obliged him to remain. He stated that he had re-established himself on as large a scale as before. In 1916, Mehl engaged local architect Wiley G. Clarkson to design a three-story, 16,000-square-foot office building of brick, ornamented with stone bas-reliefs of antique coins. Located at 1200 W. Magnolia Avenue, the building was the working place of Mehl and 40 employees (an increase from 10 in 1912) who dealt with correspondence and orders from a subscription list of 70,000 customers. In the years to come, these would include Franklin D. Roosevelt, Winston Churchill and King Farouk of Egypt. Mehl was one of the largest dealers in early United States commemorative coins, and the only one to make them a major part of his business in the 1916–1920 era, including Columbian half dollars in groups and packets of coins sold to beginning collectors. When the promoters of the 1916- and 1917-dated McKinley Birthplace Memorial gold dollar failed to sell many coins to the public at the original issue price of $3, Mehl purchased about 10,000 (half the extant mintage) at just over face value, selling them to the public at less than the issue price well into the 1920s. Mehl similarly acquired (from Zerbe, the coin's promoter) thousands of the Louisiana Purchase Exposition dollars and sold them to his customers. In late 1919, Mehl stated that he had an advertising budget of $5,000 per year, and he continued to advertise in non-numismatic publications, spending $200 () on a single insertion of an advertisement in The American Boy. Middle years (1920–1940) In 1921, Mehl sold his first 1804 dollar, one of the great rarities of American numismatics. He turned the sale to good account in his advertising, noting that he had paid over $2,000 () for an old silver dollar and wondering what rarities the reader might have undiscovered in their possession. The United States Post Office Department found this to be deceptive. Thereafter, Mehl switched campaigns, offering to buy any 1894-S Barber dimes (also extremely scarce) that the reader might have, at a time when common-date Barber dimes were everyday pocket change. During his career, Mehl sold six 1804 dollars, selling two of the six twice. Similarly, Mehl boasted of spending a million dollars advertising in vain to buy a 1913 Liberty Head nickel, knowing that none of these extremely rare coins were to be found in circulation. Though he bought many