Getting Roped In
When I sat down to write this column, I had planned to discuss California fractional gold. However, I’m prone to distraction. I got derailed while searching 1850s newspapers for contemporary references to Cal fractionals.
In the April 14, 1851, issue of the Daily Alta California, I found an item titled “Value of Old Coin.” The story recounted the “recent sale of a collection of coins belonging to the estate of the late Dr. Lewis Hope of Philadelphia.” It listed the prices realized for 25 U.S. coins, patterns, and colonials, including a 1794 silver dollar.
This sort of coin auction was all but unheard of in the early 1850s. It seemed like the thing that would appeal to another coin nerd, so I stopped what I was doing and called John Dannreuther. I knew he’d get a kick out of it.
JD picked up on the second ring. I read the article to him, and he asked if the newspaper referred to the Roper Sale. He told me it was held around that time and was probably the earliest exclusively numismatic auction in the United States. I started to say that the collector’s name was Dr. Lewis Hope. However, it occurred to me that the Daily Alta had probably just reprinted a news item from an East Coast newspaper. The ink might have smudged on its trip to San Francisco. If so, “Roper” could very easily look an awful lot like “Hope.” A visit to the Newman Numismatic Portal confirmed that all the coins reported in the article had, in fact, been sold by M. Thomas and Sons on February 20, 1851, and were once owned by the late Dr. Lewis Roper.
Dr. Lewis Roper
Interestingly, Roper, a Philadelphia dentist, had California connections. He settled in San Francisco during the Gold Rush and advertised his services as early as November 6, 1849, in the Daily Pacific News. Roper’s stay in San Francisco was short. Apart from contributing to a handful of advertisements complaining about the muddy state of Montgomery Street (other contributors to these ads were bankers Burgoyne & Company and Joshua Norton, who would later metamorphose into the legendary Emperor Norton), little is known about his California activities, until he auctioned his property at Montgomery and Jackson in the summer of 1850. He left California for Philadelphia sometime that summer, abandoning a shipment of several prefabricated houses. Sadly, he perished aboard a ship on August 21, 1850.
A One-of-a-Kind Collection
Roper’s collection, sold at the behest of his executor, included many medals and world coins. However, his U.S. material, including colonials, patterns, and a handful of federal coins, are probably most interesting to modern collectors. This group included four Gobrecht dollars: a pair from 1836 that brought $3.25, an 1838 that brought what the Daily Alta California deemed “the extravagant price of $5,” and one dated 1839 that brought a seemingly reasonable $1.75. An 1838 (probably Gobrecht) half dollar brought an astounding $7.25. Incredibly, a 1794 dollar and half dollar cataloged as a pair sold for a measly $1.75.
The star of Roper’s collection was his 1792 Getz half dollar. Legendary Philadelphia collector Joseph J. Mickley bought for $18. While that price was a fortune at the time, it was a mere fraction of the $160 that (presumably) the same piece would bring 16 years later when the Mickley collection sold.
Sadly, the 1851 Roper Sale did not include any California pioneer gold coins. It’s easy to imagine the unlucky dentist setting aside a few choice examples of the money that fueled San Francisco’s economy during 1849 and 1850. Unfortunately, whatever he might have had with him on his ill-fated journey home was either spent or turned in at the Philadelphia Mint, rather than included with the rest of his collection. I, for one, would pay a small fortune for whatever coins Roper decided to bring back from way out west.
A version of this article appears in the April 2024 issue of The Numismatist (money.org).