Delve into the world of fine reading and fine silver with this 99-page exquisite book, containing a Silver Round, weighing 0.86 Troy Ounce.
What you see is what you get - I did not use any stock photos for this sale.
I combine shipping!
The combined shipping policy is relevant FOR PINS, WINGS, SAMPLE SLABS, COINS, ELONGATED COINS, TOKENS, MEDALS, and other SMALL ITEMS, is the full price for the auction with the highest shipping cost and then one additional dollar ($1) for each additional auction won.
Larger items will be packed, weighed, and combined as well.
If you win a few of my sales, please ask to receive a combined invoice for
everything you won.
Returns are not accepted, unless I make a mistake in the listing or accidentally send you the wrong item (and such mistakes do, unfortunately, happen, though seldom).
If you have ANY questions - please ask ahead of the closing of the
auction, and please be kind as to give me a few hours to respond.
Shipping is always via the cheapest method I can find, unless you want me to
ship it any other way, such as Priority USPS, UPS, or FedEx. I can
ship with any carrier, any way you want!
I use's system to calculate the shipping cost according to your
location. Sometimes,'s shipping cost system is stupidly wrong
and the cost is way too much. Especially with larger and heavier
items!!! I have no idea why, since I always enter the correct weight and
dimensions of the packed item. Nevertheless, if you think the shipping cost is
too high, please send me a message, tell me your zip code and what you see as
the shipping cost, and I'll check to see if I can ship for less via UPS or
FedEx!
This item comes from a smoke-free, dog-loving home. We have a beautiful dog, who loves to spread her hair on everything. Although I do my best to clean everything that I ship out, encountering some of her lovely hair is a possibility.
I love to recycle, so there's a good chance that I will ship in a previously
used envelope or box, and use paper and used grocery bags as packing
and padding materials.
All of my store items have a MAKE AN OFFER option. If you make a stupid offer, I might counter with a stupid offer of my own. An offer for a few dollars less is reasonable. An offer for half of the listed price is not serious.
Good luck & thank you for buying from me!
Sandy
Walter and Cordelia Knott Biography
BUENA PARK, Calif.– The year was 1920 when Walter and Cordelia Knott moved to the then-sleepy community of Buena Park, California to farm 20 acres (8ha) of rented land. Today, that land is part of 160-acre (65ha) Knott’s Berry Farm. And, while the Knott Family no longer owns the venerable attraction, the Knott spirit of hard work and down-home hospitality lives on in new owners Cedar Fair Entertainment Company, who acquired Knott’s Berry Farm in December 1997.
The Knotts’ first winter on the Farm was unseasonably cold and much of their first crop was ruined by frost. But relying on his ability to make the most of what he had, Walter initiated his practice of selling directly to grocers, thus eliminating costly middlemen, and was able to realize a small profit.
Walter’s keen eye for sound enterprise and his dogged determination to succeed were attributes which became evident early in his boyhood years and remained solid through his life and career. His father died when he was six and by the time he was nine, Walter was raising vegetables on vacant lots, selling the produce in the morning before school and delivering newspapers in the evenings to help supplement the family income.
In 1927, when the country was enjoying the height of prosperity, an oil bonanza sky-rocketed land values in Buena Park to $1,500 an acre (0.4ha), and Knott bought ten acres (4ha) at that price. The Depression hit a year later and land dropped to $360 an acre (0.4ha). Friends advised him to default on the payments and buy adjacent land at a lower price, but Walter stood fast.
He maintained his payments on the acreage, bought an additional ten acres (4ha) at the lower price and spent the last of the family’s savings to build an adobe structure that became the Farm’s first permanent building.
Ready for occupancy in 1928, the building was 80 feet (24m) long and housed a tea room, berry market and plant nursery. By now, the Knott family had four children – son Russell and daughters Virginia, Toni and Marion – and, working together, they formed a family bond which prevailed throughout the years.
It was not until the 1930s that Walter became associated with the “boysenberry” which would become the family trademark. Nearby, Anaheim Parks Superintendent Rudolph Boysen had experimented with a new strain of berry but the plants kept dying on the vine. Walter took the scraggly plants, nurtured them to health and named the new berry – a cross between a loganberry, red raspberry and blackberry – after its originator. Today, all boysenberries in the world can trace their roots to Knott’s Berry Farm.
As another means of staving off Depression hardships, Cordelia began selling jams and jellies made from Walter’s berries. These sold well and were soon followed by home-baked pies, hot biscuits and sandwiches. Then, on June 13, 1934, Cordelia served eight fried chicken dinners on her wedding china – for the all-inclusive price of 65 cents – and the world’s largest chicken dinner restaurant was born.
The success of the chicken dinners was immediate and by 1940 the restaurant was serving as many as 4,000 dinners on Sunday evenings. The Chicken Dinner Restaurant is still serving up the original fried chicken dinner that started it all.
To give waiting customers something to do and to pay homage to the pioneering spirit of his grandparents and his love of the Old West, Walter developed Ghost Town, eventually the first of Knott’s Berry Farm’s four themed areas. The first structure was the Gold Trails Hotel, which was built from pieces from a hotel that had been constructed in Prescott, Arizona in 1868 – coincidentally, the same year Knott’s grandparents came west. Adhering to authenticity, Walter brought in other pieces from buildings from deserted ghost towns and Knott’s Ghost Town as it exists today emerged. Additions to the town were made as the years passed.
In the 1960s, the Calico Mine Ride and Timber Mountain Log Ride were added and Knott’s built its second themed area: Fiesta Villageâ, a tribute to California’s early Spanish heritage. The third themed area opened in 1975 – Roaring 20s (re-themed in 1996 into The Boardwalk) – featuring the Corkscrew, the world’s first looping coaster.
In 1983, Knott’s debuted a first in the amusement park industry with its six-acre (2.4ha) Camp Snoopy, the world’s first theme park “land” designed specifically for kids. Wild Water Wildernessâ, a four acre (1.6ha) outdoor river wilderness area featuring the whitewater-rafting ride Bigfoot Rapidsâ, added in 1988, followed by Indian Trails in 1993.
It is the imagination and vision of Walter and Cordelia Knott, carried on today by new park owner Cedar Fair Entertainment Company, operator of amusement park resorts nationwide, that continues to provide the spirit behind Knott’s Berry Farm. It was Walter and Cordelia who in 1951 bought and restored the 70 acre (28ha) town of Calico, located between Los Angeles and Las Vegas. Following the town’s restoration, they deeded the property to San Bernardino County for use as a county park.
It was also the Knotts’ decision to build the country’s only brick-by-brick replica of Independence Hall, complete with Liberty Bell, as a free-admission educational resource for Farm guests and Orange County residents.
Cordelia Knott died in 1974 at the age of 84 and Walter Knott continued to live on the Farm he loved until his death in 1981 – a week before his 92nd birthday. The Knott Family maintained operation of Knott's Berry Farm until its friendly acquisition by Cedar Fair, Entertainment Company in December 1997.
In keeping with Walter and Cordelia’s original goals, Knott’s Berry Farm continues to combine quality, wholesome family entertainment with nostalgia and history. Cedar Fair is currently expanding Knott’s with the most new rides, shows and attractions in the park’s 100-year history, while maintaining those simpler features that continue to make it the place where locals and tourists alike feel at home.
About Knott’s Berry Farm and Cedar Fair Entertainment Company:
Knott’s Berry Farm is owned and operated by Cedar Fair Entertainment Company, a publicly traded partnership that is listed for trading on The New York Stock Exchange under the symbol “FUN.” In addition to Knott’s Berry Farm, Cedar Fair owns and operates ten other amusement parks, three water parks, one indoor water park, and five hotels. Cedar Fair also operates the Gilroy Gardens Family Theme Park in California under a management contract.
The Boysenberry Dream
Once upon a time, in the Land where Oranges grow, came a simple farmer from the Land of Pomona, with a berry and a dream. His name was Walter Knott, first of his name and protector of the great berry. It was a quintessential California Dream. But as with all dreams, speedbumps do happen along the road to success. Originally, he took his dream out to Newberry Springs in the High Desert of Southern California (a fortuitous name if there ever was one). Out there with his wife Cordelia by his side, he made a home for himself, trying to use the successful farming skills he had attained while in Pomona. But the land in Newberry was hard. And it could not be the location of the great Boysenberry which was to come.
Life in those days grew difficult for the Knott family. Walter, in later years, would express how isolated they were from the world. It was 25 miles to just about anywhere as Mr. Knott would say. And while he worked the land hard to produce berries and made improvements to their adobe residence, he never did get running water into the house. They fell on hard times because the land never produced what he wanted.
Eventually, Mr. Knott found himself having to go to the abandoned mining town of Calico and find work from investors trying to take the last scraps of ore from the land. While he enjoyed his time there, he was too far from his family and his dream of the great berry to really be happy. And when he found out the people he worked for were less than honorable, he packed up his family and moved them out to San Luis Obispo. But the dream of the berry never left him.
So Walter began to work for sharecroppers there with the effort and determination he always had. With each day he could taste the dream which had followed him from Pomona to the high desert and back again. And Cordelia, the ever supportive wife was ever at his side. Every penny he earned he set aside to purchase land just some little ways north off of Hwy 39. His dream could not be denied.
And in 1920 the Knott’s moved the whole family up to this location off of Hwy 39, intent on growing these berries he had dreamed about for so long. But success does not come overnight. Anyone who truly knows about success realizes how much blood, sweat, and tears happen before things go right. Hence the first year was hard for the Knott clan. But thankfully things did not stay that way, and by the second year between the rhubarb and some magical berries, Walter and family were in business.
Of course, as amazing as his berries were, Walter would never be the success he was without the loving support of Cordelia and family. But Cordelia was more than just a support for Walter. She was a businesswoman in her own right. And she had ideas for marketing these berries which would send the family business soaring. At first, she focused on jams and jellies to be sold. But when the lines to get the berries and her amazing preserves grew to be too long, she started cooking meals for the people waiting along the dusty Hwy 39. People originally came for the berries, but they stayed for her marvelous food.
By 1932, as Walter was looking for ways to put his own stamp on the berry world, he began talking with his friend Rudolph Boysen about some crazy hybrid berries he couldn’t seem to get to work. They were a cross between the Blackberry, Raspberry, and Loganberry. Boysen had given up, but Walter knew he had something there which could send his business into the stratosphere. He took those berries from Mr. Boysen and nursed them back to health. And while Walter took pride in bringing those berries back to life, he didn’t realize how this one transformative act would revolutionize his berry business.
There would come the usual jams, jellies, and preserves. But then it became so much more. They made syrups, beverages, ice creams, candies, etc. You name it, and they used the boysenberry to give it a remarkable flavor. And the rest, as they say, is food history. It would become a staple of the food that they served at Knott’s Berry Farm. You couldn’t go there without someone staring longingly at the jams or jellies which they saw and speaking about how they needed to remember to bring some home with them. Knott’s Berry Farm was where all the best berries were, and the Boysenberry was king of the berries.
This is why it was so amazing when in 2015, Knott’s Berry Farm began to celebrate the Boysenberry which put them on top of the world when it came to berry production and recognition. Yes, they had become a theme park since then with rides, attractions, shows, and a ton of California history thrown in. But the great thing about Knott’s Berry Farm and Walter Knott, in particular, is they represent the culmination of the American dream in all its glory. From farm hand to failed farmer to mining worker to amazing success, Walter and his farm are the spirit of America in general and the West in particular. Anything can happen, and the Knott family is a prime example of this.
Of course, the boysenberry is the perfect representation of this success. Because it too came from humble beginnings as a failed experiment which Mr. Knott nurtured and grew until it exceeded even his wildest expectations. The boysenberry represents life from death in an almost literal sense. It shows you with a little nurture, and a little love, you can accomplish anything. Hence, the boysenberry absolutely needs to be celebrated. Which is why Knott’s Berry Farm celebrates it every year.