SCHMIDT, Anders Madsen

   Et andet navn for Anders var SMITH, Andrew Mason.

  Notater:

Født: Side 15.
Søn af Mads Hansen Smedt og Ane Dorthea Christensen, smed og husfolk i Knudsbøl.

Udvandrede 1.5.1859 til Philadelphia.

pcgs.com:

Silver Dollars & Trade Dollars of the United States - A Complete Encyclopedia, Davis Bowers

1884 Trade Dollar: Catalogue Value

2. Smith Specimen
• A. Loudon Snowden, Philadelphia Mint. 1884 Proof set in copper.
• Gift to A. M. Smith, author in 1881 of the Illustrated History of the u.s.Mint (published under the name of A.M. Smith; see below). "A. M. Smith got (the 1884 copper trade dollar and other copper pieces) from the superintendent of the Mint in 1884, and they have remained in the Smith Collection these 50 years, and have never been offered for sale" (from Bolender's catalogue of February 8,1936; see below).

• Single coin in the Milferd H. Bolender sale of October 15, 1935, "Part III of the Famous Collection Formed by the Late A. M. Smith, of Minneapolis, Minn." Lot 245. Description: "245. 1884 Trade Dollar. Regular dies but struck in copper. Not in Adams-Woodin. Uncirculated. Excessively rare." No other 1884 copper pattern coins were in the sale. Apparently, the coin was bought in, for Bolender's sale of February 8, 1936 offered 13 copper strikings of 1882, 1883, and 1884 coins, including Lot 25 described as follows: "1884 trade dollar. Regular dies. Trial in copper. Proof." Bolender stated: "A. M. Smith got them from the superintendent of the Mint in 1884 and they have remained in the Smith Collection these 50 years and have never (sic!) been offered for sale." Interestingly, Bolender described the coin as Uncirculated the first time and Proof the second.

Born Anders Madsen Schmidt, in Knudsbol, Parish of Jordrup, Denmark, on February 4, 1841, Andrew Madsen Smith (as he came to be known) emigrated to the United States, arriving in Philadelphia on May 1, 1859. In 1861 he was in the business of selling chickens. Subsequently he served in the Union Army and Navy, and traveled extensively and lived throughout the West. In 1875 he returned to Philadelphia, and in that city was a dealer in wines and in rare coins at 6th and Chestnut streets through the year 1886, when he moved to Minneapolis. In 1885 his biography, Luck of a Wandering Dane, appeared under the nom de plume Hans Lykkejaeger. His updated biography was published in 1890 in Minneapolis, and gave 249 Hennepin Avenue as his address. Bearing the name of A. M. Smith as author, it was titled Up and Down in the World, or Paddle Your Own Canoe. In 1886 he published the Encyclopedia of Gold and Silver Coins of the World. For a number of years he operated the California Restaurant at 247 Hennepin Avenue, decorated with sets of coins and medals framed high on the walls. Smith joined the American Numismatic Association in 1901. In August of that year he advertised in The Numismatist and offered Proof trade dollars of the 1879-1883 years for $2 each. The Minneapolis Journal; December 5, 1908, printed the following:

The silver dollar of the date of 1884, that sold in Chicago (a silver 1884 trade dollar in Ben Green's auction) for $280, is what is known as the "trade dollar," and it is doubtful if more than a few hundred people have ever seen one of that date, as there were only five struck in silver and a few in copper, and these are in collections, closely guarded. A. M. Smith of Minneapolis has one of the copper Proofs in his collection of coins, others are in private collections in the East and in the United States Mint Collection. When the story of the Chicago sale appeared, hundreds of persons of Minneapolis made the mistake of thinking that it was the ordinary standard dollar of 1884 that brought the high premium, and many thought they had a small fortune in their grasp, when, in hunting through their pockets and cash registers they discovered several of that date. A. M. Smith has been kept busy for the last four or five days informing people that they did not have any of the valuable coins. In one day he answered over 100 telephone inquiries on the subject.

Smith died in Minneapolis on July 20, 1915. (Mason's Monthly Illustrated Coin Collector's Magazine, June 1890, p. 7, gave the curious and incorrect information that "A. M. Smith" was really Jacob Smith, who used the name of his wife, Annie M. Smith, in his business. Smith's wife was the former Botilla Elberg. Pete Smith (no kin to A.M.S.) has written a biography of A. M. Smith; see Bibliography.)

• Private collection, apparently still with certain other 1884 copper strikings (information per Walter Breen).

http://pre-prowhiskeymen.blogspot.com/2013/05/the-wandering-dane-found-home-in.html

The Wandering Dane Found a Home in Minneapolis.

Har skrevet flere bøger, der stadig kan købes (2021).

  Om Anders:

• Fremstillet, 08.04.1841, Jordrup Kirke, Jordrup Sogn, Anst Herred, Ribe Amt.

Anders blev gift med Botille ELBERG, datter af Hans ELLBERG og Ellen LORENZEN, i 4.1872. (Botille ELBERG blev født den 11.04.1850 på "Lammesbjerg", Løjt Kirkeby, Løjt Sogn, Rise Herred, Åbenrå Amt, dåb i 4.1850 i Løjt Kirke, Løjt Sogn, Rise Herred, Åbenrå Amt og døde i 1935 i Minneapolis.)