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Sale 2
Lot 149
Roosevelt, Theodore. 26th President of the United States, 1901-1909.
Bound Collection of Three Typed Letters Signed as President. Collection of letters from President Theodore Roosevelt to Dr. W.S. Bigelow, a Boston physician and Art lover, whose Autograph Letter reply to President Roosevelt is also included. Bigelow is renowned for innovative coinage design which changed the look of American coins by bringing all their design elements into incuse relief: instead of being raised above the surface and protected by a rim, the devices and lettering are sunken in a plane that is uniformly flat. Bigelow designed a number of important American coins, including the 1908 Half Eagle, refered to in these letters as the Indian Head Five Dollar Gold Piece, the subject of this correspondence.Our collection of letters concern the newly minted Half Eagle, the first example of which President Roosevelt had sent to Bigelow to thank him for his design. The coin was never received and thought to have been lost in the mails. The letters describe the lost-and-found process as follows:
A. Typed Letter Signed as President. One page, Octavo, on White House letterhead, Washington, September 26, 1908. In this letter, the first of the series, Roosevelt presents Bigelow with the first Five Dollar gold piece struck from his design. The letter reads, in full: "Dear Sturgis: I enclose you the visible proof of a great service you have rendered the country -- and I am speaking with scientific accuracy. Here you will see the five dollar gold piece, the copy of the models you had prepared, and a month hence our five dollar gold pieces that are issued from the mint will all be of this type. This one I send you as the first one struck. It therefore has a peculiar historic interest and I feel you are peculiarly entitled to have it: so please accept it with the compliments of Director Leach and myself. Ever Yours, Theodore Roosevelt."
B. Typed Letter Signed as President. One page, Octavo, with holograph emendation, on White House letterhead, Washington, October 10, 1908. In this second letter, Roosevelt forwards Bigelow the registry receipt for the above letter of September 26, which had contained the enclosed, and now missing, gold coin. He writes, in full: "Here is the registry receipt for the letter in which the coin was enclosed. I am much concerned at its apparemt failure to ["reach you." has been inked in]. Are you sure the coin was not in the letter when you received it? Faithfully yours, Theodore Roosevelt."
C. Typed Letter Signed as President. One page, Octavo, on White House letterhead, Washington, December 12, 1908. This playful letter continues Roosevelt's hunt for the missing Five Dollar Gold Piece. The President writes, in full: "Dear Sturgis: I have your letter of the 12th, with enclosures. If you will return Mr. Chapman's letter to me so that I may have his address, I shall send him the letter that you designed to have sent him; and oh, how I would have liked to send him the other letter [doubtless an barbed request for information about the missing coins whereabouts], which you did not design to have sent him! Ever Yours, Theodore Roosevelt." The "Mr. Chapman" that Roosevelt alludes to is without doubt Samuel Hudson Chapman, the Philadelphia coin dealer, who was one of the severest critics of Bigelow's design. Chapman, who falsely alleged that the Bigelow/Pratt designs were antinaturalistic, unhygienic, incapable of stacking, and too easily counterfeited, took great pains to thwart the new half-eagle's inception. As this designing letter shows, he failed.
D. Letter of W. S. Bigelow. Two pages, recto/verso, Quarto, n.d., with holograph deletions in blue ink, to President Theodore Roosevelt. This final letter, Bigelow's response to Roosevelt's solicitous inquiries, acknowledges Bigelow's long-awaited receipt of the missing Five Dollar Gold Piece, and explains what happened. Bigelow writes, with corrections in brackets: "Dear Mr President. At last I have received your kind letter and its enclosure.It had been waitng at the Boston PO while I was at Nantucket. The envelope shows that they sent me three notices, but none had reached me. [ Iam now looking up that party.] I am glad you like the coin. It looks very well to me, and I believe the principle to be sound. [Time will show.] It is a great pleasure and priviledge to have the first one struck, and a greater one to have your letter. To have rendered [be able to render] a great service to the country is a [position/result] thing I never dreamed of aspiring to. [ I showed the letter & coin to Cabat who went to the PO with me to hunt them up. Being a thrifty person his comment was -- You had better keep them together. They'll bring a good price at your sale.] I shall have this sentence cut on a tombstone Just--(?) & keep it in the storage ware house ready for use at any moment. The thing would never have been done but for you. The credit is yours."
The "principle" that Bigelow alludes to is doubtless his sunken relief concept, which changed the face of American coinage. Roosevelt was the first president since George Washington to take a deep personal interest in our coinage. According to the numismatist Judd, he believed that our country should issue coins which would compare in beauty and relief to those of Ancient Greece. He commissioned a number of designers to undertake this project, including Bigelow, thus breaking the precedent of using only the designs of the regular mint officials. The President himself personally recommended a number of specific design elements, including the head of Liberty wearing a feather head-dress, which were subsequently adopted.
Because President Roosevelt considered it blasphemous to place the name of God on a coin, the motto IN GOD WE TRUST was omitted from the coins first issued in 1907. However, this omission caused such a public furor, that when Congress passed a bill in 1908 directing that the motto IN GOD WE TRUST "shall hereafter be inscribed upon all such gold and silver coins of said denominations as heretofore," he withdrew his objections and directed that the motto be placed on the coins.
These fascinating and important papers are archivally bound in a large burgundy morocco four-fold binder, with elegant gold tooling on the borders of each panel, and a display window at the outside upper left corner for a "$5.00 Gold Indian Head" coin (not included). Also included are the addressed envelopes, a receipt for the registered letter, and a typed postal notice, stamped "Edward G. Mansfield, Postmaster," detailng the disposition of the lost registered letter that contained the gold coin, all framed in display windows empanelled in the binder's interior. The morocco binder measures 17½ x 14½" closed, and has the title "THEODORE ROOSEVELT AND THE BIGELOW PAPERS" printed in Gold on its spine. Very Fine.
Estimated Value $2,500-UP.
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| Realized $3,680 |
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