"The Quarrelsome Dr. Prince": "Dr. Will J. Prince" engraving on 1883 Liberty nickel

"The Quarrelsome Dr. Prince": "Dr. Will J. Prince" engraving on 1883 Liberty nickel



Larger obverse picture
Larger reverse picture

Host coin: 1883 USA Liberty nickel, reverse subtype indeterminable.
Obverse: original Liberty head design, unaltered.
Reverse: "Dr. Will J. Prince" in script lettering arranged in circular array.

Ex- "acsb-rich", eBay, 11/25/2015.

While the lettering on this piece was done well enough, the engraving lacks any pictorial elements or particular pizzazz otherwise. Though a Liberty nickel host coin is slightly less common, they're not terribly difficult to find. Coupled with the rather stiff pricetag this had when I saw it, those factors would have normally made me move on and not buy this.

However, it had a mostly full name on it, so I thought I would see if I could track down this Dr. Will J. Prince. And I did! So I made a counteroffer, negotiated a bit with the seller , and ended up happily buying it.

My initial web searching brought up the obituary of a Dr. William J. Prince from Oklahoma (1930-2012), and others, but they were all too modern to have been the onetime owner of this coin.

Searching "Dr. Will J. Prince", however (with the abbreviated first name), I found a Dr. Will(iam) J. Prince of Piqua, Ohio (1861-1919), who was the son of another doctor by the same name. He seems to fit the time period of this love token. Is he really our man? We'll never know for sure, but I'd say there's a pretty good chance he is.

The most interesting thing about Dr. William J. Prince (II) were some of the old newspaper articles I found. He was obviously a prominent man in his community and perhaps known on the state and national level as well.

But by far the most colorful article I found was a 1904 newspaper account of a physical altercation he engaged in at City Hall with a councilman, while he was serving as president of the Board of Public Safety. (Public? Yes. Safety? Maybe not so much!) But he does seem to have come out on top in the fisticuffs!




Source link
Here is another article, this time from 1913.

It seems our good doctor had his share of friction, but perhaps that was inevitable in politics. The article linked to above is also from the Piqua, Ohio Daily Call, but the Cincinnati papers ran some articles at the time, too.

Then again, I'm not so sure the 1913 article isn't about his son, William J. Prince III. I think he (III) was a doctor as well, and the subject of this article was a nominee for Postmaster. I think I saw somewhere in W.J.P. III's obituary that he had served as a postmaster. So the 1913 article could be about the son (III) rather than the father (II). I think the father is the man who owned the love token coin above, though.

Here is Dr. Prince (II)'s 1909 biographical entry, transcribed on an Ohio historical society website.
Here is his memorial on findagrave.com, which has more family information.

Lastly, his grave marker, courtesy of researcher Jenny Brown on findagrave.com.



Though now sold, this was once part of my "Oddball Set" of exonumia.

 

Thanks, John.

 

I have no idea why the picture of his gravestone um... died. Oh, well. It was just a simple rectangular stone marker with his name and birth and death dates. No exciting epitaph like, "He once knocked Councilman James Marshal on his butt" or anything like that. Darn.