A generous donation enhance the ANA Money Museum

In December 2011, ANA life member Steven Contursi, president of Rare Coin Wholesalers, made headlines when he sold the unique 1787 “EB on Breast” Brasher Doubloon, which later was acquired for nearly 7.4 million by a Wall Street hedge fund. Not long after the sale, Contrusi called ANA Museum Director Tiffanie Bueschel, offering to donate a high-value, historically significant rare coin to the Edward C. Rochette Money Museum in Colorado Springs. Given the recent million-dollar theft at ANA headquarters and our serious efforts to recover the stolen items, the timing could not have been better.

The coin Contursi donated was a 1792 silver half disme, an Early American piece valued at $220,000. It will be displayed in the ANA Museum Showcase at the Spring National Money Show. Ironically, one of the coins that turned up missing from the ANA collection was a 1792 half disme, making Contursi’s gift (an even better specimen) all the more special.

Only about 1,500 half dismes were struck in the basement of a Philadelphia sawmaker’s shop in 1792 before the U.S. Mint was fully operational. The coins were authorized by President George Washington under the Mint Act of 1792 and personally received by Secretary of State Thomas Jefferson on Washington’s behalf. In other words, Jefferson may have handeled this coin.

Contursi said the donation was his way of giving back to the ANA for all the wonderful things our Association does for collectors. But his gift did more than enhance a world-class-collection- it provided a much-needed infusion of hope and optimism to ANA staff members still reeling from a theft committed by a former employee, leaving them to worry that members might be reluctant to make significant donations in the future. The numismatic world is richer because of the generosity of people like Steve Contursi.

-Thomas G. Hallenbeck-

President of the ANA