From 1979 to 1981, Bowers & Ruddy Galleries sold the outstanding collection ofT. Harrison Garrett in four highly celebrated auctions. Among the 2,453 lots was ahighly questionable purchase made by Garrett in 1884 from dealer and futureauthor Lyman H. Low. The coin in question was a Sommers Island

On October 24, 1884, Lyman Low wrote to Garrett offering him the a unique SommersIsland twenty shilling gold piece. Low theorized that Despite the piece appearing questionable to typical Sommers Island coinage, Lowconsidered it genuine and concluded

On October 29th, Low followed up with yet another letter concerning the pieceand claiming it arrived from Germany with as to its real value. Low added that he could add noadditional details regarding its history but put its value it in the class of the BrasherDoubloon and Good Samaritan shilling. Garrett took the bait and two days laterLow acknowledged Garrett's check of $500 for the piece.

The Sommers Island gold piece remained in Garrett's collection well afterGarrett's death in 1888 and continued to reside among later additions made byGarrett's sons, Robert and John Work. The John Hopkins University would laterinherit the collection and eventually put the contents up for auction.

The third of these four public auctions by Bowers & Ruddy took place onOctober 1-2, 1980, with lot number 1199 listed as the Like the 1795 North Wales Halfpenny and 1781 North American Token,the Sommers Island piece exhibited artificial wear produced from unfinished dies.Bowers & Ruddy offered the piece as It sold for a high bid of $1250.

Bowers & Ruddy listed the piece as a addingit was manufactured during the 1880's by a New York dealer known as only as Although the piece fooled Garret, whether it also fooled Low isanother question. At the time (1884) Low had only been a dealer for a year, and hispublished reference of Hard Times tokens was still two years off. In The History ofUnited States Coinage as Illustrated by the Garrett Collection, author Q. David Bowers summed up the transaction by diplomatically noting,

The Sommers Island Gold Pound as it appeared in the Bowers & Ruddy auction listing.Low, however, appeared to be pushing the piece on Garrett by writing two lettersin five days extolling the rarity of the coin, before successfully closing the salewithin the span of a week. Low also failed to mention the fact that the piece waspreviously mentioned in Edouard Frossard's Numisma, which led an editor of TheAmerican Journal of Numismatics to question the authenticity of the piece in print.Frossard followed up by writing in the July 1884 issue of Numisma

Had Garrett subscribed to Numisma he would have been aware of the notorietyof the piece well before being offered it by Low. At the same time, Frossard'scomments pertaining to the possibility of the coin's historical significance mayhave only whetted his appetite. Bower & Ruddy's auction catalog also makes noteof this observation, stating

Garrett could have also made use of one of the best reference publicationsavailable in his day, namely Sylvester Crosby's Early Coins of America. Crosby's1875 book covered the Sommers Island issues as well as included photographedspecimens in Plate I of the book. Included in this very plate were photos ofauthentic issues as well as modern day copies.

As for the $500 Garrett paid for this fabrication, it should be noted that Garretthad purchased a genuine 1804 silver dollar from dealer George Cogan a yearearlier for $765. It should also be noted that the modern-day purchasing power of$500 in 1884 amounts to over $14,000 in 2022. Garrett would continue to conductother business with Low, but the Sommers Island piece was apparently neverdiscussed again.

As for the Sommers Island gold pound, it has not surfaced since 1980 and itswhereabouts remain unknown. Bowers & Ruddy's listing also noted the dies forthe fabrication surfaced in the late 1950's and were purchased by a Pittsburghdealer, who then struck off additional pieces. Luckily, Robert Bashlow never gothis hands on them.

The Garrett sales were a high benchmark in the rare coin market at the time, withmany pieces exceeding their pre-sale auction estimate, and the twenty-shilling goldpound was no exception. $1,250 was a lot to pay for a known fantasy, and still is.And the disturbing fact remains that additional copies had been struck off when theGarrett piece was purchased mainly for its pedigree. This complicates matters forthe high bidder whomever they were, much less whomever holds the piece today.

Caveat emptor.

Sources:
The History of United States Coinage as Illustrated by the Garrett Collection. Q.David Bowers. (Bower & Ruddy Galleries, 1979)
The Garrett Collection Sales. Sale III, October 1-2, 1980. (Bower & RuddyGalleries,1980)
Numisma. (Frossard) Vol 7, Number 6. November 1883.
Numisma. (Frossard) Vol 8, Number 4. July 1884.
The Early Coins of America. Sylvester S. Crosby (Token and Medal Society,1965)