Mysterious Gold, Part 1

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Not every U.S. coin story starts on home soil—one of my favorites begins with a handful of early gold Japanese coins. In 2022 Kagin’s auctioned a collection of Japanese provincial and fantasy issues, some struck as early as the 16th century. Mainstream Japanese numismatics has treated the coins of the Sengoku Jidai (Warring States Period of 1467-1600) with a certain amount of skepticism. The chaos of the period resulted in groups of coins that are notoriously difficult to authenticate. Consequently, genuine 16th-century gold coins have been lumped together with later fakes, all of which are called gansho hin—a term that is very loosely translated as “fantasy.” 

A Curious Coin

Confronted with a collection of coins this mysterious, I was barely able to control myself. I spent weeks studying the lots. Eventually, I identified some examples that appeared both old and crude enough to warrant a bid. I purchased a handful of pieces for my collection and noted that many of the most interesting examples originated from the estate of Giovanni P. Morosini.

Intrigued, I spent some time after the sale researching Morosini. He was born in Venice, Italy, and later settled in New York City, eventually becoming the business partner, and rumored bodyguard, of railroad magnate Jay Gould. He was an avid collector of arms and armor, as well as European coins, with an emphasis on Italian issues. 

Morosini acquired most of his pieces between 1860 and the mid-1880s. It occurred to me that the sizable group of Japanese coins sold as part of his collection seemed not only out of place among his European holdings but also out of time: Japan had been strictly closed to Westerners under Sakoku isolation for centuries. How did this Manhattan financier manage to acquire a collection of apparent 16th-century provincial gold out of a recently sealed empire? 

The American Connection

While pondering this, I discovered a blog by Chelsea Hansen, an intern at the Smithsonian National Museum of American History. She told the story of Ulysses S. Grant’s 1879 visit to Japan and how the Japanese emperor gifted 55 rare coins to the former president. After Grant’s death, his widow, Julia, donated many of his possessions to the Smithsonian. Curiously, between the emperor’s gift in 1881 and the 1886 bequest, 30 of the 55 pieces vanished.

This left me wondering about a connection between Grant and Morosini. In the time it took to type a query into Google, I had an answer: Grant had been partners with both Gould and Morosini in a failed Mexican railroad venture. 

I wondered whether Grant’s financial trouble in the mid-1880s might have led him to sell some of his coin collection to his business partner, but a little more digging led me to Morosini’s obituary in the New York Times, which described the financier’s collections. It mentioned that some of his gold coins “were the gift to Mr. Morosini of General Grant.”

More digging turned up numerous mentions of this gift, including an item in the October 1932 issue of The Numismatist:

It is doubtful whether a collection of Japanese gold coins of such variety and rarity has ever been offered before at auction, certainly not in the American market, and the most extraordinary part of this collection is its history, especially from a historical standpoint, because it is understood to have been given to Colonel Morosini by Gen. U.S. Grant.

A Future Investigation

But how is this story related to United States coins? Find out next month!