51 Days Of Flying Eagle And Indian Head Cents! - Part 4!!

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Here's a counterstamped 1858 cent. It's the only one, as yet recorded from this merchant, WENDT & SEYMOUR. The reverse mark, WENDT & SEYMOUR / PATENT / NEW YORK, reveals the intent and location of this issue.

Database notes: HERMANN WENDT AND HENRY SEYMOUR FORMED A PARTNERSHIP IN ELIZABETH, NJ IN THE LATE 1850's, MAKING CUTLERY. THEY MOVED TO 52 BEEKMAN ST. IN NY CITY. RULAU LISTED AN EARLIER STAMP FOR WENDT. THIS MAY BE A CIVIL WAR ISSUE, AS THEY PATENTED A PAIR OF TAILOR'S SHEARS IN 1863, BEARING A SIMILAR MARK

Always good to see the counterstamps make their appearances here.

Here's a counterstamped 1859 cent. OIL OF ICE was a patent medicine. Both Rulau and Brunk listed this counterstamp on various coins with then, 2004, some 58 specimens having been recorded. Likely, more specimens have surfaced since then.

My database notes: FROM 1856 ON, CHARLES H. GOODWIN SOLD PATENT MEDICINES AT 49 WATER ST. IN EXETER. M.H. GOODWIN PATENTED A NUMBER OF NOTIONS. HE WAS A PHARMACIST WHO ALSO MARKETED THE ITEMS. THE OIL MAY HAVE BEEN A BYPRODUCT OF CAMPHOR; THIS, AS THERE WAS A CAMPHOR ICE MEDICINE.

1859 Indian Head cent

Hi Paralyse .... Cool counterstamp. While I can't offer a slam dunk attribution, this is quite likely the mark of Henry M. Noyes of Portland, Maine. He appears in the 1858-9 Portland directory as a machinist.

https://books.google.com/books?id=z....%22&f=false

The occupation, machinist, virtually demanded that a personal name stamp be produced. I strongly suspect that it was a virtual rite of passage into the machinist trade in that era to create same. While I could find no patent issue for Noyes, it's possible that he may have sought or been granted one.

Compare your Noyes c/s to that of others, below, known to have been struck by the Strange family of die sinkers and letter cutters from Bangor. It's possible that J.W. Strange shared a working relationship with Noyes or else created the stamp for him ....






In addition to the strong similarity of the upper/lower case fonts, look at the letter "e" in the marks. It's circular in style. It's the one letter that the Noyes and Strange stamps share.

Thanks for the compliment, Paralyse. I've been digging at the counterstamps forty years now. Having been at it so long, I've hopefully learned a few things along the way.

I'd like to offer a humble suggestion on your Noyes c/s. Judging from your pic, it could use some conservation. A gentle swab with acetone or Coin Care would lift and neutralize the apparent verdigris that's lodged deep in the stamp. Left as is, that verdigris will migrate and erode the coin's surface IMHO, the modest value of this low grade 1859 cent is actually much enhanced by this particular c/s; this perhaps, by a factor of four or five times, I'd say. Thus, the stamping makes conservation more appealing.