Not mentioned in the biography of James J. Curto is that Curto was President of the Token and Medal Society 1962-1963. Beautiful high-relief portrait medals of him are still available from TAMS.

I never met James Curto, but he wrote me after my article "Fort Riley, Kansas, Tokens" appeared in The Numismatist (February, 1966, reprinted in A Survey of American Trade Tokens edited by David W. Schenkman) to advise me of earlier Fort Riley tokens. I believe that I sold the set of pieces described in the article to him.

I knew Jim Curto. He lived in Grosse Pointe, MI, and I lived in Ann Arbor. This was in the late 40s and early to mid 50s. I was a young guy at the time (in my teens) and he was always kind and polite to me. We shared an interest in Michigan Civil War Store Cards along with a man named Cliff Temple. I went to the Detroit Coin Club once or twice and recall having a pretty good time for a teenager along with all those "old" guys, - - - now I are one!

I also recall an old time coin dealer from Detroit, Harold Bowen, author of a book on Michigan items, who got me started on my set of The Numismatist by giving me a run of them from about 1935 to 1955 or so. As I was then an ANA member (60 years now) I was able to keep up with them currently at that time.