The description penned by John Pack, with the assistance of John Kraljevich, tells the whole story of this intriguing and rare piece, and thedescription is quoted below in its entirety: 1864 Boston Masonic Lodge Half Dollar. Rulau Ma-Bo 51, Brunk-26400, page 221. Inscribed to E. Pote.AU-50 (PCGS). Deep steel gray with accents of blue in the fields and lighter gray on the high points of the relief. Hand-engraved with great skill inthe obverse fields to "E. Pote" at left, and with "Boston Encampment" at right. The reverse is similarly engraved around thecentral device, "Taken from the ruins of Masonic / Temple / April 6th, 1864."

These very rare Masonic half dollars were little understood and usually traded as "love tokens" or similar until a fine article bycollector and dealer Mark Hotz was published on them in the February 1993 edition of The Numismatist and shed important light on them. The rarity ofthese coins is such that most collectors have never seen one and are largely unaware of their historic nature.

The Boston Masonic Temple, known at the time as the Winthrop House (named for the distinguished old Boston family), was destroyed by fire in April1864. Due to the engraving on the coins, it has long been accepted that the fire was April 6th, though the 1866 By-Laws of St. Andrews Royal ArchChapter at Boston gives the date of the fire as April 5th. It is likely that the actual recovery of the silver was the following day, as stated onthe coin.

It was a six-story structure built in 1845 at the corner of Boylston and Tremont streets at the southeast corner of the famed Boston Common. Thefollowing is, with permission, reproduced from a description of another such piece written by John Kraljevich, and published on his website,jkamericana.com:

There are six different pieces listed in Russell Rulau's Standard Catalogue of United States Tokens, including the one sold by Kraljevichearlier this year. The one offered presently is not among them. It has been suggested that the engraving was done at the Mint, as it is finelyaccomplished and largely uniform in layout. However, this seems highly unlikely as the engraving of coins as mementos was generally the realm ofjewelers, while the production of coinage was the sole business of the Mint.

One of the pieces illustrated by Rulau has a differently styled engraving, lending some evidence that more than one party may have been involved.This suggests that the engravings were likely contracted privately, probably in Boston, where the pieces were sold and where there would have been noshortage of skilled engravers and silversmiths ready to accept such a project.

The fact that the personal inscription phraseology differs between coins, and some have no name at all suggests that those who ordered them hadsome say in how the engravings were completed. This one is engraved to E. Pote, perhaps Elisha Pote. There is little published about him beyond hismention in the 1874 Proceedings of the Grand Commandery of Knights Templars and the Appendant Orders of Massachusetts and Rhode Island.

To read the complete article, see:
Historic 1864 Boston Masonic Temple Half Dollar, Struck from Silver Recovered from the Winthrop House(www.stacksbowers.com/NewsMedia/Blogs/TabId/780/ArtMID
/2678/ArticleID/64935/Historic-1864-Boston-Masonic-Temple-Half-Dollar
-Struck-from-Silver-Recovered-from-the-Winthrop-House.aspx)

To read the earlier E-Sylum article, see:
1864 MASONIC ENGRAVED HALF DOLLAR (www.coinbooks.org/esylum_v17n23a19.html)