BENJAMIN C. TRUE REVEALED 上市 Deposited
The E-Sylum: Volume 7, Number 18, May 2, 2004, Article 11
BENJAMIN C. TRUE REVEALED
David Gladfelter writes: "Concerning Benjamin C. True:
Groce & Wallace, The New-York Historical Society's
Dictionary of Artists in America, 1564-1860 (New Haven,
Yale University Press, 1957) has a brief listing for him
as an "engraver, seal engraver and die sinker" working in
Cincinnati, 1850-60. He is credited with the Wealth of the
South tokens of the 1860 Presidential campaign which are
listed in Fuld as Patriotic Civil War tokens as well as in
Sullivan as political medalets. See Melvin and George Fuld,
"The Wealth of the South Mulings," in 24 Numismatic
Scrapbook Mag. 1785 (Sept. 1958). One of the
"President's House" dies in that series is signed with his
initial T. Benjamin C. True may be a relative (son and
nephew) of the Troy, NY engravers Benjamin C. and
Daniel True, who produced some of the Hard Times
tokens of that city. See "Miscellany," 24 Numismatist 42
(Jan. 1913). This isn't much, but hope it helps."Alan Luedeking writes: "Regarding Andy Lustig and Saul
Teichman's request for info on the engraver Benjamin C. True,
I turned of course to L. Forrer's "Biographical Dictionary of
Medallists, Coin-, Gem-, and Seal-Engravers, Mint Masters,
&c." Here is a verbatim transcript of what can be found on
pages 145-146 of Volume VI:"TRUE, BENJAMIN C. and DANIEL (Amer.) There were
two Die-cutters in Troy named True, --- Benjamin C. and
Daniel ; judging by the appearance of their names in the
Directories, the first was the elder, but whether relatives or
not, I have not found. Benjamin C. was a "letter cutter,"
having a shop at 7 Beaver Street, and residence at 134
Lydius Street, as early as 1832 ; in 1834 he is called a
gunsmith, and in 1835 a die-cutter, at 7 Beaver Street,
"up-stairs"; in 1840 he added to his business as a die-cutter
that of a "military store keeper," --- perhaps making military
buttons --- and his store was in 88 North Market Street, if
the notes furnished me are correct. In 1842-4 he was in
business with J. Roseboom & Co., in Church and Division
Streets, but I have not been able to trace him further. Daniel
True was a die-cutter at 48 Union Street as early as 1837,
and continued to do business as such at various locations,
in time adding that of seal-engraving, until 1856, when he
seems to have been the senior partner in the firm of True &
Pilkington, and his address was "Bleecker Hall ;" in 1858 he
was at the same location, alone; in 1868, the same name, ---
presumably the same person --- appears as a die-cutter and
steel engraver, in Hudson Street, and afterwards at 396
Broadway until 1879. The work of this engraver (whether
Benjamin or Daniel is uncertain), as shown on the tokens, is
not of a very high order.A number of Tokens signed T are described in 'American
Journal of Numismatics,' 1899, p. 119. The above notes are
extracted from this paper."There is nothing further to be found in the Supplement to
Forrer's work, and I have not looked in the AJN as I don't
have it!"Dick Johnson writes: "To answer Rick D. Whisman about
Benjamin C. True, I have four pages on True in my
biographical databank of American Artists, Diesinkers,
Engravers, Medalists and Sculptors. Here is the first
paragraph:TRUE, Benjamin C. (fl 1832-79) Early American engraver,
diesinker, seal engraver, letter cutter; Albany, New York
(1823-38); Cincinnati (1849-1879). Listed in Albany first
as letter cutter (1823-33) then gunsmith, but left for
Cincinnati in 1849. His Albany business was carried on by
relative Daniel True (q.v.) [who Richard Kenney believed
to have been his brother].The next paragraph tells of his portraits of Lincoln,
Breckenridge, John Bell and Steven Douglas and his
stock reverse that he offered to anyone who wanted
his services. Then I list 20 campaign medals for which
he was most noted and 16 medals the dies of which I
can document he engraved. With each item listed here
are all citations to numismatic literature, appearance in
auction sales, and public collections containing that item.
(The ANS citations here are most useful, as it gives the
accession number where you can go on the ANS
website to find the full description of that item in their
massive catalog databank.)After this, I list 16 references on Benjamin True for
further research including biographical articles that Rick
will find useful in "The Numismatist" (December 1941)
and two references by Gladfelter in "Journal of the Civil
War Token Society" separated by eight years as he
corrected his data (1970 and 1978).I even mention that NBS president Pete Smith has included
True in his unpublished manuscript on private mints in North
America. I have attempted to include most of what has been
published (and some unpublished!) data on every American
coin and medal artist.I might mention the publication of this directory has been
delayed due to conversion of 118,309 lines on 3,356 artists
from the program in which I entered it, into some very
sophisticated software demanded by my publisher.However, for numismatists seeking data in the meantime,
please contact me. I will email a summary, but will not send
any text -- destined to be copyrighted -- on the internet.
If you wish more extensive listings (even full text) I would
mail this in hard copy for a small fee. Like four pages on
Benjamin True for $5.[It never ceases to amaze me what information E-Sylum
readers can come up with. Dick's email address is
dick.johnson at snet.net -Editor]- 2004-05-02
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