The Newman Papers on Counterfeit Halfpence

Concluding tomorrow (March 25), Heritage Auctions is presenting Selections from the Eric P. Newman Correspondence Files, an offering of 97 lots of research papers on various topics. Lots 52021-52024 highlight Newman's work on counterfeit halfpence, including the Machin's Mills coinage. Newman had a strong interest in both colonial coinage and counterfeits, and the intersection of the two topics clearly enjoyed much of his attention. Still, the counterfeit halfpence represented Newman's a subject that greatly interested him but never led to a broad, definitive publication.

As early as 1953, Newman envisioned a comprehensive work on the Machin's Mills coinage, which he noted in correspondence with his brother-in-law Julian Edison on September 21 of that year. On January 4, 1956, Newman wrote to Wayte Raymond that he had visited the Machin's Mills site near Newburgh, NY. A February 9, 1959, letter to Kenneth Rendell further detailed Newman's work on the subject:

On November 17, 1964, Newman wrote to Howard Kurth On January 26, 1973, Newman lamented to Colonial Newsletter editor James C. Spilman: Included in the present offering, lot 52022, is Newman's unpublished draft, c. 1960, on counterfeit halfpence circulating in colonial America. Newman's most significant published work on the subject appeared in the 1976 American Numismatic Society volume Studies on Money in Early America under the title Newman's article file for that work appears here as lot 52023.

Image: Initial page, with markup, of Newman's c. 1960 draft,

Link to the Newman Correspondence Files Showcase Auction sale home page:
https://coins.ha.com/c/auction-home.zx?saleNo=63247&ic=breadcrumb-coins-121913-interior