The ice cream dime

[brandm24]

I suppose this could be considered an urban legend, but if not, interesting just the same.

In 1894 the San Francisco mint struck only 24 examples of the Barber Dime  Apparently, additional coinage for the 10 cent pieces wasn't necessary so the mint here didn't officially strike any. The reason why a small number were eventually struck is unclear. The long accepted story...perhaps, not now though..is that mint director John Daggett had then made and distributed to prominent bankers of the city as souvenirs. After giving three specimens each to them, he gave his daughter, Hallie, three telling her to save them because they'd be valuable some day.

Hallie, being the young child that she was spent one of the dimes for ice cream on her way home. And so the legend of the ice cream dime was born. Unfortunately, this fanciful story was the product of American researcher and writer Walter Breen. While Breen was a highly accompolished and respected numismatist, he was known to shade the truth at times. This is one of them.

In later years researchers with a lot more patience than I have traced the coins journey's. While there conclusions were sometimes at odds with each others, the legend of the ice cream dime is apparently untrue.

In any case, when all is said and done the 1894-S dime is one of the great rarities of American numismatics. Only nine examples survive today, seven uncirculated and two heavily worn pieces. Recent auctions have fetched upwards to two million dollar hammer prices.

An interesting sidelight to the story is that of a worn example found in a junk box in the 1950's at Gimbel's Department Store in Philadelphia...they had a coin department then. It sold for $2.40. Apparently, neither the buyer or seller knew what they had, or if the buyer did it's the best cherry pick of all time. I even missed that one. I well remember going into Gimbels with my father as a child in the 1950's. He was a coin collector and the one who got me interested in the hobby. I wish he had asked to see their junk box.

Bruce

[Figleaf]

Only a coin collector could find a connection between a gruesome murder story and a child buying an ice cream story. Well done Bruce!

Among the other things apparent in this story as that US collectors collect differently. Also, this coin is accepted as a coin. As Aretha Franklin put it: It ain't necessarily so.

Collecting by date seems to be a US collector of modern coins thing. You do see the same thing in East Asia, but that may be US influence. European collectors tend to go by type. Both approaches and others are valid, of course, but I wonder how this cultural difference came about. Perhaps European collectors tend to go back longer in time, where a "by date" approach is increasingly useless? Or perhaps European collectors tend to collect their own country plus classical coins and collecting classical coins by date is weird? Or perhaps US collectors are hindered by US coin types tending to roll past and over each other like the last peas in a tin can, while royalty produces neat series? Whatever the case may be, when you choose to collect by date, your punishment is that there will often be dates outside your budget.

Even more remarkable is that this type/date/mint combination is considered a coin. The original story has the director of the mint ordering them up. As if coin dies are free! The story goes on to say that the 24 coins were distributed to 7 bankers and ... uhhh ...  the director's daughter*. If that story is true, we have a non-existing coin type made at the request of a person who did not have the right to request it, whether it was the director, the bankers or the director following through on a brag and a challenge from the bankers. That's not how coins come into being.

Of course, it can happen when controls are loose. In Russia, there is a whole class of coins with non-existing dates made at the mint for rich collectors who wanted to plug "holes" in their collection. They are known as "novodels" and they are not considered coins. Yet, nothing is ever simple. The Northumberland shilling was made for a private person and is considered a coin, but thousands were struck, not 24.

Peter


* I can very well imagine a white lie that amounts to something like "no, I didn't profit; my daughter did", followed by "I lost one, nonono, I mean my daughter lost one to buy an expensive ice cream".

[brandm24]

I suppose if you look at it as not being an "official" issue then it's not really a coin, but a presentation piece. It could even be considered a medal. Unlike putting lipstick on a pig. It's always going to be a pig no matter how you dress the critter up.

The same holds true for the 1913 Liberty Head nickel and 1804 silver dollar. The nickels were struck for nefarious reasons so was far from being official. I've always said that I would never buy such a piece assuming I had deep pockets and could afford one. My pockets are rather shallow...not even deep enough to keep my hands warm in the winter, so the argument is academic.

I also have little interest in "perfect" coins...uncirculated, shiny things that never did their job. They were meant to circulate and do what coins were designed to do. I like to see the battle scars that tell me they were useful and passed around by many, many people. They can tell stories that I'm interested in hearing.

You're right, American collectors often collect by date. Not my cup of tea either, but to each their own. I think this is one reason that I got away from collecting coins and concentrated on counterstamps and tokens. The interest level is so much higher. We oddball counterstamp guys don't much care about the type or date of the coin. The story they tell is of the utmost interest. Well, within reason of course. If I ever come across an ice cream dime with a counterstamp on it I'd pay 20 or 30 bucks for it, even if the counterstamp said "BOO! 

Bruce

[Figleaf]

My reasoning is very similar, Bruce. I like to go for the story and the story goes beyond the coin, but let everyone find their own path. My escape hatch is tokens.

Peter

[Prosit]

I think it comes from most Americans being somewhat isolated from the world and lack of exposure. Sure the rich have always traveled but not the majority poor. My Mom who was interested in coins might have seen 5 or 6 non-US coins in her life. Those would have been Canadian of Mexican. In Europe you can have 5 different countries in a short distance. No so here.

When I was a young man I was a typical American coin collector. I was a member of a coin club of maybe 50 people and one collected world coins. Everyone thought he was peculiar or odd. I didn't consider non-US coins as real money. I couldn't spend it so it wasn't real. Everyone I knew felt the same. Beside we never saw any foreign money except the collectors that looked through the coin dealer's junk box.

When I started collecting coins, if I collected US coins by type and collected the ones I could afford my entire collection would have been under 50 coins and that is the end of that hobby. Might have taken me a couple years.

So if you wanted to collect coins and you collected US and didn't want it to end in a couple years you collected by date and mint mark.

My interest in world coins happened over many years and was very haphazard how it came about. If a few events had happened just a little different I still wouldn't collect non-US coins.

[brandm24]

My reasoning is very similar, Bruce. I like to go for the story and the story goes beyond the coin, but let everyone find their own path. My escape hatch is tokens.

Peter

My escape hatch is numismatics in general. It allows me to forget other less pleasant things going on, at least for a short time. It's like going to a good movie. It involves you in someone else's story and allows reality to take a backseat. When I "wake up" I always feel better.

Bruce

[brandm24]

I think it comes from most Americans being somewhat isolated from the world and lack of exposure. Sure the rich have always traveled but not the majority poor. My Mom who was interested in coins might have seen 5 or 6 non-US coins in her life. Those would have been Canadian of Mexican. In Europe you can have 5 different countries in a short distance. No so here.

When I was a young man I was a typical American coin collector. I was a member of a coin club of maybe 50 people and one collected world coins. Everyone thought he was peculiar or odd. I didn't consider non-US coins as real money. I couldn't spend it so it wasn't real. Everyone I knew felt the same. Beside we never saw any foreign money except the collectors that looked through the coin dealer's junk box.

When I started collecting coins, if I collected US coins by type and collected the ones I could afford my entire collection would have been under 50 coins and that is the end of that hobby. Might have taken me a couple years.

So if you wanted to collect coins and you collected US and didn't want it to end in a couple years you collected by date and mint mark.

My interest in world coins happened over many years and was very haphazard how it came about. If a few events had happened just a little different I still wouldn't collect non-US coins.

I think your arguments are sound. I do find many more US collectors who've developed an interest in non-US coins in recent years, but when I go to large coin shows the number of dealers selling foreign coins is very small. An exception would be ancients, particularly Roman coins. There are a number of them and they draw a lot of interest from serious collectors of such material.

Collecting by date is common here, but type collectors and those who attempt to acquire complete sets of a particular series (Presidential dollars or state quarters for instance) are pretty common. The interest in sets was accelerated by the introduction of the state quarter program that saw the interest in collecting zoom, particularly by young people. Odd as it may sound, I don't consider that collecting by date but rather by state, president, or national park. I don't think the year the coin was issued is of much importance to anyone.

Bruce