Interesting article on the human failings of prominent numismatists.

Thanks to Sonorandesertrat for posting this article about Dr. Sheldon that was published in Coin Week.


See: https://coinweek.com/us-coins/confronting-sheldon/

 

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Great read. Best article I have seen that brings all of this together.

 

Thanks for the link. I had to chuckle at the citation from H.P. Lovecraft, another gifted but problematic writer from that same century.

 

Great article. Thanks for posting.

 

The user listed is now showing as banned on their profile page. Hm.

 

A very interesting read; thanks.

 

Banned four times replies:

That's because he called the anarchists destroying the country by inciting rioting "animals." The only comment given by one of the members who condones this behavior was "Wow." Then, the discussion about the effect of riots on coin shops was closed. Thus, another valued member +2 others were banned for EXPRESSING THE OBVIOUS! Perhaps he should have described the rioters using different terminology such as "uncivilized future numismatists."

Anyway, we should all keep in mind that coin forums are subject to rules and not a place for free speech on other topics.

 

The lack of 1815 cents was the result of the war of 1812, not the fire at the mint which occured in 1816 and shut down almost all silver and all gold coinage that year. The fire was in the rolling mill which destroyed the mints capability to roll strips and create planchets. Planchets for cents came in from England ready to coin so the rolling mill was not needed for them. Since the planchets came from England and the war did not end until late Feb 1815 planchets could not be ordered until then and did not arrive until late in the year. Rather than a small production of 1815 cents, production began in late december with 1816 dies of the new coronet cent.

 

Conder is correct about the reason for no 1815 cents. However, the cents coined in late 1815, if any, were certainly dated 1814 as were all of those coined in January and February of 1816. See The Numismatist, May, 2018 for a complete discussion.

 

My comment about Sheldon, et al., is that we stand on the shoulders of felons.

 

Yes, and thank goodness for their contributions to numismatics!

 

Yeah -- if we were given the choice of losing all that numismatic knowledge and undoing all of their criminal damage, it would be painful (although I'd like to think we'd do the right thing; knowledge discovered once can usually be discovered again).

But we don't have that choice. So, may as well be thankful that some good came out of them.

 

I think we can all agree that no one here is perfect. Thus, we are all flawed and some are just more flawed than the rest of us.

 

Very interesting article. As a historian of psychology in part of my academic career, I wrote an article for The Numismatist about Sheldon in 1995. I'm now motivated to look back and see what I said about him. I don't recall mentioning anything about Walter Breen, however.

 

Never ever trust anyone who pretends that sociology, sexology, criminology and psychology, etc are sciences. That is the first delusion-the rest follows from there.
Absolutely fascinating article all-the-same.

 

If you make a falsifiable hypothesis and then test it, you're doing science.

 

While not EXACT and still evolving, what would you call the study of each of them? AFAIK, much of "science" is not exact and still evolving.

My dictionary defines science as the study of the physical world. Aren't people part of the physical world?

 

Who would not say that tall thinner young people with good accents are more likely to be offered a job over small, lumpy, working-class,balding oldies like me. We all know the truth of various matters we don't need to pretend that framing a theory is clever stuff! Generally Sheldon was right but so were 1000's of others but couldn't be bothered to write the GENERAL bleedin' obvious.
The famous Sexologists were only trying to sort themselves out and to prey on the vulnerable under the guise of "research"-criminal conmen always instinctively know Psychology, Sociology without going to formal school and writing rubbish and the bleedin' obvious.
Please put my bachelor's, masters and PhD in the post!

 

glass houses

 

Thanks for the heads-up.
No, I don't get CoinWeek, nor do I
check that site -- but I *DID* devour
that article. I have a few FACTUAL
discrepancies to point out and I think
he should have gone beyond the REN
lawsuit and wrapped up on Breen too.

1) Under "Early American Cents the author
states that the lack of an 1815-dated cent
was due to a fire at the mint. copper blanks
were bought pre-cut and ready to be impressed
into cents and half cents. At that time the
sole source of these blanks was England, which
was unavailable due to our "War of 1812" with
England. The mint ran out of copper blanks
in October of 1814. Bob Julian's excellent
detective work published in the January 1995
issue of THE NUMISMATIST showed that there were
indeed cents struck and delivered late in 1815.
But these were from either on-hand dies dated
1814 or from newly-prepared dies dated 1816.
Bob Julian claims the latter, Bill Eckberg
makes a convincing case for the former. The
only 1815-dated US coins were a single die-pair
each of the quarter dollar, the half dollar,
and the very rare half eagle.

The afore-mentioned fire occurred in January
of 1816 and destroyed the mint's rolling mills,
so no silver or gold could be minted until they
were replaced in 1817. So the total US coinage
of 1816 was ONLY cents.

The REAL numismatic trick-question is "in what
year after 1792 were no US cents struck?". Since
there are no 1815-dated cents, that is the obvious
(but wrong) answer. The Director's report for 1823
states "there having been no copper coined during
the year" -- so all 1823-dated cents were made in
1824 or later, and "1823" is the correct answer.

2) Also under "Early American Cents" the author
states "No one undertook, let alone published, an
in-depth catalog of the entire large cent series
until William Herbert Sheldon, Ph.D., M.D. burst
over the numismatic horizon in 1947." In 1890
Francis Doughty did a valient (but failed) attempt
at this, and by 1947 every year (1793-1857) had
been published in detail -- but in eight or more
separate books, each covering one-to-a-few years.
Sheldon was the first to do a good job of bringing
all pre-1815 cents under a single cover.

3) under "The Sheldon Scale" the author
confuses "Grade" and "Rarity", which
are two independent items which he
states (and defines) one as the other.

4) In the next paragraph he says the
original (1949) Sheldon grading scale
was 1 to 70. WRONG! "Early American
Cents" defined and listed 1 to 60 (MS).
The '65' and '70' were added in "Penny
Whimsy" (1958) to try to account for
why some MS coins consistently brought
5% more (for superb specimens) to 10%
more for (for a FANTASTIC gem) than
for 'other' MS examples of the same
variety. He also added the 'premium'
multipliers for "among the best six"
and for "finest known example". But
even those weren't enough to make his
'calculation' of value (=selling price)
work. Grades as numerical items for
calculations (or 'measurements') are
simply a misleading error.

5) Under "PW and Walter Breen" the author
states that Breen's 'autobiography' in
PW is "a tissue of falsehoods". Such
a statement (though likely true) calls
for references or specific refutations
which are not given.

6) Under "Allegations of Theft" the author
states that Ted Naftzger noted discrepancies
in the descriptions of the TJ Clarke coins
and the coins bought from Sheldon. The stink
actually came from Del Bland's comparison of
the pictures taken by ANS on acquisition of
the Clapp coins and the actual coins in the
vaults of the ANS, not in TJC vs WHS. Then
there were the Noyes pictures of the Naftzger
collection (after Ted purchased the Sheldon
collection), which matched some of the ANS
'missing coins'. This was the 'smoking gun'.

Though the statute of limitation for the
'theft/swap' had passed, the LOCATION of
some swapped-out coins was now known for
the first time, which made the case 'live'.

7) ANS is in New York. REN is in California.
Had ANS filed suit it would have been in
New York. REN (in CA) sued ANS to get the
'home court' advantage. But since REN had
a progressing case of medically-proven
Altzheimer's, most of his later replies in
court were (truthfully) "I don't remember",
which was judged as evasive and strongly
influenced the verdict.

Also, near the end of the article, the author
talked about an ANA presentation in 1995, then
went on about "and later in 1993" -- oh REALLY?
Which (if either) of these dates is reality?

Other than the above points, the author has done
as SUPERB, WELL-RESEARCHED, and WELL-WRITTEN job.
Thank you GOBS for sharing this with me.