Another Quack Token. Baron Spolasco immortalised by Walt Whitman.

After researching “Professor” Thomas Holloway I discovered John William Smith a.k.a “Baron Spolosco”. He was not successful as Thomas Holloway was and died nearly destitute in New York City , USA.

I bought a beautiful Farthing token. I believe that when it was minted you couldn’t have read it indoors. This is because Spolosco was a total narcissist and wanted to put on his coin as much he could and the legend is tiny. I had to use a magnifying glass to read it. I guess the “Baron” was not concerned as he knew what was there!

Here are the coin details;






Baron Spolasco Unofficial South Wales Swansea Farthing 1838

Æ farthing.

Obverse: THE BARON SPOLASCO M: &c THE REAL FRIEND OF THE AFFLICTED around his facing bust within inner circle.

Reverse: JANʸ 22ᴰ 1838 / THIS / EMINENT / PHYSICIAN'S / 5,000. RECENT / ASTOUNDING CURES / AND HIS NARRATIVE / OF THE KILLARNEY / IMMORTALIZE / HIS NAME - SWANSEA Sth WALES.

In eleven lines, first and last curved.

Ref: Batty 1073. Condition: EF with much lustre remaining.

22.6mm in diameter and weighs 3.9g. Edge is reeded.

From University of Pittsburgh:
Baron Spolasco (ca. 1800-ca.1858) was a notorious quack. While practicing medicine in Ireland, he was also known as John Williams and John Smith. He was a passenger in a shipwreck in 1838, about which he advertised his heroism. He subsequently practiced in Wales, London, and, beginning in about 1850, in New York. He was satirized by Walt Whitman.

His story is fantastic.

He stared life as plain John William Smith who morphed into Dr John William Smith in 1836 in Limerick Ireland and then created a new persona as “Baron Spolosco” in 1836. He left Ireland and was shipwrecked on the way surviving for three days in a storm on a rocky outcrop eventually being saved by an early version of a Breeches Buoy. He spent several years in Swansea, Wales which was a boom town known as Copper Bay as it was the centre of the World's copper refining, so he had an ample audience for his work which would probably be described as delusional today!

His modus operandum was amazing. He would advertise that he was arriving in town to cure the uncurable weeks in advance and turn up on the day driven with a four-horse carriage and two attractive “nymphs” driven by a “Moor”.

As soon as he arrived, he would then advertise how he had cured the incurable including the blind.

During his career he was arrested for manslaughter three times, spent time in a debtor’s prison and was shipwrecked losing a child but publishing his shipwreck experience in a flowery narrative that earned him many rich patrons. He clearly had “a way” with women and had at least seven children by issue.

He was no aristocrat but a complete fraudster who reckoned he could “regrow” noses, (many noses were lost in Victorian times through Cocaine and arsenic infused medicine abuse), make the blind see, and make the paralytic walk. He only just fell short of raising the dead.

How many people who minted coins were immortalised by Walt Whitman? The Baron was!

Walt Whitman described Spolasco in the Life Illustrated series of character sketches entitled “Street Yarn (1856). This is a short extract.

“Somebody in an open barouche, driving daintily. He looks like a doll: Is it alive? We’ll cross the street and get close to him. Did you see? Fantastic hat, turned clear over in the rim above the ears, blue coat and shiny brass buttons; patent leathers; short frilled shirt; gold specs; bright red cheeks, and singularly black eyebrows, moustache and imperial. ……

The Baron Spolasco with no end of medical diplomas from all sorts of universities across the ocean who cures everything immediately; you may consult him confidentially or by letter if you choose”

As I was waiting for the coin to turn up, I bought the pamphlet illustrated below which is 30+ pages and profusely illustrated and published by a fellow Welshman, Mike Trew. He has printed 200 copies and half have already gone to universities, and for less than $8 was my best and most interesting buy for a long time and I average about 250 book purchases a year. You can find it on eBay and is a real microcosm of the life and times of quack medicine. The author is erudite and committed to research and in my copy, he tipped in more information he had found on the Baron including a copy of a previously unpublished photograph of the Baron.
The coin to the left of the Baron is mine and not part of the cover illustration.



This is probably my shortest rabbit hole as the potential for such coins is limited although the potential for ephemera and artefacts in respect of quack medicine is limitless.

I’m back to coins and yesterday purchased “The first coins of the Americas by Peter Jones” which will be a nice compliment to my present interest in Spanish coins and the Potosi mint.

As a result of this book, I learnt about a memorial to Baron Spolasco that is on a wall in Swansea, my closest “modern” city, that I must have walked past a hundred times! I quantify “modern” because St Davids is only 20 miles away but only designated a city as it has a Cathedral which is named as it is the resting place of my namesake, St David. St Davids has less than 2000 inhabitants! St Davids is the smallest City in the UK and sometimes too busy for my liking.

 

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Very entertaining read! Thank you for posting.

 

To put the Baron's 5000 astounding cures into context, as recorded on this coin, as he adopted his persona in June 1836, assuming the coin was actually struck in January 1838 this represents , giving him the full benefit of working 7 days a week until January 18th when he left Ireland. This represents an average of 22 cures a day! Of course as he was shipwrecked on a rock for three days from January 19th he might have been curing survivors so that improves his statistics. He must have been busy.

 

Thank you @LakeEffect I like your dog emoji. He reminds me of Nipper.