And the nickel sold for............?

I love tokens. I'm going to trade my Brasher
for For Ford's NY Theater token. :devil:

 

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You are both right. Both Mint Directors Snowden and Linderman were responsible for restrikes, and fantasy patterns being produced either for sale or to be used as trading material to acquire items for the Mint Collection. Snowden even petitioned the Sec of the Treasury for permission do do so officially. He saw the commercial potential from requests coming in asking for patterns and rare dates etc which he mentioned in a letter to the Sec that "in every case specimens had been struck of to satisfy the request". He proposed that these restrikes could be sold to benefit the Mint rather than the collectors. Permission was not forthcoming but Snowden did not let that stop him.

Later in the late 1850's and early 1860's there was another scandal. This time it was a low level employee of the Mint (Adam Eckfeldtif I remember the name correctly.) who was traveling around to dealers and collectors offering for sale rare date coins and patterns IN ROLL QUANTITY! Included in his inventory were plain edge 1804 dollars. The Mint had to run around and buy back as much as they could. and Snowden had to order all the old dies boxed up to keep them out of others hands.

Next came Linderman who also did some restriking including probably the lettering of the edges of those plain edge 1804 dollars. Once again when complaints came in he finally had to order all of the old dies to be destroyed, "after a few pieces were struck off from each". Linderman handled the disposal of his delicacies through a pet Philadelphia dealer, William Idler.

Both Snowden and Linderman provided "opinions of authenticity" for 1804 dollars stating that they were genuine coins struck in the year 1804, even that they had been involved with their production decades after that date.

Suggested reading US Mint and Coinage by Taxay, the chapter "A workshop for their own gain"

 

That's first class info Condor. Thankyou! very
much.

 

Dad was a stamp collector, something I didn't have any interest in...but I recall a similar story he told about FDR's Postmaster General, a Mr. Farley I think. FDR was a hi-caliber philatelist and between these two fellows changed forever the frequency, number and (some would say) quality of US Commemorative issues. Hanky-Panky will always (does NOW) exist in these matters...those that can, do; Absolute Power Corrupts Absolutely.

 

Wow. I started some interesting discussions here. Thank you for your impute Condor. When I intern at HA, I hope to learn as much as you.