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Posted 09/28/2016 08:33 am
Although the below, 1854 "Philly" half dollar is neither a San Francisco or Carson City mint issue, it definitely circulated in Sacramento, California in 1855 or not long after; this, as evidenced by its drug store counterstamp ...
James Lozier Polhemus was born in 1825 in NY City, per Brunk. Polhemus sailed on the Orpheus to California in 1849 and established his pharmacy in 1850; remaining at the J Street address until his death in 1866. An 1859 directory lists him as a wholesale and retail druggist. His wife continued the business until 1874. One of his counterstamped $20 gold pieces, recovered from the wreck of the S.S. Central America, sold for $48,000 in 2001. Brunk wrote that Polhemus was open for business at all hours, selling at cost to indigents, stamping all coins that passed through his till.
Dr. Brunk reported about eighty specimens known in 2003; this, in his work, Merchant an Privately Countermarked Coins. Brunk's listing includes a wide variety of silver and gold coins, foreign and domestic. The Polhemus logo counterstamps are today highly prized by collectors, what with their mortar and pestle pictorial.
James Lozier Polhemus was born in 1825 in NY City, per Brunk. Polhemus sailed on the Orpheus to California in 1849 and established his pharmacy in 1850; remaining at the J Street address until his death in 1866. An 1859 directory lists him as a wholesale and retail druggist. His wife continued the business until 1874. One of his counterstamped $20 gold pieces, recovered from the wreck of the S.S. Central America, sold for $48,000 in 2001. Brunk wrote that Polhemus was open for business at all hours, selling at cost to indigents, stamping all coins that passed through his till.
Dr. Brunk reported about eighty specimens known in 2003; this, in his work, Merchant an Privately Countermarked Coins. Brunk's listing includes a wide variety of silver and gold coins, foreign and domestic. The Polhemus logo counterstamps are today highly prized by collectors, what with their mortar and pestle pictorial.
