Antique Mall Draped Bust Dollar Pickup. The wife, baby, and myself spend my day off yesterday going to a couple of antique malls. Later in the afternoon as we were on our way out of the mall I see a case full of coins and I walk over. I see this coin sitting in the case with a $900 sticker on it and then I look up and see that this dealer is having a %25 off sale. I know from dealing with these coins pretty frequently that there are collectors out there for countermarked stuff not to mention that without these countermarks this coin is worth a little north of $4,000 being a no problem XF (minus the countermarks of course). I would have to assume that even with the merchant countermarks this piece is worth between $1,000 and $2,000 to the right collector and the the right countermark collector possibly more. I did a little homework on the countermark and while there are about 20 different "Taylor" related countermarks this one does not show up in the references... which is really no big deal because the reference makes sure to note that it is by no means a complete listing. The old "good" ANACS holder was also another plus for me. Anyways I ended up getting it at a little north of $700 and was very pleased to bring it back to the shop. This just goes to show that stuff like this can still be found.
That would be awesome if there was any connection to Zachary Taylor, he did have a son named Robert, could it be from his son?
Unfortunately we will probably never know who this person was or why they decided to put their name on this coin. Most likely it was a merchant trying to do a little free advertising... but we will probably never know.
Nice find for an antique mall! In my experience antique mall coin sellers usually have hugely overpriced,cleaned,polished and overgraded coins. I have found some good deals in booths where sellers sell things other than coins however. I've picked up foreign silver coins,both loose and made into jewlery and Franklin Mint sterling coins for well below melt.
Every other coin in this particular dealers case was really really overpriced... at least double what it should have been. I just don't think this guy had any idea how to price this coin. If this coin had a big gouge or a plugged hole... I can see it being priced as such... this being a countermark is something completely different... at least to me.
Wouldn't be his son (Whose name was Richard), notice the counterstamp is for R Taylor Jr. And if it was for his grandson (his grandson WAS named R Taylor Jr) I think that would be a little late for stamping on a 1798 dollar especially since R Taylor Jr would have only been about 12 years old when he died during the Civil War.
Beautiful find Matt! I would have paid what you did for it, probably a lot more. You're right, a counterstamp collector would pay a nice premium for this piece. Two grand might be stretching it a bit, but $1,500 is a reasonable possibility. Counterstamps on these old Bust Dollars are rare, and it would sell easily to the right collector. I've seen this coin somewhere before on the internet, but don't remember when or where. I may have reported this to Brunk already (as I do for all new finds) so it should appear in his new addition when it comes out in the next year or two. I'll check my records to see if I did for sure, and if I didn't, I will now. Just a simple listing with him and Russ Rulau would guarantee a jump in value. Unfortunately, this one would be hard to attribute because of the common last name. I have a feeling this may be a personal "pocket piece" rather than an advertising stamp, because of the style of the lettering and the large denomination coin chosen. If it were meant to advertise a business, it would probably be punched on a large cent, half cent, or something similar. They were the workhorses of American coinage, and so more effective as an advertising medium. Congrats again, a great find! Bruce
For that price, you can't go wrong. It's a $5,000 coin if problem-free and looks AU to me. The reverse is weakly struck but the obverse detail is fantastic. Nice pick up.
