These researches, continuing year after year, grew to be more and more valuable, until they became widely celebrated.  By the time he had reached middle age he was as well known among the guild of antiquarians as a Quaker is known by his costume.  Before his death he had been elected a member of all the prominent societies in numismatics, history, and archaeology throughout the world.  The last honor of this kind, which reached him in his eightieth year, was a notice of his election to membership in the Societe Francaise de Numismatique et d’Archeologie.  His great collections in this department of knowledge were not confined to coins, but extended also to the literature of the subject.  This was splendidly illustrated in his famous library, which comprised many works of the utmost value and scarcity.

A taste thus developed in early youth naturally became in the course of years a habit, a sentiment, a leading passion of Mickley’s nature.  By the year 1867 his coin-collection had become the most extensive in this country.  By this time also the entertainment of curious visitors absorbed a good share of the collector’s daily duties.  He was naturally proud of his treasures, and took a great delight in showing them to all who came.  Utterly devoid of suspicion, he was a ready victim to designing persons.  The following memorandum, which was found among his later papers, will show how he suffered from this source: 

“I have become rather indifferent about numismatics, or, at least, about collecting coins.  It was a great source of amusement for a period of over fifty years.  But, having been so unfortunate at different times with my coins, it is, as it were, a warning to desist from collecting any more.  In the year 1827 the United States dollars from 1794 to 1803, all good specimens, together with some foreign coins, were stolen.  In 1848 about twenty half-dollars were taken.  In 1854, after showing my collection to three Southern gentlemen (as they called themselves) I missed three very scarce half-eagles.  The great robbery was in 1867.  In Jaffa, Palestine, a small lot, worth about one thousand francs, with a collection of Egyptian curiosities, was stolen at the hotel; and, finally, last winter, at Seville, Spain, some old Spanish coins were missing while I was showing them to some persons.”

The “great robbery” above alluded to occurred on the evening of April 13, 1867.  It was of such magnitude as to cause a wide sensation at the time, and enlisted the sympathies of his coin-hunting brethren the world over.  Mr. Mickley’s chief precautions, notwithstanding his previous warnings of danger from another source, had been against fire.  In a third-story room was his cabinet.  This had been long since filled, chiefly with an unbroken and historic list of American coins.  The additional accumulations of years, nearly all foreign, and many of great rarity, had been stored in an old piano-case in his bedroom, where, as he said, in the event of fire they would