Even thoughwe are well past the "accumulation phase" of life, Iam always searching for something numismatic orML Beistle related and she has (many!) other interestsincluding old glass. She called my attention to abeautiful very old pickle jar in a glass case. I didn'tsee the old jar because, in front of it, was a beautifulexample of an 1892 dated Liberty Seated quarter dollarsauce dish coin glass.

For many years, I've been searching, withoutsuccess, for examples of Liberty Seated coin glass,that is, glass with the Liberty Seated design. I'veknown about them from articles in other publicationsbut just couldn't find any. I've seen examples of acommon design that looks like coins but is actually apseudo coin. I've seen articles where various collectorsand dealers had massive coin glass collectionsand always wanted at least one example for my personalcollection.

An internet "Google" searchof coin glass turns up many hits including some goodbackground information on coin glass, one of thebest beingwww.oldandsold.com/articles/article246.shtml.

In summary, this type coin glass was made by CentralGlass Company of Wheeling, West Virginia in1892 possibly for a few reasons: "The Chicago Exposition which, in addition to commemorating thediscovery of America, was also honoring the 100thanniversary of the Mint in Philadelphia. Secondly,"free silver" had been advocated by "Coin" Harveyin the Western States, and William Jennings Bryanwas using it as a political platform at the moment."

In any case, "five months of actual productiontook place before the Treasury Departmentmoved in and declared that the process was actuallycounterfeiting. A Federal law had been violated inthe practice of reproducing actual coins. The mouldswere destroyed. This stopped the production of the"coin glass" pattern and left but a very limitedamount of genuine "coin glass" in the hands of scattereddealers and unsuspecting owners."

For more information on the Liberty SeatedCollectors Club, see:www.lsccweb.org