I got a catalogue from Ben's Stamp and Coin Co., in Chicago, when I was 12. I ordered quite a few coins from it, a few of which I still have, like the Roman bronze in the picture. (Constantine II) I sure wish I could order some from there again at these prices. It has coins, paper money (including colonial, fractional, confederate, etc.), medals, books, supplies, and lots of other goodies. Anybody else ever order from Ben's?
Pre-dates ZIP codes: check. I imagine a lot of the coins could still be had at those prices -- payable in silver coin circulating at the time the catalog was issued. (Maybe not; I spot-checked a couple, and they seem to have gone up by about 50%, given today's silver value.) If you walked into a coin shop today and said "I'd like to buy one of those VG Wreath cents for $145, but I'm on a budget", and put down just $100 in gold double eagles, I imagine the dealer would work with you. If you get your time machine built, don't forget -- folks from that era frown on coins struck in non-precious metal with dates from the future!
$40 in double eagles and $10 in eagles should do it. I remember paying $60 for a Saint $20 about that time.
Your best bet might be to target the mid-1850s or so, and arrive wearing a jacket full of pockets, each containing a bar of fine aluminum.
Wait a second - $4.50 for LIBERTY CAP large cents? Gimme, gimme, gimme! I need 'em fast. As a matter of fact, Ben's, if your spirit is listening today, load me up with as much as you can from this catalog. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I had no idea up until now that the triangle on the back of Liberty's hair was a cap and a pole. I actually thought it was part of Liberty's hair!
I never bought from the catalog but I was in that very store a few times as a kid (probably also around 12 years old). You could see the famous Chicago Picasso sculpture from my dad's 14th floor office, right around the corner from Ben's Stamp & Coin. I never would have remembered what LCS we used to go to, but looking up the address on the catalog jarred my memory. It was definitely this building (I remember the ornate entrance), and you can see the Picasso on the left. My dad's office was on the 14th floor down the block kitty-corner from the statue plaza. Thanks for the memories. I'm pretty sure these coins came from there. Yeah, those prices. $5 was a lot of money then though.
I've wondered, what is the symbolism of the cap being on a pole? A hundred years later with the Barber coins the cap is on her head. Yes, the pole/rod (vindicta) and the cap (pileus) were Roman symbols of liberty for freed slaves, but the freedom ceremony involved touching them with the rod and putting the cap on their head. So is she still waiting to be freed? Not that symbolism on US coins always made sense, like putting a male warrior bonnet on a female Caucasian "Native American" Liberty for the Indian Head cent.
The Cap and Pole design was taken from the Libertas America medal, which had the same design elements. This was after the wind blown appearance of the Lady Liberties that appeared on the Chain and Wreath Cents. This new Liberty had her hair arranged in a much more organized way. The other factor is grading. In the 1960s, there were no third party graders. Factors like cleaning might be ignored.
@Neal How was his grading? About the same time when my father was in New York, he stopped at one of the coin shops in a department store. He bought me 6 different large cents that the shop said were graded vf/vf+. Paid $20. By today's standards they wouldn't grade vg/f. Still have them. Dad passed away 10 years.
I don't know what years you're speaking of, but many Baby Boomers grew up in just such a grading world. It wasn't until Brown & Dunn [1958] and Photograde [1970] that the collecting public had a widely-recognized basis for even an argument about a coin's grade, and we're still only talking circulated coins. The opinions about uncirculated, cleaned coins, preservation, handling, and storage were even more divergent. In many ways, we Gen-Xers are the witnesses to modern coin collecting. Everything before was the Wild West It's been quite a ride.
Somewhere I have a few really old mail order catalog. I recall a 1955 DD being about $55 USD in one catalog, if I recall correctly.
My father bought these in either 1968 or 69. While there may have been guides galore most dealers used their own grading standards. The grades were printed on the stapled 2 x 2 s.
It's been many years, so my memory is fuzzy on the grading, and I was new at collecting, so my grading skills would not have been great. But the coins I can remember seem properly graded, as best I could tell from comparing them to the Red Book descriptions. I bought an 1803 half cent graded VF, and I believe it was VF. I sold most of those when I was in college back in 1970. Wish I hadn't.
