拥有者评论
Overton 119, R.3 Pointed 6, Stem. Q. David Bowers' book, "Lost and Found, Coin Hoards and Treasures" is an amazing volume, well worth your time. In the chapter devoted to The Economite Hoard, he writes of a significant stockpile of eleven boxes of silver coins, with a face value of $75,000, consisting mostly of half dollars, stored in three brick vaults some time around 1836 by a celibate Christian community, perhaps cult, known as The Harmony Society. Specimens from the hoard were later documented - dated 1794 to 1836. Stored inside the damp, basement vaults were 400 quarter dollars, 116,000 half dollars, and over 3,000 silver dollars. The ensuing four decades of exposure to the moist humidity in the vaults led to the darkening of the silver. With that in mind, I believe some of my cherished, darker specimens, including this one, may share in this common historic context. The many thousands of silver coins were dispersed to collectors and dealers soon after the vaults were emptied in 1878. A great fraction of The Economite Hoard was sold at a small premium, to numismatist, Captain John W. Hazeltine. He in turn catalogued and published in 1881, his type table, differentiating many newly discovered half dollar varieties; mine is common. I am fortunate to have acquired via eBay, a 1927 reprint (by numismatist Max Mehl) of the original 1881 Hazeltine Type Table Catalog of quarter dollars, half dollars, and silver dollars.