The Mitchell-Boulton Correspondence
Mitchell, Clarence Blair [editor / publisher]. MITCHELL-BOULTON CORRESPONDENCE, 1787–1792, RELATIVE TO COINAGES FOR SOUTH CAROLINA AND THE UNITED STATES. Princeton: Privately printed at the Princeton University Press, foreword dated December 1931. 8vo, original black cloth, gilt. (6), 38, (2) pages. Near fine. Very rare. Crosby relates in his 1875 Early Coins of America that in 1785 Charles Borrell proposed to supply coinage to South Carolina. Unknown to Crosby, Borrell later declined to proceed and John Hinckley Mitchell began, at about this same time, a considerable correspondence on the same project with Matthew Boulton, whom he had met on a trip to England. When the Constitution was ratified in 1788, the States lost the right to issue or regulate coinage and Mitchell redirected his efforts to provide, through Boulton, coinage for the United States. This important correspondence forms the basis of Don Taxay's considerable discussion of the topic in The U.S. Mint and Coinage. Ex Harry W. Bass, Jr. Library (Kolbe Sale 80, lot 413).