In the January 1874 edition of the American Journal of Numismatics, William Sumner Appleton published an article titled "Newspaper Cuttings." He explained he was inspired to do so as "AVERY curious if not valuable paper might be made up from the many little items concerning numismatics which have appeared in the newspapers of late years. I propose to try something of the kind, topreserve in the Journal various facts, which have never yet been printed there."

In furtherance of this noble enterprise, below is a numismatics-related newspaper article that appeared in the July 28, 1884 edition of The Times (Philadelphia).

Haseltine on the "New Jersey Washington" Copper

Some History Behind the Article:

The "General Washington penny of New Jersey" is pictured in Neil Musante's Medallic Washington on page 11 and indexed as GW-04. Per Musante, quoting Baker: "This piece, found in a lotof old coppers about ten years ago, by Mr. John W. Haseltine, of Philadelphia, was purchased at the Crosby sale, June, 1883, by Lorin G. Parmelee, of Boston, for six hundred and twenty dollars, thehighest price as yet paid for any single Washington piece. The date is probably 1786."

This coin is more commonly known as the "New Jersey Washington Cent" and has been attributed to Walter Mould, who was also involved in the minting of New Jersey coppers. Musante indicates thereare presently "3 known." Haseltine's example is shown in the 1908 article:

The coin imaged by Musante is from the collection of Syd Martin and is a different coin than Haseltine's (notably it has sharper detail and has been holed):

Haseltine told his story again at the 1908 A.N.A. Convention (published in the October-November 1908 edition of The Numismatist). It is this reiteration, rather than the 1884 newspaperarticle, which appears to be the source for the standard history of the coin. However, some details are different from what was reported in 1884:

It should be noted that in the 1884 article Haseltine does not mention Crosby by name but states that "After the man who bought it died his collection was sold at auction and the coin passed intothe hands of L.G. Parmalee, of Boston, who paid $610 for it." Sylvester Crosby's collection was cataloged by Haseltine and auctioned in 1883. The New Jersey Washington Cent sold as lot 1165. However,Crosby did not die until 1914.

A January 27, 1951 letter from John Ford to Eric Newman archived on the Newman Numismatic Portal traces what Ford believed to be the 3 known examples. Haseltine's coin is said at that time to bein the Garrett collection at Princeton University, the Martin coin is traced to the 1914 Parsons sale, and the third specimen is from the James Ten Eyck Collection in 1922 and was owned by F.C.C.Boyd in 1951. Ford admits some confusion over the provenance of the Haseltine coin and the Ten Eyck coin. His letter can be found here:
https://archive.org/details/fordjohnj1950to51epncorr/page/n3/mode/2up

Do any E-Sylum readers have information on the whereabouts of the Haseltine and Ten Eyck coins?