The story of “The Well” began with my exceeding good fortune in meeting Susan and Hugh Finley at the NSCA Spring 1998 meeting at Dunmor, Ky.
Prior to that time, in 20 years of scrip hunting, I had managed to obtain just one 5c piece of scrip from the Procter Coal Co., Red Ash, Ky. At the Dunmor show, Hugh Finley showed me a $1 piece and asked me if it was of any value. Upon assuring him it was of considerable worth and very rare, he invited me to come to their home at Red Ash, near Jellico, Tenn. A few days later I made the trip and first heard the story of “The Well”.
Hugh’s father and grandfather had operated The Procter Coal Company until it shut down. When Hugh was a young teenager, 52 years before, his father had him take the scrip and dump it in a 60 foot well. Most of the subsequent years were spent in California where Hugh met Susan. They returned to Red Ash, bought the property where the mine had been and made their home there. Hugh remembered the well although there there seemed to be no way to get the scrip.
An agreement was made with a local welder to share 50-50 if he could find a way to remove the scrip. An ingenious device was devised, making it possible to recover most of the scrip. The best way I can describe the tool they constructed is to say it worked like a backward operating posthole digger. The well casing was very narrow, so as the handles came closer together the tool contracted like a posthole digger and grabbed a load of scrip.
On my first visit Hugh showed me the scrip they had recovered and to say I was overwhelmed would be an understatement. It was necessary to clean practically every piece and, while most of the aluminum pieces and some brass pieces were beyond cleaning, a good number were in decent condition.
It is now evident that the Procter store redeemed scrip from several nearby mines in Whitley, Knox, and Bell Counties in Kentucky and Campbell County, Tennessee. Most of these “foreign” tokens were of small denominations, seldom larger that 25c.
Approximately 20 mines other than Procter were represented by scrip found in the well, some of them being of exceeding rarity. There were approximately 20 different tokens from the Procter mines, including 4 denominations of aluminum tokens from Procter Coal Co. Indian Mountain Store, probable listing Jellico, Tenn. As a group, the rarest tokens are the aluminum ones inscribed “In Meat”. There were several tokens from Campbell County, some of great rarity.
An interesting fact is that of all the tokens none were later than “good fors”, no system scrip whatsoever, making it evident that these tokens were of considerable age when they were dumped in the well.
Crawford Blakeman, Sr., submitted 6/00
Photo assistence by Corkey Snodgress