"Pete Smith's comments about the black man who had an 1804 silver dollar reminded me of an article I wrote for the Civil War Token Society in 2017 on the life of Henry Clay Ezekiel. His obituary notice in the November 1930 issue of The Numismatist cites a 1911 biographical sketch in which he related that

I found it interesting that two black men in Virginia owned 1804 dollars."

This Dreifus story made me laugh. It has too much in common with the legend of the Collins hoard of 1828 half cents.

The following is excerpted from my book, The Half Cent 1793-1857. The Story of America's Greatest Little Coin.

Walter Breen wrote about this hoard as did Q. David Bowers. Both of them "corrected" some of this information. Breen reported having seen a remnant lot of 140 red UNCs in 1955, making the 1,000-coin number most probable. Both wrote that Collins sold the 1811 to the Chapmans for $18, not $3, that the Jackman 1811 half cent was not from the Warner Sale, and that the woman brought the coins to Collins in 1894, not 1884, as they believed that Collins was not a coin dealer until after his retirement in 1894. Breen also wrote that Collins sold the coins for 40¢ each. "An old colored woman" brought the bag, which also contained the finest known 1811 1-A, to the Washington, DC shop of Benjamin H. Collins? In 1884 or 1894? Of course! That happens all the time. We can be sure there was a bag that came from somewhere. Whether it contained 50, 100 or 1,000 coins is uncertain; all three numbers have been reported, but it was most likely the latter, based on the number of high grade survivors.

Is it likely that "an old colored woman" walked into Collins' shop with 1,000 mint red half cents? Admittedly, they had a combined face value of only $5.00, but a bag of red fifty-six or sixty-six year old half cents when half cents had been removed from circulation at least 27 years before? If you're as skeptical of that story as I am, note that Collins worked for the Treasury Department in Washington, DC until his retirement in 1894, though he was a coin dealer at least from 1884. Where did she get them? How and why would an old woman, presumably not of means, have kept them in pristine condition for so long? And why bring them to Collins so conveniently close to his retirement? Could he have used insider information or connections to get these coins and created a cover story to hide the truth?

Alas, we'll probably never know, but the plot sickens!

To read the earlier E-Sylum article, see:
JULIUS DREIFUS AND THE 1804 DOLLAR(https://www.coinbooks.org/v23/esylum_v23n52a16.html)