The texts of auction catalogues are often the only source of information on the more interesting and unusual coins which are offered for sale. Because the texts are usually unsigned, they carry the flavor of authority. The problem with these texts is that they are not serious scholarly products (nor could they be expected to be): too frequently the necessary corroboration in support of their assertions is wanting; while the setting -- the intended sale of the coins at the highest possible price -- can encourage elaboration which goes beyond the evidence. Any coin gains in interest, and therefore in market value, if it can be provided with a historical context.
A particular instance is provided by one among the many different types of western American gold bars, often called "assay bars", which have appeared on the market in recent years. This is a group of eleven rare and expensive ingots attributed to the San Francisco Branch Mint, 1865. Three of the ingots have appeared at auction a total of five times, each being accompanied in the auction catalogue by a text, providing altogether a rich array of unsubstantiated assertions. They have been associated with the wreck of the ship Brother Jonathan which went down in July of that year, leading to the death of most of its passengers, who had together been carrying substantial quantities of coin.
Before turning to the story of the wreck, it is important to establish the origin of the bars themselves. Their first published appearance is in the catalogue of Stack's auction of 11 November 1974. The accompanying text (by John J. Ford, jr.<1>) states,
"Examination of pertinent San Francisco Mint [sic] <2> records (Assayer's Register, 1854-65, Register of Bar Warrants Paid, etc.), although incomplete, at the Federal Records Center, GSA, then at 100 Harrison St., San Francisco, by John Ford in early 1971, indicates that these ingots were manufactured in the late Spring of 1865."
The grammar is uncertain: were the records incomplete, or Ford's examination of them? In any case here is actual reference to documentary evidence -- it is otherwise very uncommon for the texts accompanying any of the assay bars to provide any reference in support of the asserted historical setting. In this case we do have to take the author's word for it that the records were examined, and that this is what they revealed.
The text continues,
"This ingot is one of eleven obtained in 1970; all are consecutively numbered, running from 2178 to 2188. One piece is in the Henry H. Clifford coll. (No. 2180) [sale number 3 below], another in the Jon Hanson coll. (No. 2184) [sales number 2, 4, 6 below], and five are in the possession of the Bank of California N.A., San Francisco (Nos. 2178, 2181, 2182, 2183, 2185). Three pieces remain in the Ford collection."
The bars at the Bank of California were subsequently returned to Ford.<3> Eight of the eleven bars are illustrated, in the auction catalogues cited below (nos. 2180, 2184, 2186), or in ACTH <4> (nos. 2178, 2181-83, 2185 -- those which had been on deposit at the Bank of California).<5>
Next, it is illuminating to look closely at the texts of the five auction catalogues, and at the relationship between their several accounts. I distinguish five subjects --
1. Stack's, 11 Nov. 1974 (Gibson), lot 184; bar no. 2186, 15.01 oz., .995 fine, $308.73. The heading of the text reads, "Allegedly from the Wreck of the Side-Wheel Steamer Brother Jonathan". For the source of the allegation see e] below. The piece is described as "Unique", which it is not, except that since each of the eleven bars asserts its own weight, value and serial number each is, of course, in that sense unique.
As to the wreck, "...five of the six boats launched were quickly upset..." The survivors in the single boat which reached the shore included "five women, three children, ten of the crew and [Third Mate] Patterson." <6>
The text proper continues,
a] "It is strongly believed that all eleven ingots were indirectly obtained from the wreck of the ... Brother Jonathan, which went down on July 30, 1865..."
"Strongly believed" by whom? It is interesting that, whenever and however the bars were found, an event of such interest, and of material of such value, was never brought to public attention, and even the opinions expressed about their finding are various and undocumented.
b] "[The ingots] could well have represented the personal property of one of the cabin passengers." Or not, as the case may be.
c] "It is probable that these eleven ingots were salvaged adjacent to the wreck... Another probability is that they could have been looted ... from trunks or other luggage of the victims as the flotsam drifted ashore..."
One should not be fussy about style in these informal texts, but "probable" does not mean "possible", and two (or more) alternatives cannot be equally probable. In any case the word here imposes a likelihood which is entirely at variance with the complete lack of evidence. It does not seem likely that luggage laden with 20 pounds weight of gold bar would float to the shore.
d] "They were either brought up near the wreck by the Kund-Freese-Francisco expedition of 1916, or by a group of Los Angeles based divers twenty or so years later."
Again, "either...or" would seem to narrow the possibilities. But the text continues,
"Failing that, they could have long been held by people who originally obtained them from contemporary looters."
In short, nothing is known, and these speculations are fantasies.
e] "...obtained in 1970... The source of these ingots apparently had them in his family for many years and seemed well acquainted with the story of the Brother Jonathan."
Obtained by whom? and who was "the source of these ingots"? We will never be told. Bowers' ACTH (on which see below) teems throughout with hard data: names, dates, citations; why is none available for the sensational Brother Jonathan finds? And in this claim what is the connection, if any, between owning the ingots and being well acquainted with the story of the Brother Jonathan?
The frailties of these assertions ought to be obvious. In the end all is hedged about, and the reader is left with "Allegedly [alleged by whom?] ... strongly believed [by whom?] ... could well have been ... it is probable ... either..or ... failing that ... apparently ... seemed". In fact there is no evidence here that this bar had anything to do with the Brother Jonathan, only the assertion that an unnamed individual who once owned the bars knew the story of the ship.
The creation of a historical context, even one as basically empty as this, is a very profitable enterprise. The bar brought $19,000 at auction, as against a bullion value at that time of ca. $2750.
2. NASCA, 28 Apr. 1980, lot 2423; bar no. 2184, 16.54 oz., .995 fine, $340.20. The text is a much more detailed account of the history of the ship, and of the circumstances of the disastrous final voyage. The heading to the illustration is now firm -- "Excessively Rare Brother Jonathan Bar" -- where that of Gibson 1974 had been cautious. Only in the last paragraph does the text come to grips with the ingots proper, but here too it is positive --
a] "[The Brother Jonathan] also bore on board ... a series of Assay Bars from the San Francisco Mint [sic] in 1865 (p.137)."
The point then is settled: the bars were aboard the ship on its final voyage -- although there is no citation of any new evidence to permit the promotion of the uncertainty of Gibson 1974 to the flat statement of NASCA 1980.
b] "...apparently as the private property of one of the passengers."
Gibson's "possibly" has been improved to "apparently".
c] "... of the lifeboats launched -- only four in number -- three capsized almost immediately. One lone boat, bearing 19 people, reached the shore... A group of 11 of these [bars] were recovered, sequentially numbered, from a point between the wreck and the shore, and had probably been in one of the life-boats which capsized (presumably along with the owner of the bars)."
The number of lifeboats has dwindled, while the number of survivors still exceeds the actual figure of the hard evidence provided by Marshall. More importantly no evidence is offered for the certain statement as to the area of the find.
d] [no text] e] "They entered numismatic channels in 1970, after having resided in one family for quite a long time ..."
-- essentially the account in Gibson 1974.
Although there is no new hard evidence the bars are now firmly tied to the Brother Jonathan by the heading and by a] above. -- But that is not the case either: continuing to the caption text -- the illustration and caption follow after the text discussed above -- the cautious reader will find that this story is not certain after all: the bar being offered is "One of the 11 sequentially numbered specimens apparently recovered from the ... Brother Jonathan" [my italics].
Nonetheless the account was commercially persuasive. This ingot was knocked down at $14,500, as against a bullion value at the time of ca. $9000.
3. Bowers & Ruddy, 18 Mar. 1982 (Clifford), lot 178; bar no. 2180, 24.24 oz., .998 fine., $500.00.<7> The entry is enlivened by an illustration of the ship.<8> A considerable text outlines the history of the ship, and the circumstances of the wreck. "... six life boats were put into the water. Five were immediately swamped and only one ... [carrying] the third mate,...three children, five women, and ten crewmen, was able to reach shore, representing the only survivors."
The number of lifeboats has now returned to six. As in the earlier NASCA catalogue [sale number 2] the entry to lot 178 is headed positively, "$500 San Francisco Mint [sic] Gold Ingot From the Brother Jonathan". But the text as it proceeds is by no means so direct:
a] "While the exact history of these pieces is not known, it is believed that they were carried aboard the Brother Jonathan."
Believed by whom? and on what evidence? Nonetheless "the exact history of these pieces" will become more exact in a later auction catalogue [sale number 5 below].
b] "... believed to have been carried as cargo by the Brother Jonathan..."
If carried as cargo, then not in the possession of a passenger as suggested in Gibson 1974, NASCA 1980, and -- as we will see -- Stack's 1997.
c] "Mr. Ford theorizes that they could have been brought up from near the wreck ..." d] "... by the Lund-Freese-Francisco expedition of 1916 or by another group which explored the area 20 years or so later."
Taken from Gibson 1974, but more specific in omitting Ford's further theorizing there. The evidence for this improvement is not given.
e] "... the man from whom they were acquired had them in his family for many years and attributed them to that source."
-- i.e., to the Brother Jonathan, improving on Gibson 1974. The actual name of the source continues to elude us. The bar sold for $15,000, at a time when its bullion value was ca. $9500.
4. Superior, 28 Jan. 1985, lot 2126; bar no. 2184, 16.54 oz., .995 fine, $340.20. The heading reads, "Excessively Rare United States Mint, San Francisco [sic] 1865 Gold Assay Bar, known as the Brother Jonathan bar". The language is ambiguous: "known as" may be intended to be suggestive rather than affirmative of the bar's origin. This is the same bar as that offered earlier in NASCA 1980, and the brief text here is a verbatim reproduction of the NASCA 1980 caption, including the disclaimer "apparently recovered from the ... Brother Jonathan", in spite of the perhaps firmer heading above. The bar brought $7750 at auction, as against a bullion value at the time of ca. $5500.
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None of these extensive and inconsistent auction catalogue texts provided any documented support for the association of these bars with the ship Brother Jonathan. It can only be supposed that the texts were elaborated in order to hype the bars for sale.
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Before continuing to the fifth and most recent auction we should consider a different kind of contribution to the Brother Jonathan story -- different at least in extent, and in appearing not in an auction catalogue but in a survey of American coin finds, Bowers' ACTH (1997) <9>
ACTH includes by far the most extensive account in a numismatic context of the history of the ship, the final voyage, and the story of the gold bars, recapitulating information provided in the earlier auction catalogues and adding much new, and peripheral, besides (pp.254-63) -- in fact of the hundreds of entries in ACTH this is the longest and the most elaborate. There is an illustration of the ship, and an advertisement of its service. Details hitherto unreported in the auction catalogue texts include the information that "Among [the passengers] were Mrs. J.C. Keenan, a popular proprietor of a San Francisco brothel, and seven girls in her employ" (p.257).<10> Apparently all of the ladies perished in the disaster (p.258). There is also a helpful photograph of a group of five of the bars (p.264).
The heading to the ACTH entry makes the association of bars and ship secure: "The Brother Jonathan ... Treasure: Gold Bars" (p.254).
a] The caption to the illustration, which is of the Clifford piece, is less secure: "Believed to have been salvaged from the Brother Jonathan." (p.255). And following a long and elaborate essay of perhaps 5000 words, including extensive quotation from Clifford 1982 (the Clifford sale was conducted by the author of ACTH), when the author actually gets to the bars themselves -- which is, after all, the point of all of this activity -- we learn that,
"While there is only limited documentary evidence specifically linking ... the bars to the Brother Jonathan ..." (p.261)
This is untrue. There is not "only limited documentary evidence": there is, at this point, no documentary evidence whatever. And again,
"While the exact history of these gold bars is not known, the preceding description suggests that they may have been carried aboard the S.S Brother Jonathan." (p.261)
The exact history of these bars being unknown, it will be provided [Stack's 1997, sale number 5 below]. At this point, regardless of the "suggestions", no connection has been established between these ingots and the Brother Jonathan -- contrary to the heading which opened the essay.
b] ... "believed to have been carried as cargo ..." (p.260)
Taken verbatim from Clifford 1982.
c] "John Ford theorizes that they could have been brought up from near the wreck ..."
Taken verbatim from Clifford 1982.
d] "Along the way [during the salvage attempts in 1916 and the 1930s] it is believed that some San Francisco gold bars were raised (p.260). ... by the Lund-Freese-Francisco expedition of 1916 or by another group which explored the area 20 years or so later."
The second phrase is taken verbatim from Clifford 1982.
e] "... the man from whom they were acquired had them in his family for many years and attributed them to that source [i.e. the Brother Jonathan.]."
Taken verbatim from Clifford 1982.
It is precisely a dedicated study such as ACTH that we would expect to provide a critical examination of these meager claims. Instead, ACTH itself presented the most extreme elaboration to date of the hype of the auction catalogues, much of which it took over, reformulated and enlarged. In fact, for all the detail which ACTH provides there is still nothing here to show that the Brother Jonathan had carried any gold bars; or if it had, that they included examples of San Francisco Branch Mint bars; or if they did, that they included the particular bars which had been offered for sale, which "may have been carried aboard the S.S. Brother Jonathan" (p.261). Nor is there anything to reveal the sources of this story. After, and in spite of, all of the elaborate historical contextualizing, the association of the bars with the ship comes down to e] above: one undocumented reference to an unverifiable assertion, attributed to a single anonymous individual, made years after the event. The evidence could not be more flimsy.
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ACTH did not advance the problem at all, and we could hardly expect any new light to be thrown on it at this late date. Yet some new and astonishing details were still to be published, for the first time actually linking the bars and the ship through one of the passengers.
5 Stack's, 11 June 1997, lot 1027; bar no. 2184, 16.54 oz., .995 fine, $340.20. The entry is enlivened now by two illustrations of the Brother Jonathan (one printed backwards), and an advertisement for the ship by the California Steam Navigation Co. The ingot is here cautiously introduced, "Believed to be from the Wreck ... of the Brother Jonathan". In spite of this hedging the text provides an extraordinary revelation --
"John J. Ford, jr. ... believes that the original owner of the ingots was a San Francisco madam."
The evidence is documentary --
"Ford states that he has seen the Mint's old records, the Assayer's Register, 1854-1865, and the Register of Bar Warrants Paid..." -- thus far the text repeats the content of Gibson 1974, but now it continues with the previously unrevealed details --
"...[records] that list the names of depositors, and that there was just one owner's name listed for ingots numbered 2178-2188. Further, Ford relates that the same woman's name he saw on the San Francisco Mint's [sic] registers also appears on the passenger manifest of the ill-fated ... Brother Jonathan ." (p.41) <11>
This is a remarkable assertion. The Mint records had first been invoked by Ford after his survey of them almost twenty-five years earlier, in Gibson 1974. Yet only now in Stack's 1997 are we told that the records had included this vital information all along -- that one named person received ingots 2178-2188 at the Branch Mint, and that she was identifiable. And now we learn as well that she subsequently chanced to be aboard the Brother Jonathan on its final, fatal trip. The owner of the bars is to be revealed later in the text: it will be none other than our old friend, the unvirtuous Mrs. Keenan:
b] "A less illustrious passenger was a Mrs. Keenan, a San Francisco madam heading for Seattle with seven of her ladies..."
Mrs Keenan had appeared in ACTH as a passenger, on the authority of Marshall who drew on the contemporary newspaper accounts including the passenger manifest, and she (or rather her profession) enlivened the author's account. But no numismatic context was suggested for her in ACTH, and the link connecting the bars to the ship through her was unknown to Bowers. Her new role now in the Stack's sale indicates nicely how the story has been elaborated over the years -- "Mrs Keenan carried with her eleven gold ingots totalling a little less than 21 pounds, all made for her at the San Francisco Mint [sic]." (p.42) With this evidence a connection is drawn, now for the first time, between the bars and the Brother Jonathan. To repeat, this essential information depends directly on Ford's 1971 examination of the Mint records, announced in his text for Gibson 1974. Yet it was not mentioned by him in Gibson 1974 and was unknown subsequently to NASCA in 1980, to Bowers and Ruddy (Clifford) in 1982, to Superior in 1985, and to Bowers' highly detailed account in ACTH in 1997. Suddenly it appears in all its richness in Stack's 1997.
If we accept this new evidence we can begin to reconstruct the event. Picture the confusion of the wreck: while the ship was dramatically breaking up and 225 (or so) people were scrambling for the lifeboats, Mrs. Keenan, keeping her head while all about were losing theirs, prudently lugged twenty pounds of gold ingots to the lifeboat, which subsequently overturned.
c] "The NASCA cataloguer [Ford] stated that the eleven Brother Jonathan ingots were recovered from a site between the wreck and the beach." (p.42)
The NASCA cataloguer cites no authority for this claim.
d] "The Brother Jonathan gold bars known today may have been found in 1916, 1936, or even earlier." (p.42).
But see here p. 41, "...found in 1970" [!], which contradicts all previous accounts.
e] [no text]
For d] the information is radically inconsistent, and for e] -- the modern source -- there is nothing. However the anxious reader will rejoice to learn from this latest version that Mrs. Keenan "seems to have survived" after all -- unaccountably separated from her ingots. This raises a real problem, and the text is very curious at this point --
"Mrs Keenan seems to have survived, but the NASCA cataloguer stated that the eleven Brother Jonathan ingots were recovered from a site between the wreck and the beach. Presumably they went overboard from one of the capsized lifeboats." (p.42)
Where does the good news of Mrs Keenan's survival originate? It contradicts what we were told in ACTH, and to the contempory accounts as reported by Marshall. This information has just dropped out of the sky. A persistent detail in all these accounts has been, that of the passengers and crew only 19 souls survived, all making it to shore in the one lifeboat which stayed afloat. If Mrs Keenan survived it can only have been as one of the people in that lifeboat. Then how was it that her bars went overboard? That she deliberately flung them into the sea as a placatory offering to the angry sea-god Neptune may be discounted. Perhaps in a state of mental confusion, engendered by the stressful urgency of the situation, this otherwise successful businesswoman thoughtlessly threw her ingots into one lifeboat (which subsequently capsized) and herself into a different one. Since only five women survived it follows that at the very best Mrs Keenan (if she was one of them) lost not only her gold bars (if she had any) but several of her sinful staff.
This is all absurd, of course, but illustrates the way in which this fascinating account has grown over the years by the accretion of falsifications. Mrs Keenan's survival is contradicted by the passenger manifest, published in the California press after the disaster. Furthermore the relatively recent discovery of the wreck of the Brother Jonathan has resulted in the recovery of masses of San Francisco Branch Mint gold coin, freshly struck. No bars have been found at all.<12> Yet, happily, the entire set of 11 ingots, serially numbered and claimed to have belonged to Mrs Keenan, were recovered by unrevealed hands, and all came into the possession of John J. Ford, jr.
This most splendid version of the historical setting of the bars did the trick. The bar sold for $33,000, as against its bullion value at the time of ca. $6000.
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It is a pity that the fascinating details published in Stack's 1997 were not laid out in Gibson 1974, when one of these bars was first offered for sale, at a time when the 1971 research into the Branch Mint records was so much fresher in the mind.
But the various auction catalogue accounts are worse than sloppy in their contradictory details: they are a tissue of falsifications, of which the latest, in Stack's 1997, is the richest. Ford claimed that he had seen archival evidence which is simply not there; all of this is his fabrication. I have spent a week in the Branch Mint archives, going over the preserved documents before, during and after 1865, and can certify that there is no record of the production of these bars -- the records show that bars were indeed made, and numbered, but not up to the numbers stamped on the alleged Brother Jonathan bars.
Nor is there any record of Mrs Keenan at the Branch Mint. She would have to appear in the documents three times minimally: first in the Visitor's Book, confirming the admission of anyone doing business at the Branch Mint. That book survives. It has been searched by three people, working independently, all of whom agree that there is no trace of her. Secondly, individuals bringing in gold for assay and sale were entered in the records by name (Ford claimed that Mrs Keenan was a depositor: see Stack's 1997 [sale number 5 above]); and lastly, they had to sign personally for payment received, in whatever form, be it coin or ingots. These records too are preserved and Mrs Keenan's name is nowhere in them. Ford's claims to have seen such documents (he names only one) are a fabrication.
When this point was first made publicly Ford responded with the claim that the record which he claimed to have seen in the Archives, bearing Mrs Keenan's name, was discarded after he saw it. There is no evidence for that either. Ford's response was supported by Hodder in his AJN article: "In 1982, many of the mint's records were destroyed. One of the documents destroyed was the Weigh Clerk's Bullion Ledger, June 1854 to March 1873. A new inventory list was compiled in October 1995 and is available to the public."<13> The first sentence of this quotation is true: some documents from the Branch Mint archives were indeed destroyed in 1982. The disposal record, dated October 1 1982 and "available to the public", lists and describes each document disposed of at that time, item by item. Hodder's second sentence is false, as anyone can see for himself who checks the public record: no item even remotely of that title, or of that date range, is listed. The material disposed of was mostly 20th-century, and nothing was included earlier than 1882. It has to be remembered that Mr Hodder, who has some reputation as an independent scholar, is employed by John J. Ford, jr. and by Stack's.
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One cannot conclude without mention of one more auction where the bars, surprisingly, did not appear nor are even alluded to, although by this time we would have expected them.
6 Bowers and Merena, 29 May 1999, "The S. S. Brother Jonathan Treasure Coins". The catalogue is an elaborate affair, providing a rich historical setting for the sale of some 842 gold coins recovered from the wreck. But as to the Brother Jonathan bars, the subject of the longest and most detailed essay in Bowers' ACTH in 1997, in just two years they have disappeared from the ship entirely. The auction catalogue is a vast compendium of information, yet the bars which had been the whole focus of the entry in ACTH -- as against gold coins on the ship, mentioned only in a casual aside (p.259) -- and which warranted sub-headings -- "About the Ingots", "Gold Bars on the Market" -- the bars have vanished. They had been associated with the ship for a quarter of a century, since Gibson 1971, and at greatest length in Bowers' own ACTH. Yet in Bowers and Merena 1999 there is not a word: they are not so much as mentioned, not even to question their relevance. Nor do they play any role in Bower's book-length treatment of the ship,The Treasure Ship. S.S. Brother Jonathan: Her Life and Loss, 1850-1865 (Wolfeboro, NY, 1999). Surely, in what purports to be a serious study of the subject, the reader had a right to expect some explanation of this turn-about, some report of the new evidence that now rendered the account in ACTH invalid. There is not a word, although in the auction of 29 May 1999 there may be a back-handed reference in the citation of a contemporary newspaper: "The treasure consisted of $1,000,000 in greenbacks in an iron safe. It is all nonsense about gold bars" (p.30).
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The dishonesties infesting the pseudo-historical accounts of the alleged Brother Jonathan bars are obvious: those accounts are various, contradictory, and fraudulent. In the whole of the story the only documentable facts are that a Mrs Keenan, a San Francisco lady of lurid reputation, sailed on the Brother Jonathan and lost her life in its wreck. Everything else -- including her association, and the ship's association, with these bars -- is invention.
As noted above, the texts of the auction catalogues from Gibson 1974 onward are unsigned, giving them an air of arms-length objectivity. Since the texts are suggestive of a significant historical nexus, which would enhance the market value of the ingots, there arises a manifest conflict of interest, because their anonymous author (Ford) was putting these bars on the market himself.
And there is still another, and more serious angle to this whole question. So far the problem has lain only in the fictitious texts of the auction catalogues; nothing has yet been said of the integrity of the bars themselves. They are claimed to be a product of the San Francisco Branch Mint. That claim too is an invention. For that, see "Gold Bars on the Brother Jonathan? (II)".
NOTES
1 The text is unsigned, but its authorship is noted in the NASCA catalogue [sale number 2 below], p. 136.
2 The San Francisco minting operation is usually referred to today as "the San Francisco Mint", but it was legally and in title a Branch Mint of Philadelphia until 1873. This will be a point of some importance in evaluating the authenticity of the so-called Brother Jonathan bars -- see "Gold Bars on the Brother Jonathan? (II)".
3 Reported in the Clifford sale [sale number 3 below] at lot 178.
4 Q. David Bowers, American Coin Treasures and Hoards (Wolfeboro, NH, 1997) (hereafter ACTH).
5 The physical details of the eight illustrated bars are:
If the other three ingots were of similar module the total stated value of all eleven would have been something over $4300.
6. These figures are not consonant with the list of survivors in Don. B. Marshall, California Shipwrecks: Footsteps in the Sea (Seattle, 1978), who reproduces the passenger/crew manifest. By his record the survivors were 5 women, 3 children, and 7 crew including the Third Officer. Mrs Keenan (whom we shall meet below) and the seven ladies accompanying her did not survive.
7 The Clifford bar was subsequently melted, according to Stack's, 11 June 1997, text at lot 1027.
8 The ship had been built in 1850; its first owner, Edward Mills, sold it on to Vanderbilt in 1852 and it subsequently underwent several rebuildings (ACTH, pp.256-7). The auction catalogue illustration must be of the ship in its earliest manifestation, since it carries the first owner's flag: E M.
9 ACTH comprises a mass of information, much of it not easily available otherwise. It is a gigantic, diffuse, yet very readable compilation of every kind of reference to American coin finds -- published and unpublished, certain, probable, possible, unlikely, false (or even irrelevant: the account of the great sea battle between the Alabama and the Kearsarge is a good read, but has nothing to do with treasures and hoards). Simply to have gathered all this material will have been a huge task. But it is also a task that requires exactitude, and a commitment to criticism in the best sense. Every scholar and serious student has the responsibility to get the evidence fully, and get it right. In that light it is hard to have complete confidence in an author who believes that "The Purloined Letter" was written by Hawthorne (p.13).
Bowers does warn the reader that one must handle the source evidence critically: "Most of the stories are true. Some are legendary tales... Some have been fabricated as hoaxes... All are fascinating pieces of history" (p.11). Well, the hoaxes may be part of the history of hoaxing, but they are deceptions, and are not part of the history of the finds. And even where "the stories are true" there may be little proof of it. Bowers himself nicely sets out the various reasons why accounts of the finding of money could well be not just misunderstood but deliberately distorted, or entirely suppressed (p.14); and indeed stories could be circulated without there having been a find at all.
A great many of the entries in ACTH are supported by quotes from contemporary evidence; the problem lies in their veracity. For this reason Appendix I, "Pseudo Hoards and `Amazing Finds'", could mislead, in implying that by contrast the rest of the book is composed of more credible accounts, which is not necessarily the case. Most notably, Chapter 13, "Undiscovered Treasures", includes some 350 vague and uncertain entries mostly without specific source citation, and which certainly include accounts of many "hoards" or finds which are only gossip or local lore, dealers' chitchat, and fish stories which improved with every telling. Jeremiah F. Epstein, "Pre-Columbian Old World Coins in America: An Examination of the Evidence", in Current Anthropology 21 1980 1-20, examining 40 claims to the discovery of ancient Greek and Roman coins in the soil of the Western Hemisphere, has shown how unreliable family memories and undocumented assertions can be.
10 Drawing on the surviving passenger manifest, cited by Marshall, above fn. 6.
11 On the purpose of ingots in general ACTH quotes Mint Director Snowden as making the distinction that "... gold [which] is intended for exportation is cast into fine bars, whilst that which is needed for home currency is converted into coin" (p.260). Exactly so. Yet Bowers continues, "No doubt, comments such as the preceding presaged the increased usage of gold bars in international trade and commerce including, perhaps, the gold bars aboard the Brother Jonathan" (p.260). This makes no sense. Why should anyone have converted gold not into current, spendable coin but into far more awkward ingots, of uneven dollar amount, and which would ultimately have to be converted into coin anyhow? And why then should he immediately have hauled them off to Seattle, where there was no mint to convert them back into coin? -- But of course when Bowers was composing ACTH he could not know that Mrs Keenan, whose business was hardly in international trade, would be brought into the story in Stack's 1997 to enrich the account of the bars.
12 "On any given trip north from San Francisco to Portland , the S. S. Brother Jonathan carried many gold coins" -- Bowers and Merena 1999 [sale number 6 below].
13 Michael Hodder, "Western American Gold and Unparted Bars: A Review of the Evidence", in American Journal of Numismatics n.s. 11 1999 85-149.