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Auction: 20121 - Spink Numismatic e-Circular 1 - Part II - World Coins featuring the Nomos Brasiliana
Lot: 576

(g) USA, 1880 $5 'Liberty Head' (gold Half-Eagle), Philadelphia, by Christian Gobrecht (F.143; KM 101; NGC ID 25XA; PCGS ID 8351), residually lustrous, good very fine

From the Wilhelm Wildegger (1888-1981) Collection


Wilhelm Wildegger was born 17 December 1888 in Augsburg, Germany. Aged 23, he elected to emigrate from his home in Munich to America along with his brother Friedrich. They boarded the steamship SS Neckar at Bremen on 5 September 1912, and arrived in New York on 7 October. Soon after Wilhelm's life would change forever, for the storm clouds where gathering back home, and the outbreak of total hostilities between his mother country and the rest of Europe would shortly follow.


The uneasy neutrality of his adopted nation would finally break at 8:30 on the evening of 2nd April 1917, when President Woodrow Wilson appeared before Congress to propose war with Germany. 36 hours later his declaration was ratified by the US Govenment, effectively outlawing Wilhelm as an enemy alien from then on. However he was evidently very keen to show his newfound persuasions and loyalties for before the bill had even passed, on 3 April 1917, Wilhelm now a resident at 36 Sanford Street, Hartford, Connecticut, appeared before the US Department of Labor to begin his citizenship and naturalisation process. Ironically his very transport vessel the Neckar would undergo a similar transformation at the same time, for it had be seized by the US Military soon after the outbreak of hostilities and later recommissioned as USS Antigone (ID-3007) for use as a troop transport in the final year of World War One.


Wilhelm's 'Declaration of Intention' (no. 10465) states: he was a Grocer, of fair skin complexion, with blue eyes and brown hair, standing 5ft 8in tall and weighing 186lbs, and that he had agreed from that day to renounce his allegiance to Kaiser Wilhelm II under whom he had previously been a subject. Shortly thereafter, on 5 June, Wildegger applied for enlistment into the US Army. His surviving attestation document reveals a deliberate anglicisation of his name to 'William' for the purposes of enrollment, perhaps alluding to the stigma he experienced publically and whilst at his new job at the Royal Typewriter Company. His papers also reveal that prior to emigration, he had fulfilled his two years national service in the Bavarian Army serving as an 'Unteroffizier' and that he now presented as a man of medium height, but of 'stout' appearance!



On the 22 January 1924, as sanctioned by the District Court of Connecticut, Wildegger became a naturalised US Citizen, bearing Passport no. 390361. He would return briefly to Bremen in 1927, before arriving back aboard the SS Sierra Ventana in New York on August 27. It is probable that this intermittent trips back to Europe enabled the later additions to the collection as presented today, including the 'Porcelain Money' and Zeppelin medals of the later 1920s. At the time of the 1930 and 1940 Censuses, Wilhelm was living at 42 Kibbe Street, Hartford now stating his profession as an 'adjustor' for the Typewriter factory and at least in 1930, being registered as a lodger for another naturalised Germany citizen and widow, Ms. Christine Hackenbach.



By 1950, Wilhelm had married fellow naturalised German Anna, and had apparently choosen to honeymoon in the Netherlands that Summer. They returned to their marital home at 2422 Mary Avenue, St Louis, Mass., bringing back no fewer than eight suitcases aboard the SS Nieuw Amsterdam. He would spend the remainder of his life in Troy, Missouri, eventually passing away in December 1981. It is not clear how Wilhelm acquired his collection, although it is evident that the German and Connecticut connections are a prevailing theme throughout. It is also apparent that most coins have been removed directly from circulation in or around the time of production, permitting such pieces to be unusually choice and desirable thus

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Estimate

Starting price
£220