1864 Boston Masonic Lodge Half Dollar. Rulau Ma-Bo 55, Brunk-26400, page 221. Inscribed to Jos. H. Clapp. AU-58 (PCGS).

Bright, lustrous silver surfaces are framed with subtle golden tones at the peripheries of this beautifully preserved example of an intriguing rarity. Hand-engraved with great skill in the obverse fields to Jos. H. Clapp" at left, and with "Boston / Encampment" at right. The reverse is similarly engraved around the central device, "Taken from the ruins of Masonic / Temple / April 6th, 1864." These very rare Masonic half dollars were little understood and usually traded as "love tokens" or similar until a fine article by collector and dealer Mark Hotz was published on them in the February 1993 edition of The Numismatist shed important light on them. Though better understood by those aware of them, the rarity of the coins is such that most collectors have never seen one and are largely unaware of their historic nature. The Boston Masonic Temple, known at the time as the Winthrop House, named for the distinguished old Boston family, was destroyed by fire in April 1864. Due to the engraving on the coins, it has long been accepted that the fire was April 6th, though the 1866 By-Laws of St. Andrews Royal Arch Chapter at Boston gives the date of the fire as April 5th. It is likely that the actual recovery of the silver was the following day, as stated on the coin. It was a six-story structure built in 1845 at the corner of Boylston and Tremont Streets at the Southeast Corner of the famed Boston Common. While many items were consumed in the fire the ceremonial silver implements used in the temple were salvaged and sent to the Philadelphia Mint by the leadership of the temple to be turned into a specially struck batch of half dollars which would later be sold as fundraisers for $1 each. Given that the nation was in the throes of the Civil War and coinage was at a severe scarcity in the East, this was in and of itself an unusual occurrence.
There are six different pieces listed in Russell Rulau's Standard Catalogue of United States Tokens, not including an example we sold in 2015. The one offered presently is not among them. It has been suggested in places that the engraving was done at the Mint, as the engraving is finely accomplished and largely uniform in layout. However, this seems highly unlikely as the engraving of coins as mementos was generally the realm of jewelers, while the production of coinage was the sole business of the Mint. One of the pieces illustrated by Rulau has a differently styled engraving, lending some evidence that more than one party may have been involved in their making. This suggests that the engravings were likely contracted privately, probably in Boston, where the pieces were sold and where there would have been no shortage of skilled engravers and silversmiths ready to accept such a project. The fact that the personal inscription phraseology differs between coins, and some have no name at all suggests that those who ordered them had some say in how the engravings were completed. This one is engraved to Jos. H. Clapp, perhaps Joseph H. Clapp. There is little published about him beyond his mention in United States Serial Set, Volume 238 as a stakeholder of the Commonwealth Bank Of Boston in 1833. 

Estimate: $ 10000