Massachusetts. Boston. Henry Cook Medal. Rulau Ma-Bo 19. Copper. Choice Uncirculated.
Obv. Constitution in glory of weapons and banners, never to be surrendered TO TRAITORS & REBELS… NO SURRENDER OF THE FORT SUMTER OF THE NORTH. Rev. Circle wreath, 11-line inscription of Friend Street, Boston, MONEY BROKER AND DEALER IN RARE AND ANTIQUE COINS, MEDALS, AUTOGRAPHS… Here is a very high quality, generously sized (42mm) and somewhat belligerent token, both numismatic and patriotic. Much mint red.
Henry Cook, who would become one of America’s first rare coin dealers, was born in Abington, MA, in 1821, a seventh-generation Mayflower descendant.
He moved to Boston when he was 16 years old and gained employment with a company in the export trade. At the age of 21 he was sent to South America
to handle the firm’s interests on the west coast there. Later he served as mate aboard a sailing vessel which traded along that coast and with islands in the Pacific.
By the 1840s he was an avid coin collector.
In the 1850s he relinquished seafaring for the security of an on-land occupation in Boston, and entered the boot and shoe trade at 74 Friend Street.
He was fond of looking through copper half cents and cents in circulation and picking out scarce dates which he displayed in a counter in his shoe shop.
It seems that he was active in the rare coin business by the mid-1850s.
Circa 1862 he commissioned a selection of patriotic medals to be struck from his own designs, with dies by George H. Lovett.
In 1866, still located in his shoe shop-with-coins at 74 Friend Street, Cook advertised as: “Numismatist and antiquarian.
Rare and antique coins, medals, autographs, books, &c., bought, sold and exchanged. Cabinets arranged and catalogued for public sale in Boston or New York.
Also, purchases made at all the coin and book sales in either of the above mentioned cities, on commission.”
On April 6 of the same year he was elected treasurer at the founding meeting of the New England Numismatic and Archaeological Society.
In 1869 Cook issued a 12-page listing, Coin and Medal Circular, Containing a Few Remarks on the American Series of Coins and Medals.
With a Little Brief Advice to the Inexperienced Collector.
From the Q. David Bowers Collection.
