1900 Lesher Dollar - HK-788a, A.B. Bumstead Type 1, No Number

Coin Details

Description

This 1900 Lesher piece (HK-788a) is the first A. B. Bumstead type without a serial number. Joseph W. Lesher (1838-1918), a mine owner of Victor, Colorado, who had backed William Jennings Bryan's free silver campaigns, issued numbered eight-sided silver pieces in 1900 and 1901. He called them referendum souvenirs: holders were free to accept or refuse them, and the octagonal shape kept them apart from federal coinage (Collectors Universe essay, 2017). They are 950 thousandths silver, the rest copper (same essay; APMEX, search). Collectors number them by Hibler-Kappen's so-called dollar catalogue (HK) and by Farran Zerbe's list (Z), as NGC does. The 1900 pieces are 35 mm across and weigh 480 grains, one troy ounce (Collectors Universe essay). Lesher then arranged for A. B. Bumstead, a grocer in Victor, to sell the pieces and give them in change. The Bumstead pieces, in two varieties, show a mountain landscape with mine buildings under PIKES PEAK SILVER MINE and read A COMMODITY WILL GIVE IN EXCHANGE MERCHANDISE AT A. B. BUMSTEAD, with a serial number; the other side has the centre of the Colorado state seal. Herman Otto of Denver made the dies, and the essay reports that 1,000 Bumstead pieces were struck, of which Bumstead issued 700. NGC lists it under Zerbe-2 as the piece with no number. Catalogue numbers: HK-788a, Zerbe-2. PCGS number 643501.

Cross References

HK-788a; Zerbe-2