FANTASTIC 1804 DOLLAR BOOK VARIANT Público Deposited
The E-Sylum: Volume 6, Number 25, June 20, 2003, Article 8
FANTASTIC 1804 DOLLAR BOOK VARIANT
On the COINS mailing list, Peter Gaspar (our first E-Sylum
subscriber) wrote: "I was asked to post to the whole list
the explanation for my comment at the end of a posting on
the 1804 dollar: "PS: There is a version of the Newman-
Bressett book that is as rare, if not as costly, as the 1804
silver dollar.""Production of the 1962 book was beginning just as David
Spink made his sensational presentation at that year's Detroit
ANA convention revealing the existence of the previously
unknown King of Siam presentation set containing what is
these days called an "original" striking of the 1804 dollar.
That revelation required a quick rewriting of part of the book,
and almost all of the copies already printed were destroyed.
Messrs. Newman and Bressett arranged for a few (perhaps
a dozen total) of the page proofs of the original edition to be
bound, and these look from the outside just like the normally
issued book. Cognoscenti still examine copies of the book
hoping to find a first version. I did a census of surviving
examples of the first version last year, but regrettably have
been too swamped to properly collate and publish the data.
That book is rare, one of the rarest American numismatic
books of the 20th century, but of course it commands only a
modest price on the occasions on which a first version copy
comes up for sale. Hence the teaser I included at the end of
my brief note."[I believe it was while visiting the library of P. Scott Rubin
that I first learned of the existence of this rare variant of the
Fantastic 1804 Dollar book. I later bought my own copy at
auction. I wrote an article for The Asylum about it a year or
two ago. -Editor]- 2003-06-20
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