PETER IRION ON TOKEN AND MEDAL BOOKS YET TO BE PUBLISHED

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V16 2013 INDEX E-SYLUM ARCHIVE

The E-Sylum: Volume 16, Number 28, July 7, 2013, Article 19

We bibliophiles spend a lot of time fussing over all the great numismatic books that have been written, but the researchers among us deal with creating the books that HAVEN'T been written yet. In his The Bookshelf column in the July-August 2013 issue of the TAMS Journal, Token and Medal Society Librarian Peter Irion muses about the missing books that would flesh out library holdings. With permission (and help from editor Fred Reed), here's an excerpt. -Editor

Greetings from your TAMS Library. This month I would like to ask our membership about your thoughts on the books and catalogs that have NOT YET been published. There are probably millions of tokens and medals that have already been cataloged in some reference book or another, but just as likely there are probably millions of tokens and medals that have never been cataloged anywhere. For example, there are at least 25 catalogs on United States Trade tokens listed by their state of issue. This means that possibly 25 states do not yet have a token catalog written about their tokens. Is there a strong need for all 50 states to have their own reference books? I’d like to hear your thoughts.

From what I see based upon the requests for information that I get from fellow TAMS members or the general public via our website, there is a significant interest from people wanting to know more about modern medals – items that have been made in the past 50 years or so. It is interesting to note that there are really very few books that attempt to catalog anything modern. For example, the last catalog I know about for the Franklin Mint-issued items was a guidebook published in 1982. The Medallic Art Company (and it’s various successors) have issued thousands of medals during the past 100 years, but I am not aware of a single comprehensive catalog on these issues. Maybe Dick Johnson can point us in the right direction here. Even the U.S. Mint has issued hundreds of modern medals, but the last comprehensive catalog on modern U.S. Mint medals was published in 1969 I think.

There are hundreds of other types of tokens and medals that have not yet been cataloged anywhere. I know many authors have plans to write catalogs (or are looking for funding to support their efforts). It is not inexpensive to publish a new catalog nowadays. TAMS often gets offers or requests from members to help publish their book projects. We seriously look at each and every offer, and we try to determine if the book is “saleable” – which means can we make money on it or even break even. It would be great to have a crystal ball to tell us which books will have the greatest interest amongst our membership. Believe it or not, some of the books that TAMS has published sell out well, and other books we still have cases of in storage and we only sell a few of those books every year.

We've discussed the need before for a successor to Julian's book on the first century of U.S. Mint medals. Hopefully someone will take up the cause. And Dick Johnson is indeed at work cataloging the medals of Northwest Territorial Mint and all its family of company, including Medallic Art. Is anyone working on a Franklin Mint catalog? Or catalogs of unpublished state tokens? -Editor

For more information on the Token and Medal Society, see: www.tokenandmedal.org

Wayne Homren, Editor