DISCOVERY OF JOSEPH J. MICKLEY'S 1852 DIARY Público Deposited
The E-Sylum: Volume 5, Number 18, April 28, 2002, Article 6
DISCOVERY OF JOSEPH J. MICKLEY'S 1852 DIARY
Joel Orosz writes: "In 1980, George Frederick Kolbe
excited numismatic bibliophiles by announcing he had found
Joseph Mickley's diary, covering a span from August 1866
to June 1869. William Dubois had written in 1871 that
Mickley kept a journal for most of his adult life. Clearly there
had been other volumes of the Mickley diary, but had they
survived?During the 2000 ANA Anniversary Convention in
Philadelphia, I spent a couple of days at the Historical
Society of Pennsylvania, in search of numismatic source
material. I had last been there in 1983, doing research for
my dissertation; during that visit, I found materials on Pierre
Eugene Du Simitiere that I used for my first numismatic book,
The Eagle That Is Forgotten. A few hours spent with the
Society's old-fashioned card catalogue yielded some
interesting tidbits, but I hit the jackpot when I looked up
Joseph J. Mickley, and discovered that, under catalogue
# AM1039, the Society owned the great collector's diary
for 1852.The diary contains nothing that will change the course of
numismatic history, but it does add a couple of names to the
list of people who owned silver center cents (James Hall and
Jacob Giles Morris), asserts that Christian Gobrecht, not
James Kneass, designed the obverse of the 1838 pattern
half (Pollock 77), and it sheds some light on Mickley's
collecting habits and compatriots.I used some information from the diary in the article I wrote
for the current issue of The Numismatist, "Jacob Giles Morris,
Patrician Pioneer of Coin Collecting," and I will be sharing
an annotated version of the diary with fellow numismatists in
the future. The next number of The American Journal of
Numismatics will contain an article I have written containing
a transcription of every numismatic reference from the diary
and an explanatory annotation for most of the entries. This
experience makes me wonder -- how many other volumes of
Mickley's diaries may be safely tucked away in archives and
historical societies just waiting to be found? "[Joel's article is a must-read for all students of American
numismatics and anyone with an interest in history. One
word: Wow! -Editor]- 2002-04-28
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