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Sale 69
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Lot 1861
1883 Hawaiian Eighth Dollar Copper Pattern. . Medcalf-Russell 2CPC-1. PCGS graded Proof 67 Brown CAC Approved. In a new secure plus holder. Pop 1; none finer at PCGS. The second finest known. The finest is a PF67RB example. Lovely shades of brown colors which blend effortlessly into wonderful blue toning on both sides a most exquisite coin and sure to delight any sophisticated buyer. It is hard to imagine how this coin survived the vicissitudes of time so well as this superb specimen has. The coin is extraordinary in terms of its technical excellence and also for sheer aesthetic beauty.
Humorous anecdote: According to Kuykendall, the most famous historian of the Hawaiian Islands, late in the 1880s, Hawaii's King Kalakaua decided (with the support of his ministers) to form a royal navy in an attempt to forge an alliance of the Polynesian archipelagos which had eluded outright colonization up to that time. This effort culminated in the deployment of the Kaimiloa, the only vessel of the short-lived navy of Kalakaua. Imagine the Keystone Cops and you get an indication of how well this venture fared.
In 1886, the Hawaiian government purchased for $20,000 a 171 ton former British steamer Explorer, "engaged in the copra and guano trade," Renamed Kaimiloa ("the far seeker"), repaired, refitted, and armed with six small brass cannons and two Gatling guns, the little steamer was placed in commission in March 1887, "for the naval service of the Kingdom." The ship was put under the command of Captain George E. Gresley Jackson, who was the principal of the Industrial and Reformatory School, and two dozen of the older boys in that institution were placed on the Kaimiloa to be trained as seamen. "A nucleus of experienced seamen was added to the complement of the ship together with a detachment of marines recruited from the King's Guard. Of the officers, only Captain Jackson had good technical qualifications, and his were heavily discounted by his devotion to John Barleycorn." [Meaning that Jackson was a drunk.]
(Anything further about the misadventures of the Kaimiloa in Samoa that year and later we'll leave to the readers' imagination or to a search on the word "Kaimiloa" on Wikipedia.) (PCGS # 10984) .
Estimated Value $25,000 - 30,000.
The Forsythe Collection.
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| Realized $46,000 |
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