A glimpse at the 1940's coin business

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That is awesome. I feel we have lost tact and eloquence in today's modern business transactions. This would be quite the pedigree; if the mentioned coins were present. Thanks for posting.

 

That first letter is on a real old-time typewriter with no dedicated "1" key. Also, those are not cheap coins being mentioned. $125 in 1940 is just a little over $2100 in 2016 USD.

 

Thanks for sharing those. Some might want to argue that collecting is a bit more Wild West these days.

 

Thanks for posting those, Alan! The letter from France is particularly interesting because of the period. It seems that it wasn't too much later that the Nazis invaded France, and I'd be surprised if any correspondence, at all, could have left the country bound for the US.

Chris

 

They were francs, though, right? Anyone know what the exchange rate between USD and francs was back then? Based upon pm in coins, I am assuming the USD was more valuable of the two.

 

Good point. I don't know exactly how you could tell, since the letter doesn't even tell the type of coin beyond the ruler, and historical exchange rate data seems to be pretty obscure.

 

Google knows
http://www.historicalstatistics.org/Currencyconverter.html

189 French franc [1795-1960] in year 1940 could buy 3.664115686759573 gram gold. The price of 3.664115686759573 gram gold in year 1940 was 4.165409972841672 US dollar [1791-2015].

Not sure if that's correct, though. Maybe one of the CT old timers can confirm? ;-)

 

So 189 francs equaled 4.16 dollars, so roughly 45 francs to the dollar? Makes postage look a lot more appropriate.

 

"Now we are doing our best to pullup".......If they only knew what lay ahead.

A bit chilling.

 

Paris fell about one month later!

Those letters are great - real time capsules. Basically coins were sent "on approval" in those days. Most coins were not photographed, and buyers were ordering "blind." If you liked the coin you received, you sent payment; if not, you returned the coin. Some dealers continued to do this into the 1970s and 80s. None do it today, to my knowledge, because inexpensive digital photography has largely eliminated the need. We all get to see what we are ordering in advance. In 1940, the dealer/collector relationship required a lot more mutual trust.

 

That is fabulous! I collect old coin catalogues and many have some correspondence in them. All have insight into the coin business in the 1st half of the 20th century. I've got German coin auction catalogues for auctions in Germany in 1943 and '44. I wonder who attended these things while the Germans were retreating from Russia and being bombed around the clock.

 

Uncle Hermann........

 

Those are very cool, amazing that they were still running their business considering the times.

 

Interesting letters, and more so since I grew up about a mile away from the address in Cleveland Heights that the coins were sent to. Small world.

 

BTW - the Ohio address still exists.

 

wow, that's awesome! the second letter from was posted right at the beginning of the battle of britain as well, London would be bombed about two months after that letter was posted.

 

Very cool ... I love that kind of stuff (thanks for posting)

 

These are being offered in the next PAN auction.