Sing Sing Salvation
A. SCHILLER'S LORD'S PRAYER ON A PINHEAD
Schiller pin owned by Jim Jenkins, Kansas City
Schiller pin, found in the late 1800s in Sing Sing Prison, Ossining, NY (Owned by Jim Jenkins, Kansas City)
Schiller pin acquired by Ripley's Believe It or Not!, displayed at the Ripley's in St. Augustine, Florida
ATTENTION MUSEUM CURATORS, HISTORIANS, COIN & FINE ART COLLECTORS, AND MICROSCOPY EXPERTS & ENTHUSIASTS:
Own a priceless 1800s relic from historic Sing Sing prison. A. Schiller’s microscopic engraving of the Lord’s Prayer on a pinhead has been featured in the Ripley’s Believe It or Not! museum in St. Augustine, Florida, and has been referred to as the “holy grail” find of all the Ripley’s collection.
The final pin (of the only seven created) has been recovered by Jim Jenkins and—along with the Charles Baker pin and viewing machine in which the pin resides owned by Don Hamby—is now for sale. Now accepting online offers.
The Schiller pin would be sure to attract a national audience from a wide variety of interest groups. Jim has proposed exhibits at the Sing Sing Prison Museum, Smithsonian's National Numismatic Collection and the National Museum of American History, which would portray Schiller crafting the pin in the workshop, where it is believed he must have worked.
Please contact Jim and read the full story below to understand the importance of this historic artifact. Much is not known about the life and work of A. Schiller. If you know any part of this story that has not been made public—or have access to this information—please contact Jim. Your help would be greatly appreciated.
HISTORICAL & CULTURAL SIGNIFICANCE
The pin owned by Jim Jenkins is one of A. Schiller's pins and, most likely, one he accomplished after the pin owned by Ripley's, as shown by the improvement in some words and letters. (See the circled letter "d" in "debtors" above.)
It is a missing link in the life and death of A. Schiller, and a testament to the nearly impossible and historic work of relief etching and engraving in the 1800s.
Contact Jim below for more information.
Many are familiar with Godfrey Lundberg's work to engrave the Lord's Prayer on a gold pinhead only .047 inches in diameter. The masterpiece—that took him two exceedingly painstaking years to create—was displayed at San Francisco's Panama-Pacific Exposition in 1915, but required a strict conditioning process, manufacture of a special engraving tool and equipment that restrained all movement in his arm, except for his fingers, to complete. It was said Lundberg had a nervous breakdown after the completion of the pin. The feat was too much.
But few have heard of the work of convicted forger A. Schiller, a prisoner who served time in the late 1800s at Sing Sing Correctional Facility, a maximum-security prison in Ossining, New York—and is credited with creating the "original Lord's Prayer Pin." When guards searched Schiller after he was found dead in his cell, they found seven straight pins on his person—six silver (.125 inches in diameter) and one gold (.047 inches), all with the Lord's Prayer etched on them. The etchings—reliefs, not engravings—were only able to be seen at 400x magnification.
Schiller spent 25 years on the seven pins and went blind from the strain. (This is not unheard of; Charles H. Baker—an employee of the Bureau of Engraving in the early 1900s who engraved the Lord's Prayer on the head of pin—also went blind.) He did not have access to the same kinds of tools accomplished engravers of the time did, but, instead, created his own from the confines of a maximum security prison.
Edward Meyer, Ripley’s Believe It or Not! curator, in an interview with Time Out New York Magazine, stated Ripley’s purchased six of the seven pins—one gold and five silver—in a box of miniatures. Jim Jenkins of Kansas City, Missouri, claims to have the final pin, the finest example of the six silver pins.
THE PAST & PRESENT
OF THE SCHILLER PINS
Jim inherited the pin from his father, who found it in a large box of antique books he purchased from a rummage sale in Independence, Kansas, in 1957. At the bottom of the box was a small wooden box containing a pathology microscope from the 1800s. A pin sticking through the a cork aligned with the lens revealed the Lord's Prayer clearly engraved on the tiny surface. Jim's father found the pin when Jim was 6 years old, and instructed Jim to keep the pin in a safe place at all times until he was old enough to understand how to take care of it. Ripley's gold pin and Jim's silver pin are shown here.
EVIDENCE THAT COULD PROVE THE STORY OF A. SCHILLER'S SEVEN PINS
CONTACT
Contact Jim Jenkins using this form or by calling (816) 914-4417.
Serious inquiries only.
WHO WAS A. SCHILLER?
While A. Schiller may have been a prisoner of Sing Sing in the late 1800s, new documentation has been found for "Arthur Schiller," a prisoner who was sentenced in December of 1914. This A. Schiller was a 29-year-old driver from New York, who was convicted for blackmail.
Is it possible this is A. Schiller?
HOW DID HE DO IT?
The Auburn System lockstep
Sing Sing Salvation Story: The Lord's Prayer on a Pinhead
Sentenced to 25 years in prison for forgery, A. Schiller was sent “up the river” to New York State’s Sing Sing Correctional Facility—a no-talking prison in Ossining, New York, that held approximately 1,000 prisoners and employed the uncompromising “Auburn System” of penal discipline. He spent his days either behind bars in his solitary cell—a tiny space measuring only 7 feet deep by 3.5 feet wide that was heavily surveilled by prison guards—or shackled to other prisoners in a lockstep when moving to and from group labor tasks and meals.
But the maximum-security prison was known for its unyielding severity, and perhaps monotony was better than certain demise on death row: From 1891 to 1963, 614 inmates met their death strapped to Old Sparky, the prison’s electrocution chair. In fact, brutality within the prison was so extreme that Willie Sutton, the infamous American bank robber who spent time at various prisons for his crimes, called Sing Sing “the most horrible prison he’d ever been in.”
So how did Schiller have the time and space to inscribe the Lord’s Prayer on no fewer than seven pinheads in such harsh conditions—a feat that would have taken hundreds of hours to complete? And what did his work mean for the other prisoners, as well as those outside the prison walls?
It is possible Schiller used the same talents needed for forgery for communication both with fellow prisoners and with the outside world. Could he, with his microscopic writing ability, be the “newspaper” or “messenger” of the prison, etching messages on commonly used items and leaving them for other prisoners? The facility also tasked the inmates to create manufacturing goods that were sold in the surrounding region. From brushes, boots and barrels to saddles, shoes and stoves, these goods could have provided a line of communication with citizens on the outside—providing either plans to organize an escape or reports to loved ones.
By the 1830s, workshops and factories, plus a kitchen, hospital and chapel, all surrounded Sing Sing—and a railroad ran directly through it. Many attempts were made to escape via the railcars and through these various divisions of the facility. In April of 1941, in the most notorious breakout in Sing Sing’s history, three men broke out of the hospital after 10 months of planning with outside forces. It is certainly not inconceivable that Schiller could have been in communication with organized crime outside of prison walls, either as a willing participant facilitating an escape or as an honest accomplice, pressured to enable the flow of contraband into the prison through the flow of manufactured goods. Schiller may have agreed to help members of organized crime in exchange for time to work on his craft—and this work would have been done surrounded by other prisoners who would also have felt the pressures of these criminal groups.
If so, Schiller’s is a story of community and of survival within a maximum-security prison. All prisoners were kept in solitary confinement at night. It is highly unlikely Schiller could have made any progress on the pins while in his dark cell (possibly dimly lit by a small coal lantern) with a guard standing watch nearby. What is more probable is that Schiller, while working in a “‘congregant’ labor group” in a workshop during the day, had the help of other inmates (unchained for labor purposes), who kept eyes out for guards who stood watch at the doors and other less-friendly prisoners. These were men who—chained to each other every day—had to have known each other inside and out. From the pressures of organized crime came community and some semblance of a safe space within a murderous environment.
Godfrey Lundberg, a remarkable engraver who engraved the Lord’s Prayer on a pinhead, took two years to engrave his work and suffered a nervous breakdown because of the difficulty of the task. He crafted his own, special engraving tool and, it was written in Julie Mooney’s The World of Ripley’s Believe It or Not!, “worked from a barber’s chair, strapping his hands to an iron bar to keep them from shaking. He also bound his wrists tightly with leather straps, because the rhythm of his pulse caused the engraving tool to skip. Lundberg could only work on the pin in the evenings, when the rumbling trolley cars that passed by his shop had stopped running for the day.”
Sing Sing cell, taken circa 1910
Small wooden box with French pathology microscope from the 1800s may have been the one found on the Schiller’s body with the seven pins inside.
With a craft so specialized and so grueling, how could Schiller have accomplished the same feat without access to the same equipment and frequently interrupted by the train that ran through the prison? While Lundberg was able to work in the evenings when the sounds of the day were quieted, Schiller would not have had the same luxury—further proving the only opportunity he would have had was through the cooperation of other inmates in the workshop, where guards were either absent or scarce.
Whether Schiller’s ultimate goal was rehabilitation or retribution inside Sing Sing’s punishing walls is a mystery; however the discovery of his seven pins and the tools used to engrave them is an inspiration—not only because of their significance to other prisoners, but as a testament to Schiller’s dedication to the prayer he prayed daily.
“Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.” This work, though torturous in its own way, may have been a respite from the evils of the correctional facility and Schiller’s last effort at salvation in a time of suffering.