THE COIN THAT CHANGED JIM MCGUIGAN'S LIFE
The E-Sylum (6/6/2021)
Book Content
THE COIN THAT CHANGED JIM MCGUIGAN'S LIFE
With permission we're publishing this excerpt from a nice article by dealer Jim McGuigan. Reproduced from the June 2021 issue of The Numismatist, official publication of the American Numismatic Association (money.org). Thanks!-Editor
Sometimes an event or encounter with another personcan have a significant impact onone's career path. This is thestory of how a coin purchase altered the direction of my life.
As a young boy growing up inPittsburgh, I was bitten by the collecting bug early in life. In additionto coins, I collected stamps, comicbooks, baseball cards and toy soldiers. I began acquiring coins whenI was about 10 years old. Like manybeginning collectors in this era, Istarted filling holes in Whitman folders with Lincoln cents my parents received in change. Later, myfather brought home a few rolls ofcents from the bank each week so Icould look for dates I was missing.I also expanded my collection toinclude other denominations-nickels, dimes, quarters, halfdollars and silver dollars.
I found it difficult to locatecertain dates (and mintmarks) inchange, so I started visiting localcoin shops. After buying a copy ofA Guide Book of United States Coins(the Red Book
) and learning howscarce and valuable many of thekey dates were in each denomination, I started saving my allowanceto purchase some of these coins.My interest in early U.S. coins wassparked in 1957 when I purchasedseveral half cents, including the1797 1 Above 1
and 1804 SpikedChin
varieties from AddisonSmith-a Pittsburgh dealer.
As a collector younger than Jim also growing up in Pittsburgh, I too found my way to the shop of Addison Smith. It was a sparse and colorless office on an upper floor of the Jenkins Arcade, an old-style shopping arcade (now demolished and the site of an office building). Smith wore a rumpled suit with suspenders and looked to be older than dirt. But he was quite nice to me and I bought a decent Large Cent for $20 and kept it for decades.-Editor
The Acquisition
Since local dealers did not havemany early coppers in stock, Istarted acquiring more pieces fromauctions. One that caught my attention was the June 1970 Stack'sJames C. Rawls sale, which had anumber of mid-grade half cents andlarge cents that I needed for mycollection. I was a successful mailbidder on six lots, including an 1808/7 Gilbert-1 half cent (Lot1123) for $100, graded Fine to VeryFine. I did not know the significance of this coin until I met RogerCohen at the ANA's 1973 BostonConvention and purchased a copyof his reference American Half Cents(1971).
I learned from the book thatmy 1808/7 half cent was the finest-known of the extremely rareCohen-1 die variety-a Rarity-8with only 1-3 examples known atthe time. Since this die varietywas not discovered by Cohen until1962, it was not listed in EbenezerGilbert's The United States HalfCents (1916), which had been thestandard reference on the seriesuntil Cohen's work was published.
See the complete article in The Numismatist - it's a great story. Jim decides to trade the coin for other pieces he would sell to raise money for his collection. He ended up making so much money he decided to become a fulltime coin dealer. That chance purchase had led to a whole new career for Jim. And many decades later he managed to reacquire that same coin.Congratulations!-Editor
