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Collecting patterns is
one of my favorite pursuits. For more information on this topic, you
should visit the website of The Society of U.S. Pattern Collectors at www.uspatterns.com.
Their home page includes the following observations:
For those of you not
familiar with this fascinating numismatic area, patterns are prototypes for
coins that, for the most part, were never approved for circulation. Most
patterns are very rare, some unique, and others unknown outside of museums. A
good place to begin is our Beginner's
Corner or Photo
Gallery. In it, you will see examples of many of the different pattern
issues.
The United States Mint produced well over a thousand different patterns, as
well as many die trial and experimental pieces. Despite the great rarity of
many of these individual items, the great variety makes the series
surprisingly collectible.
There are approximately 200 collectors specializing in US patterns. Most of
these collectors target specific areas. For example, some collectors
specialize in Indian Cent patterns, others collect Morgan dollar patterns,
while a few are trying to assemble a complete collection of twenty cent
patterns.
In addition to these specialists, there are thousands of collectors of regular
issue United States coins who try to buy a few patterns to go along with their
collections. Many of these historical coins have wide appeal and are
surprisingly affordable. There are many collectors who, for example, would
like to own an 1855 Flying Eagle large cent (J-167, about 500 pieces struck,
value $500-2500) to go with their collection of large cents or with their
collection of Flying Eagle small cents.
I've listed for your
consideration a couple of interesting examples: an 1850 "Holey" cent
(J-121) and an 1871 "Indian Princess" half dime (J-1063) from
the Harry W. Bass, Jr. collection. I may add some others soon.
However, I urge you to buy Andrew W. Pollock III's masterwork on patterns before
making any purchases. His book was published in 1994 and is entitled United
States Patterns and Related Issues. It is available from Bowers
and Merena Galleries and elsewhere. I recently began writing my
own book on this topic (tentatively titled Not Quite Money), but I fear
my progress will be slow, so I'm not taking any orders yet.
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