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Videos of the 2020 Newman Numismatic Portal Symposium presentations are now available at https://nnp.wustl.edu/library/multimediadetail/539070. This event was held via Zoom, August 28-30, and includes forty-one sessions.

While the National Archives remains inaccessible to researchers, Newman Portal continues creating transcriptions of previously scanned material. Recently processed is an 1893 letter from the Superintendent of the U.S. Assay Office in New York City, Andrew Mason, requesting that Philadelphia Mint Superintendent Oliver C. Bosbyshell supply a medal of the Assay Commission for that year. The “ask” was made on behalf of collector Harlan P. Smith of New York City, whose cabinet was featured by the Chapman’s in a 1906 sale. The Assay Commission medals were struck in low quantities (not all mintages are recorded, but 40-50 pieces is typical) and do not appear on U.S. Mint fixed price lists of the era. Did Smith get his medal? Quite likely so. His 1906 auction sale catalog  included an extensive run of Assay Commission medals, including an 1893 silver example (lot 1664, AC-37) housed in a “morocco case.” Smith’s Assay Commission medals turned out to be a tough sell, with the Chapman’s buying-in most of the pieces, including the 1893 example at $2.60.

Link to U.S. Mint General Correspondence on Newman Portal: https://nnp.wustl.edu/library/archivedetail/515202
Link to Chapman auction sale catalogs on Newman Portal: https://nnp.wustl.edu/library/auctioncompanydetail/21
Link to U.S. Mint fixed price lists on Newman Portal: https://nnp.wustl.edu/library/publisherdetail/512757

A research query forwarded by Q. David Bowers pointed us toward the biography of Henry William de Saussure, the second director of the U.S. Mint, who had a short tenure in that position, July -October 1795. Written in 1841, the biography lends a charming anecdote regarding the Mint under de Saussure: 

“General Washington, whose habit was to see the heads of departments every week at his table, upon one of these occasions, expressed to the director of the mint his satisfaction at the activity which had been introduced into the silver coinage, and added, ‘I have long desired to see gold coined at the mint but your predecessor found insuperable difficulties. I should be much gratified if it could be accomplished before I leave office.’ ‘I will try,’ was the reply ; and the director went to the mint, summoned the officers, ascertained the wants and difficulties of each department, and by great diligence, speedily removed all obstacles. In six weeks he carried to the President a handful of gold eagles, and received his thanks and approbation.” 

Breen’s Encyclopedia gives a coining period of July 31 to September 16, 1795, for the first half eagles and further states that the half eagle dies were in production while David Rittenhouse was still Mint Director. A $5 gold piece from the Yale University collection, said to have been the first struck and reputedly owned by Martha Washington, was stolen in the 1960s, along with a Brasher doubloon and other pieces, and never recovered. The piece is alluded to in correspondence from Dick Picker to Eric Newman, May 1, 1962, after Yale curator Ted Buttrey exhibited the piece at the New York Numismatic Club. Buttrey commented to Len Augsburger via email on June 17, 2017, “The $5 gold, like the Brasher, was part of the Yale collection which I curated. The collection was stolen after I left Yale in 1964. The Brasher showed up later, but there is no way to trace the $5.”

Link to Memoir of the life, character, and public services, of the late Hon. Henry Wm. De Saussure on Newman Portal: https://nnp.wustl.edu/library/book/589594

Link to Richard Picker correspondence on Newman Portal: https://nnp.wustl.edu/library/archivedetail/520539