From your editor’s files here is a little quiz you may find interesting. Give it a try!

The late great Robert Ripley’s column furnishes the heading for this quiz. In each instance the answer is rather unlikely, from a logical viewpoint—but it is surrounded with other unlikely possibilities, so this is not as easy as you might think! This is in the line of one of Walter Breen’s favorite comments—that a guinea pig is not a pig or is it from Guinea, etc.

How many can you identify? Get three or more right, and you are doing well. Get four right, and you are in the expert class. Get all five correct, and you deserve a copy of the Guide Book written in microscopic letters on a grain of rice! Answers are given at the end.

1. One of the more interesting coins designed by James B. Longacre, who served as chief engraver of the Mint from 1844 until his death on January 1, 1869, is the:

a. 1864 Feuchtwanger’s Composition three-cent piece
b. 1870 pattern silver dollar with the inscription LONGACRE on the obverse.
c. CARRY ME TO ATWOOD’S HOTEL token
d. 1845 gold quarter eagle

2. Shield, Liberty, Buffalo, and most Jefferson nickel five-cent pieces, commonly called “nickels,” have as the primary metal in their composition:

a. Nickel
b. Copper
c. Iridium
d. Zinc

3. 1804-dated silver dollars were first struck in the year:

a. 1804
b. 1834
c. 1809
d. 1801

4. Old-time dealer B. Max Mehl’s first name was Benjamin, but what was famous dealer M.H. Bolender’s first name?

a. Marmaduke
b. Machiavelli
c. Milferd
d. Marchand

5. 1788-dated Vermont copper coins were minted in:

a. Vermont
b. Connecticut
c. Soho Mint (Birmingham, England)
d. New York

Bonus Question: Which one of these statements is false?

a. In 1861 an Indian cent was legal tender for one cent.
b. In 1874 a trade dollar was legal tender for a dollar.
c. Your editor (QDB) was once the co-owner of a museum in Copenhagen.
d. The United States constructed a mint building in The Dalles, Oregon, on the Columbia River.

ANSWERS: 1-b (from a design prepared before he died), 2-b, 3-b, 4-c, 5-d (Machin’s Mills, Newburgh, NY). BONUS: a (cents had no legal tender status at the time).