1861 United South "Confederate Half Dime" Medalet. DeWitt C-1861-2

Rare and Intriguing 1861 United South "Confederate Half Dime" 1861 United South "Confederate Half Dime" Medalet. DeWitt C-1861-2, Breen Encyclopedia p. 666. Silver. Extremely Fine. 13.0 mm. Pierced for display at 12 o'clock, as always. By size and weight, more comparable to a silver three-cent piece than a half dime, but old nicknames die hard. Light silver gray with some hairlines and associated brightness from wearing. Neatly holed in its usual location between UNITED and SOUTH, as intended. Well centered and well struck for the issue, with less of the central softness among the details of the cotton bloom on the reverse than seen on some examples. Worn, but still showing a wealth of detail, including a few of the stars on the crudely rendered Confederate flag. After generations of speculation based upon a few scraps of post-war evidence, Nancy Kelly and Richard Oliver finally figured out the origin of this piece. While their article "Mystery shrouds Confederate States medalets" was published in the January 6, 2014 issue of Coin World, thus rendering it ephemeral, Syd Martin was smart enough (and appreciative enough of good original research) to save his copy alongside the example that we sold in our August 2024 sale of his collection. On page 48 of that issue, Kelly and Oliver published a nearly contemporary reference, writing that "in April of 1868, the [New Orleans] Times-Picayune ran a very interesting item (repeated from the Nashville Banner of Nashville, Tenn. on March 28, 1868) that will most likely answer the question as to where, when, and who made the pieces." That newspaper piece read: A few mornings since you stated that Esquire Meacham had in his possession a genuine Confederate coin of the value of about three cents, nearly pure silver. The only coin of the description mentioned by you was made in Shelbyville, Tennessee, by A.O.H.P. Sehorn, who constructed with his own hand the machinery, and milled about five hundred of them in the fall of 1861. He gave most of them to Confederate soldiers while passing, as mementoes. He also made thousands of gun and musket caps for which he made no charge as a general thing, but gave them to his friends. Kelly and Oliver identified Sehorn as Alexander Sehorn, a "silversmith/jeweler" who lived in Shelbyville. He took enough interest in industrial production for the war effort that, according to their article, "in May of 1861 he wrote to Jefferson Davis suggesting that the Confederacy convert the mint at Dahlonega, Ga., which was by then in Confederate hands, into a factory for percussion caps." In 1879, the Tennessean of Nashville carried a breathless page one story about Sehorn's role in an insurance fraud ring that involved forged death certificates and a fraudulent burglary of his jewelry store. The headline on January 12, 1879 called it a "PHENOMENAL RASCALITY." Before the Kelly and Oliver research was published, this piece already had good documentation as a private creation during the war. J.W. Scott's Coin Collectors Journal of April 1878 carried a piece that had made the rounds of the nation's newspapers, including the New York Times issue of February 14, 1878, calling this medalet a "Rebel Half Dime." The article quoted a Memphis man named P. Sid Jones, who recalled that he received "a silver 5-cent piece which he got the day after the battle of Perryville, Kentucky, October 9, 1862." The September 19, 2016 issue of Coin World, again wisely archived by Syd Martin, included an inquiry from a metal detectorist who found one of these pieces at the site of the Battle of Stone's River, exactly 25 miles up the Lebanon Road (modern US 231) from Sehorn's shop in Shelbyville. Among the 10 or so examples known, there are nine holes; two high grade examples without holes are known, from the Ford and Partrick collections, but the Garrett-Partrick example has two holes. Most of these have wear consistent with jewelry or charm use, as intended. A roster of specimens that have appeared at auction in recent decades includes: 1 - NGC AU-58. Ex our (Stack's) sale of the John J. Ford, Jr. Collection, Part I, October 2003, lot 332; Heritage's FUN Signature Auction of January 2017, lot 6422, where it realized $21,154.70. Not pierced. 2 - NGC AU-55. Ex Donald Groves Partrick; Heritage's FUN Signature Auction of January 2015, lot 5854, where it realized $28,200. Not pierced. 3 - NGC AU-55. Ex our Summer 2022 Global Showcase Auction, August, lot 1059, where it realized $11,100. Pierced at 12 o'clock. 4 - NGC EF-45. Ex John Work Garrett, to The Johns Hopkins University, by gift, 1942; our (Bowers and Ruddy's) sale of the Garrett Collection for The Johns Hopkins University, Part IV, March 1981, lot 1998; Jon Hanson; Donald Groves Partrick; Heritage's CSNS Signature Auction of April 2021, lot 3066, where it realized $4,800. Pierced twice, at 12 and 6 o'clock. 5 - Extremely Fine. Pierced at 12 o'clock. The present example. 6 - PCGS EF Details--Holed. Ex our (Stack's) Americana sale, January 2008, lot 7233, where it realized $6,325; Sydney F. Martin; our sale of the Sydney F. Martin Collection, August 2024 Global Showcase Auction, lot 5966, where it realized $6,600. Pierced at 12 o'clock. Regarding the curious Details grade that PCGS assigned to this piece, we noted in the cataloging for our August 2025 sale, "putting this piece in a non-graded holder because of its hole is like assuming a sloth has been injured because it only has three toes." 7 - NGC EF Details--Holed. Ex our (Stack's) sale of the John J. Ford, Jr. Collection, Part I, October 2003, lot 332; Heritage's Summer FUN Signature Auction of July 2017, lot 3340, where it realized $9,400. Pierced at 7 o'clock. 8 - NGC Fine Details--Holed. Ex Heritage's Summer FUN Signature Auction of July 2017, lot 3341, where it realized $3,995. Pierced at 12 o'clock. 9 - NGC Fine Details--Holed, Damaged. Ex our (Stack's) Americana Sale of January 2010, lot 3781; Heritage's FUN Signature Auction of January 2017, lot 6421, where it realized $4,465. Pierced at approximately 7:30.

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