AMERICAN NUMISMATICS BEFORE THE CIVIL WAR, 1760–1860

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The One Hundred Greatest Items Of United States Numismatic Literature Rank: Number 60

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This is Bowers at his best, poking through archives and old books, synthesizing American history and American numismatic history into a coherent and enduring whole. Covering the collectors, dealers, and numismatic fashion of the era, the nexus of the book is found in the person of Augustus Sage, 1850s New York coin dealer and founding member of the American Numismatic Society. While the Sage token series and Sage auction sales are meticulously detailed, the most compelling aspect of the presentation is the time machine which apparently exists behind a secret wall in Bowers’ library (in Adventures With Rare Coins, #72 on our list, Dave felt compelled to the deny the existence of said time machine), for the reader is literally transported to New York and Philadelphia in the nineteenth century and made an eyewitness to the blooming American numismatic activity at the eve of the Civil War.

1^st Edition

BOWERS, Q. David. American Numismatics Before The Civil War: 1760-1860 Emphasizing The Story Of Augustus B. Sage
Wolfesboro, NH: 1998
429pp,
Quarto
Hardbound: Pictorial Boards