HASELTINE, JOHN WHITE

Copyright © 2011-2018 John N. Lupia III

Photograph of John W. Haseltine published by Percy McGraw Mann in his magazine, Philadelphia Stamp News, Vol. IV, No. 27, September 27, 1913, page 463

Haseltine, Captain John White (1838-1925), Philadelphia coin dealer. Captain in the Civil War. Afterwards a clerk at Haddock & Reed, Co., 164-166 Market Street, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, where he worked in his family business, formerly called Haseltine, Haddock, Reed & Co. The firm of Haddock & Reed, Co., was dissolved in 1871. In 1862 he lived at 706 Spruce Street, Philadelphia. In 1873 located at 512 Walnut Street, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; in 1874 located at 1343 Chestnut Street, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; in 1876 located at 1225 Chestnut Street, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

He was born on September 6, 1838, the son of John Haseltine (1793-1871), a native of Massachusetts and a very wealthy and successful businessman, and his wife Elizabeth Stanley Shinn Haseltine (1811-1882), a native of Pennsylvania, and an amateur landscape painter. He was one of ten children. Elizabeth’s mother Mary Shinn lived with at the Haseltine’s home in Philadelphia and is listed as age 84 in the US Census of 1870, at the family residence 706 Spruce Street, Philadelphia. At that time the Haseltine family had three live-in domestic servants from Ireland : Ellen Gallaher (1820), Mary Donnagan (1845-), and Mary Hogan (1845-). In that same census report the Haseltine home was estimated at $80-100,000.

Siblings :

His elder brothers James Henry Haseltine (1833-1907), a sculptor, and William Stanley Haseltine (1835-1900), a painter, were both internationally famous artists.

His other brother Charles Field Haseltine (1840-1915), artist and art dealer owned Haseltine Galleries, 1416-1418 Chestnut Street, Philadelphia.

His brother Albert C. Haseltine (1845-), was a broker.

His sister Rose Haseltine (1841-)

His sister Mary Ann Haseltine (1848-)

A drawing by his father, John William Haseltine entitled : ''The Wetterhorn, Grindlewald'' dated 1842 is in the Princeton Art Museum.

His paternal grandfather is James Haseltine (1750-1833) who married Abigail Mooers on February 11, 1773 in Haverhill, MA. His maternal grandfather is John Shinn (1784-1825) who married Mary White (1785-) in 1805.

In 1854 he became a clerk in the book trade. He began collecting postage stamps. Later he worked in the wholesale boot and shoe industry. On August 20, 1861 he joined the Company B. Pennsylvania 2nd Calvary Regiment as 1st Lieutenant. He was promoted to full Captain on October 1, 1862 of the 2nd Pennsylvania Calvary. He was promoted to Captain in 1863. He was taken home wounded in 1864, when his horse was shot from under him at Petersburg, falling onto him in a swamp leaving him unconscious.

Advertisement in Numisma Vol. 7, No. 1, address 1225 Chestnut Street,

Renown numismatist of the 19th-20th centuries, he was a collector and a dealer of both stamps and coins. He was the treasurer of Mason & Co., mining companies located at 506 Walnut Street, Philadelphia. Haseltine was and his family were invested in mining operations in Colorado, in the Pioneer Mining Company, and the American Exploring Company.

He sold his early stamp collection for $1,000 raising funds to enter the stamp dealing business full time. It was after that sale that he became the second business partner of Ebenezer Locke Mason selling coins and stamps.

He married Rose, the daughter of William Idler, jeweler and coin dealer. He married on June 9, 1869 Rose A. Idler (1848-).

Economite Hoard. His half-cent specimens of the Jules Riever Collection were sold by Heritage in 2006.

His photograph is published as figure 20 in Mason’s Photographic Gallery of the Coin Collectors of the United States No. 1.

He was elected as corresponding member of the ANS 1877-1879, 1879-1881

In 1878, he published a stamp catalogue comprising 102 pages, that went into several editions.

He found a Colonial Georgia Ranger brass button.

He wrote a defense of Snowden in Numisma, September (1880).

A Captain in the Union Army during the Civil War he kept active in veteran affairs attending the annual meetings of the Grand Army of the Republic. He retained the name of Captain Haseltine into the twentieth century when B. Max Mehl in his Numismatic Monthlyreferred to him by this name.

He was a coin collector, dealer and stockbroker. He employed Henry Chapman and his brother Samuel Hudson as assistants in his coin trade.

Haseltine’s 1794 cents were sold in his sale on March 16-18, 1881. Others of his large cents were sold in another of his sales on November 28-30, 1881. Also , he published Haseltine’s Type Table of Silver Coins, cited in Mason's Herald, Vol. III, No. 3, December (1881) : 53c-d and 54d;

John W. Haseltine correspondence with the Chapman Brothers mailing them his circular about his coin auction sales, postmarked as double oval [October 1, 1882] Courtesy Lupia Numismatic Library, Special Collection, The Chapman Family Correspondence Archive.

Currently there are six pieces of mail from Haseltine to the Chapman Brothers catalogued in the Lupia Numismatic Library. When the digital cataloguing is completed from 1909 to 1925 the total shall be updated. Check back again.

In 1885 his coin auction sale was confiscated by the US Mint under the direction of Captain Wallace W. Hall, United States Secret Service, since it contained an 1804 silver dollar and several other coins in the sale were discovered to have been counterfeited within the year.

On February 28, 1888, Scott held the Linderman sale at Bangs & Co., New York. The government seized the pattern coins sold to him by Haseltine, who was also under investigation since 1885.

John W. Haseltine correspondence with the Chapman Brothers postmarked April 24, 1900, Philadelphia. Courtesy Lupia Numismatic Library, Special Collection, The Chapman Family Correspondence Archive.

In the US Census of 1900 he is listed as renting at 812 Grays Ferry Road, Philadelphia, and living with his wife Rose A. Haseltine of 28 years and a twenty-five year old nephew, Walter H. Brown, a clerk.

George Kolbe sold the John J. Ford, Jr., Library which included : An Affadavit in United States vs. John W. Haseltine. Affidavit of Defence. June 23, 1910. An original document pertaining to United States pattern coins. The resolution of this lawsuit reaffirmed the right of individuals to own patterns without fear of government confiscation. The original 1909 letter/invoice from John W. Haseltine to William H. Woodin, establishing the date acquired and the price paid by William H. Woodin for the unique set of controversial United States $50 gold pattern coins, which now reside in the national collection. B. Max Mehl reported this in the October and November issues of his Numismatic Monthly in 1910. See “Pattern Case Dismissed by the Government. Title Now Clear to All Pattern Coins Dated Prior to 1888,” Mehl’s Numismatic Monthly, Vol. III, November (1910) : 168

A donor, in 1878, to the ANS library.

His stamp shop was located at 21 South 17th Street Philadelphia, where all the Philadelphia stamp collectors came, as well as those from other states passing through

Death Certificate of John White Haseltine.

He died on February 28, 1925, at his home at 7315 Oak Avenue, [Oak Lane], Cheltenham, Pennsylvania. He was survived by his wife and daughter Mrs. Marion H. Richards of Cranford, New Jersey. His obituary is in The Numismatist, April (1925) : 225-226. Inducted into the ANA Numismatic Hall of Fame in 1974.

Bibliography :

Proceedings of the American Numismatic and Archaeological Society, of New York At the Annual Meeting, March 18, 1879: page 13

Smith-I 112

Mason, III, No. 2, February (1869) : 23 (PHOTO No. 20);

Adams, John Weston, United States numismatic Literature, Vol. 1 : 46-54;

Fanning, David F. “Collectors who Served in the Civil War,” The Numismatist 117.11 (November 2004), pp. 44-48, illus.;

Mason, III, No. 7, July (1869) : 77b; Cited by initials J. W. H., III, No. 10, October (1869) : 116a-b; “Lucky Man, The,” (Mason on Haseltine buying Randall Jefferson Head specimen) III, No. 11, November (1869) : 124b; (Haseltine sale) III, No. 11, November (1869) : 125b; III, No. 12, December (1869) : 138b-139d; “Wood Half Pennies and Farthings,” (Haseltine), IV, No. 1, January (1870) : 1a-2b; IV, No. 2, February (1870) : 18-19; Haseltine’s 1st Sale at Philadelphia of the William Idler Collection, IV, No. 4, April (1870) : 61; Vol. IV, No. 11, November (1870) : 174; V, No. 12, December (1871) : 189; VI, No. 1, January (1872) : 16; VI, No. 5, July (1872) : 69, 70; (Buyer at the Searing sale) B-I, No. 2, July (1880) : 5c; B-I, No. 2, July (1880) : 6a; B-I, No. 3, October (1880) : 12a-b; H-I, No. 1, June (1879) : 8c; H-I, No. 2, September (1879) : 11d; H-I, No. 3, December (1879) : 26a-c; H-I, No. 4, March (1880) : 34a; H-II, No. 1, June (1880) :7c; Sale of the Smith Cabinet,” (Mason), H-II, No. 3, December (1880) : 18c-19a, 19c; H-III, No. 3, December (1881) : 53c-d; H-III, No. 3, December (1881) : 54d; C-VI, No. 2, September (1882) : 30; 79th sale, M-I, No. 2, July (1884) : 21; (38th sale) M-1, No. 5, October (1884) : 57; M-I, No. 6, November (1884) : 63; M-I, No. 8, January (1885) : 89; M-I, No. 12, May (1885) : 119; M-XIII, No. 1, June (1890) : 10, 12.

Pete Smith, “American Numismatic Pioneers : An Index to Sources,” Asylum Vol. XXII, No. 3, Consecutive Issue No. 87, Summer (2004) : 304;

Attinelli, Emmanuel Joseph, A Bibliography of American Numismatic Auction Catalogues 1828-1875;

Gengerke, Martin, American Numismatic Auctions, Vol. 3 (1987);

Bourne, Remy, Fixed Price Lists & Premium Paid For Lists of United States Coin Dealers 1822-1900 (Minneapolis, 1988);

Bowers, Q. David, The History of United States Coinage As Illustrated by the Garrett Collection. (Los Angeles, CA : Bowers & Ruddy Galleries, Inc., 1979) :28

Q. David Bowers, American Numismatics before the Civil War 1760-1860 (Wolfeboro, 1998);

Josiah H. Shinn, History of the Shinn Family in Europe and America (Chicago, Illinois : Rand, 1903) : 224

Pete Smith, American Numismatic Biographies, (Rock River, 1992);

Sylvester Sage Crosby, The Early Coins of America; and the laws governing their issue. Comprising also descriptions of the Washington pieces, the Anglo-American tokens, many pieces of unknown origin, of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, and the first patterns of the United States mint. By Sylvester S. Crosby. (Boston, 1875);

Adams, Vol. 1, 31, 44, 47-54, 81, 172-177

“GOOD PRICES FOR COINS.; SALE OF THE FAMOUS LINDERMAN COLLECTION,” The New York Times, February 29, 1888, Wednesday, Page 8, 363 words.

Proceedings of the American Numismatic and Archaeological Society, of New York At the Annual Meeting, March 18, 1879: page 5

“The Counterfeiting of Rare Coins, Daily Gazette, (Xenia), January 13, 1887, page 4 (reprint from The Chicago Tribune)

“The Counterfeiting of Rare Coins, Titusville Herald (Pennsylvania), February 7, 1887, page 2 (reprint from The Chicago Tribune)

The E-Sylum: Volume 5, Number 50, December 15, 2002, Article 6