The Early
Quarters
James P. Rice Jr. · 9 chapters · 15,535 words
BOOKS
Contents
- Two BitsPDF · EPUBA federal coin with no value on it, issued into a country whose actual quarter was a worn Spanish two-reales — and saved as a novelty from its first day.
- The Coin the Mint Kept Not MakingPDF · EPUBEighteen blank years out of forty-three — and no mystery: until 1853 the depositors chose the denominations, and the Director explained the blanks in print.
- One Year's Dies, Four Years' CoinsPDF · EPUB1822 cut four obverse dies and used one. The other three came off the shelf as the family's great rarities — and a wrong-punch reverse struck twice, six years apart.
- The Blank and the Question MarkPDF · EPUBTwo merges, an orphaned delivery, and a mintage that was invented outright: 24,000 + 144,000 = 168,000 — the ledger chapter, and the spine of the book.
- The Book That Was Free All AlongPDF · EPUBBrowning, 1925: the standard reference is public domain, its plates still do professional work — and its biggest myth was made on its own pages.
- The Two Rarest DatesPDF · EPUBA coin that vanished and a coin that barely existed: the 1823/2's unexplained rarity, an 1867 census letter, and a restrike convicted by a die of 1819.
- Nothing to HoardPDF · EPUBNo vault, no cache, no rescue: four hundred quarters in the greatest hoard of early silver, and a melt that priced the whole family into the crucible.
- A New Size, and No New LawPDF · EPUB1831: the coin shrinks, the scroll disappears, and no act of Congress is anywhere in sight — then steam arrives, and one undivided ledger line ends the family.
- Collecting the Ledger's SeriesPDF · EPUBNothing here is common, the walls are real, and the blanks belong in the album: the honest invitation to the smallest of the early silver families.
- About the EvidencePDF · EPUB
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