A Golden Collection, Part 2

Last month’s column looked at the pair of early 20th-century auctions that contained parts of the coin collection assembled by Augustus Humbert. His position as the United States assayer in San Francisco during the California Gold Rush afforded him a unique opportunity to gather pioneer gold coins directly from circulation when they were essentially new. As such, a provenance beginning with Humbert is among the most desirable pedigrees in the world of pioneer gold; however, the dispersal of these coins was somewhat complicated, making the identification of Humbert’s former coins a challenge.

Selling Humbert’s Collection

Humbert died in 1873. His coin collection passed to his brother, Pierre Humbert Sr., who died on May 15, 1901, at the age of 80 in New York City. Humbert’s heirs sold the coins to Captain Andrew C. Zabriskie, a wealthy New York real estate magnate and president of the American Numismatic Society. Zabriskie then consigned a group of coins from Humbert’s collection to the Chapman Brothers for inclusion in their May 2, 1902, sale. His consignment contained 20 pieces of pioneer gold, all of which appear to have been lower-grade duplicates of coins in Zabriskie’s collection. Days after the sale, the Chapmans reached out to Zabriskie for additional information about Humbert’s coins. He responded tersely, “I would say that I told your Mr. H. Chapman, Jr. before the sale all I knew about the Humbert coins.”

The following month, Zabriskie wrote to the Chapmans, confirming his receipt of settlement for the coins sold at auction. He then referenced their sale of two additional Kellogg $50s that had been part of Humbert’s collection, asking them to “furnish me with the price of these pieces less your commission.” The Chapmans responded to him on June 19, with an “unsigned type written” response. Upset, Zabriskie sent a note the following day, demanding the return of the balance of the collection “at once.”

On June 23, 1902, Zabriskie fired off a second angry letter to the Chapman Brothers:

Yours of the 19th instant is received. In my letter of the 16th instant I told you plainly to return any of the coins belonging to me now in your possession. I will not under any circumstances guarantee the pieces. You will on receipt of this return the coins at once.

Three days later, Zabriskie had still not received his coins and sent the Chapman brothers a final, ominous warning: “Unless these coins are sent immediately, I shall take such steps as I deem proper for my protection.”

The coins were returned without any further ado, and within a year, Zabriskie resumed his relationship with the Chapmans, purchasing material for his various collections from time to time. However, Zabriskie seems to have acquired very little pioneer gold. He purchased a trio of coins from the 1907 Stickney Collection (a Baldwin $5, an 1852/1 Humbert $20, and a copper Bowie gold dollar pattern), but his name does not appear as a buyer in a number of other “named” catalogs where the Chapmans recorded all of their registered bidders.

The Zabsriskie Collection Sale

In 1909 Zabriskie decided to sell most of his numismatic holdings. He retained only his collection of Polish coins and Abraham Lincoln political material. He featured this collection in A Descriptive Catalogue of the Political and Memorial Medals Struck in Honor of Abraham Lincoln, Sixteenth President of the United States (1873). Despite his earlier clashes with the Chapmans, he consigned everything to Henry Chapman Jr. 

The June 3-4, 1909, sale is unquestionably the single most impressive auction of pioneer gold coins of the late 19th or early 20th centuries. Surprisingly, only 9 of nearly 80 pioneer gold lots were explicitly pedigreed to Humbert; however, many pieces found in the sale are among the finest extant for the issue and appear to have been unknown to the collecting community prior to 1909. This raises the question: Just how much of Zabriskie’s pioneer gold originated with Augustus Humbert? After dozens of hours of research, I have become convinced that the answer is substantially more than nine coins.

A version of this article appears in the October 2025 issue of The Numismatist (money.org)