February 2004 Issue
James C. Johnston Jr.
Photos by Steven Vater

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          To the people of El Paso, Texas, L. W. Hoffecker was in the mortgage and loan business and a dealer of coins. His coin business was known as the Watkins Coin Company. He was well-known in the coin world. Hoffecker had served as chairman of the Legislative Committee of the American Numismatic Association and was even president of the ANA from 1939 to 1941.

            In the 1920s, Hoffecker saw that money could be made through managing the distribution of commemorative coins. By 1929, the U.S. government had minted: the Columbia half dollars in 1892 and 1893; the Isabella quarter in 1893; the Lafayette dollar in 1900; the Louisiana gold dollars in 1904 and 1905; the Panama-Pacific half dollar and gold coins in 1915; the Illinois Centennial half dollar in 1918; the Maine Centennial half dollar in 1920; the Pilgrim Tercentennial half dollar in 1920 and 1921; the Alabama half dollar in 1921; the Missouri gold dollar in 1921; the Grant Centennial half dollars of 1922; the Monroe Doctrine half dollar of 1923; the Huguenot-Walloon half dollar of 1925; the California Diamond Jubilee half dollar of 1925; the Fort Vancouver Centennial half dollar in 1925; the Lexington-Concord half dollar in 1925; the Stone Mountain Memorial half dollar in 1925; and the super-long series of Oregon Trail half dollars of 1926 to 1939. There was no reason for this series, and several others, to go for so long a period of time.

            This series eventually would include 14 different varieties. In 1926, the Sesquicentennial half dollar was minted and was followed in 1927 by the Vermont Sesquicentennial (a sesquicentennial marks a 150 year celebration.) In 1928, 10,000 half dollars were minted honoring the sesquicentennial of Captain James Cook’s landing in Hawaii. This coin quickly sold out in spite of its record high price of $2. This did not go unnoticed by Hoffecker.

President Herbert Hoover was not a friend on numismatics and put an end to the minting of commemorative coins. Hoover was a stamp collector.	President Franklin D. Roosevelt also collected stamps, but he liked to collect coins as well. Commemorative coins were prolifically minted during his administration.	The obverse of the Elgin commemorative half dollar features a pioneer. Hoffecker played wetnurse to this commemorative.	The reverse of the Elgin commemorative features the model of Rovelstad’s ill-fated statue.

              In 1929, he petitioned for the minting of a commemorative coin honoring the 1853 Gadsden purchase of the extreme U.S. southwest territories from Mexico. President Hoover did not approve of the minting of the commemorative, which Hoffecker proposed, nor did he approve any other commemorative coinage during his 1929 to 1933 tenure as president.

            Hoffecker did not give up. He knew Hoover would also pass, and with the advent of the election of Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1932, happy days were here again for the collector. Roosevelt was the ultimate collector who liked coins.

            The new president’s first love was postage stamps. He had been given the family collection by his mother, Sarah Roosevelt. Perhaps it is for this reason that he eagerly approved new commemorative stamps and coins. He even personally designed the stamp honoring Richard E. Byrd’s 1933 expedition to Antarctica.

            In 1933, the Oregon commemorative half dollars were minted again. During the Roosevelt years, a total of 28 events were honored. Some of those events were marked by having coins struck from all three mints. This climate was made for Hoffecker to shine as a promoter of commemorative coins.

            With Hoover gone on March 4, 1933, the door was open wide for all sorts of commemorative coin projects. One such project was the minting of half dollars honoring American frontier hero Daniel Boone. Today, if one collects commemorative coins by date and mintmark, one needs to gather 16 coins to finish the Boone series.

            Two of the Boones are very difficult to get because of the very low mintages. They are the 1934D and the 1934S Boones with the small  added 1934 date. In 1934, the first Boone half dollar was minted. In 1935, all the mints minted the coin with the 1935 date in place of 1934. In 1935, however, the powers-that-be insisted that the date 1934 be included in the design of the coin, because that was the mile-stone date the coins were intended to commemorate. So, in 1935, a second set of Boones was minted at all three mints with the 1934 date added. While only 2,003 coins were struck at Denver and 2,004 coins were struck at San Francisco, tens of thousands of collectors wanted them. The pair became instantly rare. No silver commemorative coin has ever had such a small mintage.

The 1935 Boone half dollars were called “Frankensteins,” because the Denver and San Francisco mints made only 2,003 and 2,004 Boones with the 1934 date on the reverse. They turned in to real “monsters” for the collector and were manipulated.	The Oregon half dollars were the first super-long commemorative series which was minted between the years 1926 to 1939.	The Hudson Commemorative half dollar had a mintage of only 10,008 coins. Hoffecker later made a trade for some of them.

            C. Frank Dunn, of Lexington, Kentucky, had the responsibility of distribution of the Boone coins. As few as 500 to 1,000 pairs of coins were ever distributed from one source. The coins caused so much trouble in the collecting fraternity that Dunn himself dubbed the coins “Frankensteins.” It seems that the lead figure in the Boris Karloff film of the period came to represent all monsters. Nobody seemed to have been able to buy the coins at the nominal price of $3.70. By 1936, the pair was selling for $80. This was a huge amount of money for the middle of the Great Depression. 

            Even Congress got into the act by investigating and holding hearings on the coins. Hoffecker’s testimony given before the Congressional committee, and he indicated that Dunn was the distributor of the coins and that the coins had shot up to a great value in record time. Today the “Frankensteins” are worth $2,000 a pair in mint state 65 condition. Good luck if you can find them at that price. I paid almost that for my specimens over 12 years ago.

            Hoffecker thought those “Frankensteins” were interesting, to say the least. He decided once again to sponsor a commemorative coin of his own, just as he had in 1929 when his ill-fated Gadsden Purchase project fell flat on its numismatic face. There can be no question that Hoffecker’s grand scheme was designed to wring dollars out of the numismatic confraternity of 1935. He only needed an event to commemorate and some organization to sponsor it. After that, all he would need would be a mere act of Congress, which had the sole power to mint coins.

            Just as Dunn had dreamed up the Boone project, Hoffecker dreamed up and even designed a half dollar honoring Carbeza de Vaca  and the so-called “Old Spanish Trail,” which de Vaca followed for years after he was shipwrecked.

            The would-be conquistador, Panfilo de Narvaez led an expedition to the Spanish new World for treasure and glory about the year 1527. It had only been 35 years since Columbus’ first voyage and less than a decade since Cortes crushed the Aztec Empire. There was still time for glory! The New World was huge and largely unknown to Europeans.

            Alas, things did not go very well. There were storms and shipwrecks. Privation was rampant. Most of the expedition members died. Out of the 700 or so men who originally set out, only five survived. One of the five was de Vaca. It seems that after the shipwreck, de Vaca was abused, beaten, kept in slavery by Native Americans. He was a naked skeleton – just barely still alive – at the time of his rescue six years later.

            During those half dozen years, de Vaca crossed the deep south and Texas and had traveled into the southwest. Hoffecker hit on the idea that the 400th anniversary of de Vaca’s journey would be a good subject for celebration because it made a good story. But was it deserving of a special coin?

            Maybe it was. After all, de Vaca was his expedition’s money man as the official treasurer of Narvaez’s ill-fated adventure. Maybe he was destined to be honored by having a map of his journey immortalized on Hoffecker’s coin, as well as the symbol of his name, Cabeza de Vaca, which literally translated means “Head of a Cow.”

            Indeed, Hoffecker placed the head of a cow on the obverse (front) of his coin. He convinced the El Paso Museum to sponsor the coin, and he had himself named the head of the museum’s coin committee. This placed him in charge of the coin’s exclusive distribution. Is anyone now thinking of foxes in hen houses?!

	Hoffecker himself designed this Old Spanish Trail half dollar and controlled its distribution. It features a head of a cow which is a word play on de Vaca’s name.	Here is the reverse of the Old Spanish Trail half dollar and shows the journey of the Cabeza de Vaca.

            The coin has been called “the ugliest commemorative ever produced.” Hoffecker was further insulted when his design for the Old Spanish Trail half dollar was damned for its amateurishness. The price of the coin, $2, was also a source of negative comments.

            In spite of the fact that some dealers wanted no part of the “Ugly Coin,” they sold out in record time. Unknown to the numismatic world was the fact that Hoffecker kept some of the coins for himself and later swapped some for other valuable coins, including the scarce Hudson commemorative.

            Despite criticism and questions from Congress, Hoffecker pushed on and became involved with the Elgin Centennial half dollars. These were minted to fund a statue proposed by sculptor Trygve A. Rovelstad for a substantial work of art called “The Pioneer Memorial,” to be erected in Elgin Park, in Elgin, Illinois. The coins sold poorly, and the unfortunate Rovelstad ended up in a nursing home while his statue remained uncast in bronze because of lack of funding. The commemorative issue never resulted in cash for the project.

            Only 10,008 Old Spanish Trail commemorative were over minted. In 1935, high mint state coins were selling for $5.50. Now M.S. 65 specimens sell for $1,000 to $1,200. Only 25,105 of the Elgin Centennial coins were struck. The beautiful “Pioneer Memorial” statue exists only on the reverse of the piece. Elgin half dollars were selling for a bit less than their issued price of $1.50 for a half decade after they were minted. Today one in mint state 65 condition sells for around $250. They are handsome coins.

            Hoffecker himself was an interesting piece of work who enriched the numismatic world in his own way. I do not like to think that his Spanish trail coin was really all that ugly. I remember how happy I was when I finally secured my own specimen. Hoffecker was a larger-than-life figure whose legacy can still incite a heated argument.
 

          My Calendar

           If you want to catch up with me in February, you will find me at Richard Murphy’s N.E.S.S. First Sunday Coin and Stamp Show on February 1, at the Holiday Inn in Dedham, Mass. The show hours are 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. The Holiday Inn is located on Route 128 near the intersection of Route 1. On Feb. 22, I will be at Ernie Botte’s Coin and Stamp Show at the Westford Regency Inn. To get there take exit 32 off Route 495, proceed to Route 110 to Westford, Mass.

            On Sunday, Feb. 29, I will be at Tom Lacey’s Greater Worcester Show at the Best Western Yankee Drummer Hotel, just off exit 10 of the Mass Pike in Auburn, Mass. Show hours are 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. I hope to see all you Journal readers there.

You may email Jim Johnston at johnstonjim8@aol.com  You may also wish to check Jim's website for further updates.   www.johnstonantiques.com