2

Adams: Private Gold Coinage of California 1849-55 - Its History and Its Issues

Currency:USD Category:Books / Nonfiction Books Start Price:15.00 USD Estimated At:25.00 - 40.00 USD
Adams: Private Gold Coinage of California 1849-55 - Its History and Its Issues
To bid in this sale, you must agree to our terms and conditions.
Adams, Edgar H. PRIVATE GOLD COINAGE OF CALIFORNIA 1849-55 - ITS HISTORY AND ITS ISSUES. Stackpole Books. 1965. 4to. (4), v, 110 pages. Mechanicsburg. Reprint of 1913 original. original textured black cloth, gilt. 6 plates. Fine. Introduction to the reprint by Q. David Bowers. More often than not, when the subject of 'pioneer gold' occurs in com collecting circles, it is spoken of somewhat vaguely. It is indeed a topic with which only the advanced numismatist tends to have more than a cursory acquaintance-and largely so because information about these curious coins has been nearly as scarce as the coins themselves. Primary sources of information-the private letters of territorial minters and their employees, correspondence among governmental officials, and 'public' documents are all but unavailable to the collector; and, without the efforts of a skilled numismatic researcher, in their archival state these scattered materials would probably discourage all but the most zealous private collector anyway. Secondary sources of information, among the best of which is the volume presented here, when they were of any real value in the first place, have generally been long out of print and their information available only to the advanced collector who sought out rare-and usually expensive-early editions. In reprinting Edgar H. Adams' 1913 classic book, Private Gold Coinage of California, 1849- 55, the present publisher offers a key source of enlightenment to the collector and numismatist alike. The volume is thorough but not scholarly, detailed but delightfully lively, and an orderly appraisal of the coinage which is largely free from the dull cataloguing that characterizes most numismatic studies. For this is not merely a coin book; it is a work of social history as well. You will come away from reading it with increased knowledge both of privately minted gold coins and of one of America's most adventurous and formative eras. And you will discover much about the economic, social, and other human conditions of the place where westward expansion saw its most vigorous fulfillment-the San Francisco of the 1850s, where much of the civilization of the American East transplanted itself in the course of less than a decade. From its story, skillfully reconstructed by Edgar H. Adams, who searched western libraries for firsthand information, comes a lasting understanding of why federal coinage took the forms it did in the far West in the years following the disappearance from circulation of the numerous issues of privately minted coins made from local gold. Lot weight: 1 lbs 10oz. Subject(s): United States Coinage.