Breen & Bressett’s 1950s Materials on Vermont Coppers

Breen, Walter, and Kenneth E. Bressett. WORKING NOTES—VERMONT COINAGE. Modern three-ring binder housing an important group of materials, mostly relating to Breen and Bressett’s work in the 1950s on the Vermont coppers. Binder includes: 1) Breen’s very heavily annotated copy of the offprint of John M. Richardson’s The Copper Coins of Vermont, originally published in the May 1947 issue of The Numismatist. 8vo, original printed card covers. 24 pages; illustrated. Extensively annotated in pencil (with a few later notes in ink), including pencil rubbings of exceptional examples of nearly ever die variety listed (no 5, 30, 31, 33 or 34). Annotations provide observations on particular dies and varieties, untangle emission sequences, and cite appearances at auctions. 2) A typewritten letter of two pages, signed in ink with a handwritten postscript, from Ken Bressett to Walter Breen, dated June 20, 1956. 3) A handwritten listing by Bressett providing the rarity rating, basal value and condition census range for 36 varieties of Vermont coppers. 4) A typewritten note of one page dated September 26, 1956 from Bressett to Breen. 5) Four small typewritten or handwritten notes by Breen recording a collection of Vermont coppers offered to Art Kagin, the identity of the owner of the Rupert Mint building, a bibliography of works on Vermont coppers, and various observations on Ryder-16 and other colonial coins. 6) Two pages of typewritten text, typically Breen of the period, densely typed with virtually no margins and then augmented by hand. 7) Bressett’s set of four photographically printed plates depicting Vermont coppers by die variety, arranged with “BB” numbers between the relevant coins. Accompanied by a typewritten version of the rarity/basal value/condition census listing mentioned above. 8) A set of eleven typed and six handwritten index cards providing descriptions and commentary on Ryder-1 through Ryder-15. 9) A two-page unsigned handwritten letter from Walter Breen to Q. David Bowers (1958 or later, probably 1960s) providing estimated values and other commentary on an extensive collection of Vermont coppers including nearly all varieties. 10) Two-page typewritten listing dated March 15, 1965 of the coins stolen from the Bennington Museum. 11) Typewritten draft, revised in ink, of Breen’s catalogue description of the Ryder-30 in the 1975 EAC sale (Pine Tree Auction Company, lot 437). 12) Photocopies made by Syd Martin of the pages from Breen’s annotated copy of Ryder on Vermont coppers (present elsewhere in this sale). Materials generally very good or better, with the Richardson offprint being very worn, the photographic plates being fine, and most of the rest falling in between. [online description truncated: see PDF or printed catalogue for full description]