were much more accurate than the previous custom of making small purchases with pinches of gold dust. But these early coin substitutes tended to be "plain, crudely struck, and kind of ugly" in many cases; they featured simple designs and in some ways resembled Emergency Money issued in other circumstances of history.

Fractional California gold initially appeared during 1852-56. In 1854 the San Francisco Mint was established by the US Government. Its coinage began to circulate in quantity by about 1855-56. "Period I" California territorial gold (1852-56) was issued in many varieties; there are 143 known.

After a gap of a couple of years, in 1859 production of California fractional gold began again --- "Period II". Why? Bob Lande suggested that these pieces began to be issued for souvenirs and as jewelry, not for actual circulation. Period II tokens tend to have 40%-60% of their face value in actual gold content, significantly less than Period I tokens. There are six basic varieties of Period II items, and 425 total varieties currently known. From Period I the Professional Coin Grading Service (PCGS) has only encapsulated about 5,000 tokens; Period II certified coins number more like 13,000.

The Federal Government weighed in and declared that producing California fractional gold was "counterfeiting". So, after 1882 production again stopped --- sort of. Mr. Lande explained that in 1883 and later, "Period III" strikes often were backdated to "1852" or omitted the denomination of the piece. For example, they might say merely "1/2" instead of "1/2 DOLLAR". Period III tokens also were issued in a large variety of compositions, including gold-plated bronze and other non-precious metals.

Period III tokens cause a great deal of confusion. On Internet auctions (e.g., Ebay), Mr. Lande has observed countless such items for sale, grossly mislabeled, sometimes bringing as much as $50 to the seller. They are in most cases cheap souvenir pieces worth only $1-$2.

Bob Lande's collection only consists of Period I fractional gold tokens. These are not outrageously expensive, have a fascinating historical connection, and are extraordinarily challenging to acquire. Bob currently has 81 of the 143 catalogged varieties. Most of the 62 which he is missing have never appeared for sale in any place he has had access to. Even the most common Period I tokens have only about 300 examples certified.

The 1983 reference book on California fractional gold (Breen & Gillio) is excellent, but hard to find today; one went for $550 online not long ago. The "Red Book" is "surprisingly good" on this topic, Mr. Lande noted. It lists 52 major varieties. Bob described several possible collecting approaches, ranging from a minimalist set (6 coins, one of each shape in each denomination) up to a full quest for all 143 Period I and 425 Period II varieties. Bob recommended that new collectors stick to certified pieces, and that people avoid modern reproductions, which have virtually no resale market and no authoritative reference book.

For additional discussion and details, please see Bob Lande's article on California fractional gold which appeared in Coin World in June 2001. It includes price information for 50 major varieties.

Mr. Lande exhibited several choice specimens from his collection, and discussed their features. His friend Ken Glickman also displayed beautiful examples of Period II pieces from his collection, including Indian head and Washington head designs. The display also included two tiny non-US gold coins: a German 1/16 Ducat dating back to about 1700, and an Indian Fanam piece 200-300 years old.

In response to questions from the audience, Bob Lande told about the research he had done on the relative populations of circulated and uncirculated California fractional gold tokens. Bob has looked for contemporary press articles, police reports, or other documents concerning these pieces, and has only found a few items. He concluded that "There is very very scant evidence that these pieces circulated in California," at least in significant numbers. Bob's study of PCGS population reports suggests that perhaps twice as many Period I coins were used in commerce compared to Period II --- but he noted that the data are not strong, and that the story is complex.

Auction & Aftermath

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