Mysterious Gold, Part 2

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Provenance is a funny thing. A coin’s story doesn’t end when it’s pulled from circulation. Sometimes, the most interesting part of a coin’s story is its life after it’s done being money.

In last month’s column, I told the story of how a hoard of 16th- to 18th-century Japanese gold coins that were sold in a Kagin’s auction a few years ago solved a 140-year-old mystery identified by Chelsea Hansen, an intern at the Smithsonian National Museum of American History. Several of the coins in the sale were the “missing” pieces of the 55-coin diplomatic gift Emperor Meiji presented to former President Ulysses S. Grant in 1879. As it turned out, Grant either sold or gifted part of his coin collection to New York businessman Giovanni Morosini before the rest of his estate was donated to the national museum. After finding Morosini’s obituary, which confirmed that parts of his coin collection “were the gift to Mr. Morosini of General Grant,” I thought I had the whole story. As it turns out, I was wrong.

An Unexpected Find

Last summer, the ghost of President Grant and his coin collection paid me a second visit while I was teaching at Witter Coin University in San Francisco. At the beginning of the program, Witter Coin’s owner, Seth Chandler, purchased a small but very interesting local estate. It was a fresh group of gold coins that had been collected in the early to mid-20th century, still sitting in craft paper envelopes. Understandably, Seth was excited to show off his haul, and when I came to the office, he grabbed a velvet tray that had a pair of early eagles (gold $10) on it. The better of the two was a fully prooflike, uncirculated 1797 eagle.

I was impressed. After letting me examine the coin, Seth handed me the coin’s envelope, on which was written “1797 $10.” I turned it over, and in neat, nearly century-old handwriting, were the words, “President Grant Collection.” Seth looked at me and asked, “Is there any way to prove this?”

For whatever reason, all I could think of was Humphrey Bogart’s famous line from Casablanca: “Of all the gin joints in all the towns in all the world, she walks into mine.” Except the gin joint—or in this case, the coin shop—wasn’t mine.

Tracing Its Provenance

Still, the coincidence of this coin with this provenance landing in my lap was not lost on me. I asked Seth if I could use his computer and searched the Newman Numismatic Portal for a copy of the 1932 Morosini sale. I turned to the United States section of the catalog, and there it was: “267. Eagles (ten dollar pieces); 1797 large heraldic eagle. Extremely fine, proof surface.”

Unfortunately, Wayte Raymond, who’d cataloged the sale for the American Art Association, hadn’t insisted that they include a plate of the coin. Still, it was hard to imagine much better confirmation of the claim written on that envelope than the description in front of me. The chance that one of the 17 U.S. coins in Morosini’s holdings happened to perfectly fit the description of Seth’s eagle was astronomical.

I called Seth over and pointed to the screen. We stared at the description and burst out laughing. Once the amusement wore off, a question hit me: Would any grading service consider Raymond’s terse description, along with the Morosini/Grant background story and the envelope, sufficient evidence to put the Ulysses S. Grant provenance on the coin’s holder?

A Worthwhile Journey

We both knew it would be a stretch. The gods of plastic require a level of certainty that history can rarely provide. Fortunately, I’ve spent the last two decades cultivating the attitude that getting a grading service to agree with you isn’t the pinnacle of numismatics. Learning something about the world—and picking up a story or two along the way—is.

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