The 1894-S Dime: Legend, Myth and Enigma

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The 1894-S Dime: Legend, Myth and Enigma
by Michael E. Marotta                                                                                            


                                                                   



(This first appeared in the Summer 2010 issue of the MSNS Mich-Matist.)                         

We love million-dollar coins. They always come with stories. The 1894-S Barber Dime offers the lure of any rarity with an extra measure of enticement:  24 were struck; 9 are known; 5 more may be suggested; perhaps 10 are still out there. Add at least two colorful larger-than-life personalities, a handful of famous coin dealers, and you have all the elements of an American classic.
   According to legend, John Daggett, Superintendent of the San Francisco Mint, ordered 24 dimes struck for the year 1894. He gave three each to seven friends and three also to his daughter, Hallie. Daggett advised her to save them for her old age when she could sell them for a good price. However, on the way home, she spent one on a dish of ice cream. She sold the other two to coin dealer Earl Parker in 1950.
   The story has many problems and over the years researchers have attempted to peel away the layers of mystery. Why the Mint would strike 24 coins is not clear. They are listed as $2.40 in dimes in Domestic and Foreign Coins Manufactured by the Mint of the United States 1793-1970, (US Government Printing Office 1972). In 1928, based on his correspondences of 1905, Farran Zerbe suggested that the Mint needed to balance a bullion account. The shortage was 40 cents and $2.40 still made an even dollar total for the year. That theory remained in the stories. On the centenary, in The Numismatist for February 1994, Chicago Coin Club stalwart, William A. Burd published his investigation of this cold case. “This explanation has no basis in fact. No evidence at any Mint prior to or after this incident substantiates such a practice.”
   A decade later, the estimable Kevin Flynn published his own book about this coin, The 1894-S Dime, A Mystery Unraveled (2nd edition; 2005). The bullion totals refer specifically to the weights of metals in inventory, not to the production of coins, which are listed as pieces struck and as face value. “The second reason this theory was discounted is that the fiscal year totals for the dimes from San Francisco which were struck between July 1st, 1893 to June 30th, 1894 were not rounded to an even dollar total.” That much is clear from the public records. The dollar value of silver coins struck at the San Francisco Mint for 1894 came to $3,946,552.65; and the total for all Mints that year came to $6,709,302.85 (see Domestic and Foreign Coins). Nonetheless, Flynn asserted that the intent was to round out the numbers for the fiscal year, not the calendar year.
   Then, there is the problem of the dish of ice cream. We easily get the picture of a little girl acting on a childish impulse. As Burd posed the question: “Was Hallie old enough to walk home alone, but too young to understand the importance of the dimes?”  In point of fact, in the summer of 1894, Miss Daggett was 15. Moreover, she was unlikely to have been frivolous. Hallie Morse Daggett (December 18, 1878 – October 19, 1964) was the first woman employed as a U.S. Forest Service fire spotter. She worked alone every summer from 1913 to 1924 at the Eddy’s Gulch Lookout atop the 6,444-foot Klamath Peak (Wikipedia).


                                                                     





There may be some truth to the ice cream, but Hallie Daggett was not the girl. According to Kevin Flynn: “The author spoke with Ken Jordon from California. Mr. Jordon was the President of the Rosemont Coin Club starting in 1959. Mr. Jordon was with Guy Chapman when Earl Parker came to the coin show and offered the two 1894-S dimes for sale. …  Mr. Parker had purchased the coin from a daughter of a banker who lived in Ukiah, CA. She had told Mr. Parker that her father had given her three coins and that she had spent one on ice cream on the way home.”
   Two of the known specimens are circulated. As a result of this episode, one has been dubbed “the ice cream specimen” retrieved from circulation in 1957 and sold by Friedberg and Kagin, according to the Breen Encyclopedia. Breen lists 12, though two remained unverified. A third Daggett specimen, apparently not from Hallie, is an impaired proof. How these coins came to the attention of numismatists is also oddly shrouded.  Kevin Flynn also questioned some of the details of  these yarns as they have been spun out for the numismatic press.  “Second, records from the California State Numismatic Association show that Earl Parker first displayed these coins in April of 1949, with one of the coins being sold several times before 1954 including a Stack’s auction in 1953.”
   How did the bankers know that no dimes were going to be produced that year?  Who were these friends of the Mint Superintendent?  Who was John Daggett?  Richard Kelly and Nancy Oliver have written extensively about Daggett and the San Francisco Mint in articles for Coin World and The Numismatist. Their most recent book is Gold in His Veins: The Story of John Daggett. (O.K. Associates, 2010.)  “When he got to California, what he found was a lot of competition for land in the gold mining areas, harsh mountain winters, disastrous lowland floods, strains of deadly diseases and a multitude of accidental deaths both in and around the mines. Nevertheless, he did eventually find gold – and lots of it! … Not only did John become a successful miner, and mine owner, but he also became a successful politician. And, his political achievements led to his being selected to the esteemed position of Superintendent of the San Francisco Mint.” (The E-Sylum: Volume 13, Number 13, March 28, 2010, Article 4)
   Among them, Flynn, Kelly and Oliver unearthed records of five more 1894-S dimes. The coins were sent to Philadelphia as part of the monthly and quarterly assays. However, the researchers agree that Mint records only list three 1894-S dimes actually assayed. (The E-Sylum: Volume 9, Number 6, February 5, 2006.) What happened to the other two, is not clear. They likely were melted, but perhaps an employee of the Philadelphia Mint tossed two other dimes in the weighing pan, a custom not unknown either back then or more recently. That leaves seven to nine 1894-S dimes waiting to be discovered.

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Interesting read!