ALBERT CHARLES ROESSLER, JR. (1883-1952)

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V19 2016 INDEX E-SYLUM ARCHIVE

The E-Sylum: Volume 19, Number 31, July 31, 2016, Article 16

Last week David Lange asked for information about The Coin News, a rare periodical published by New Jersey dealer A. C. Roessler. Well, this week John Lupia submitted the following information on Roessler from his Encyclopedic Dictionary of Numismatic Biographies for this week's installment of his series. Thanks! As always, this is an excerpt with the full article and bibliography available online. -Editor

Albert Charles Roessler, Jr. (1883-1952), 1958 Washington Avenue, New York. Coin and stamp dealer, began trading as a stamp dealer in Denver.

Roessler was both a stamp and coin collector and dealer. His coin business lasted over thirty years. His stamp business was extraordinary and novel introducing a myriad of artistic illustrations for stamps some of which were used by the government or at least based on his drawings but without credit or acknowledgement and also for his myriad of cacheted covers illustrating contemporary themes that took the collecting world by force.

Because he was slighted by the government for his artwork inspiring several postage stamps Roessler became a spokesman for criticism of the U. S. Post Office, Bureau of Engraving and Printing, and the U. S. Postmaster, all of which eventually backfired on him in the 1930's.

Due to his excessively novel and innovative activity in philatelics his numismatic business and dealings unfortunately have become obscured by time and little or scarcely none of his numismatic literature is know to be extent and rarely if ever seen in the market.

His weekly bargain list for coins was titled The Coin News which grew out of his original Coin List offering coins at highly competitive bargain prices. One aspect of Roessler's coin business that will prove to be noteworthy to numismatists was his advertising and promoting medals and commemorative coins and his illustrated cacheted covers of them that popularized them to a new generation of collectors.

Commemorative coins were not exclusive to centennial, bicentennial and tricentennial celebrations since stamps were also issued and Roessler pioneered and innovated the cacheted first day cover concept to stimulate collectors to collect both the stamps, covers, and coins and medals that accompanied them in their issues. For the medal and commemorative collector, scholar and dealer Roessler played an important role in helping to establish a stronger market for this specialized niche.

He owned a stamp and coin shop in the Ampere section of East Orange, New Jersey. The shop was taken over by Frank Gerardo Spadone (1924-2000).

He was born in Newark New Jersey on April 7, 1883, son of Austrian-German ancestry of both parents, Albert Roessler, Sr. (1859-1890), a native of New Jersey, and Emma Katherine Erb (1858-), a native of Connecticut. The family name in German is spelled Rössler. His paternal grandfather was Johann Rössler a native of Vienna, Austria, and his wife Mathilda a native of Baden-Württemberg, Germany.

According to the U.S. Census 1900 his mother remarried in 1893 after the death of his father to John Mulcahey. They lived on Mt. Prospect Street, Newark, New Jersey. He became hooked on stamps and coins at the age of ten, and later on specialized as a First Day Cover (FDC) cachet maker and servicer for most of his entire career.

He was a talented artist illustrator and cartoonist and published in Cartoons Magazine. He used his artistic skills to create many illustrations for his three main publications : Roessler's Stamp News, Stamp Dealers News, and Air Plane Stamp News, as well as a myriad of illustrated cacheted first and second day covers.

While living with his parents at 140 South [now called the Oraton] Parkway, East Orange N. J., he moved to Colorado as a young man, first working in the mines and on a ranch. (Newton, 1977, p. 99).

While in Denver he ran a mail order stamp business, and wrote columns and advertised his bargain stamp products in The Stamp Journal of Denver and Philatelic West.

The May 1908 issue of The Stamp Journal in Denver announced that Roessler was leaving his job as President of The Stamp Journal Co., and transferring his stock in the company, to return to full-time residence in New York City.

He applied to the ANA in September and joined the ANA in November 1909 with an address at 1958 Washington Ave. This is the earliest known numismatic activity of Roessler within the mainstream of American numismatics. From here on we find Roessler involved with the coin business until he retired in 1940.

By 1910 Roessler moved across the river to his native city of Newark, New Jersey,

On Jan 1, 1933, Roessler was indicted and arrested on two federal charges of crimes committed five-six years earlier: (1) using the U.S. mails for deceptive purposes in 1927; and (2) printing and using printed items “in similitude of obligations of the United States” in 1928. The first charge was that, while processing event covers for a failed Arctic exploration flight on 9/24/27 by Sir Hubert Wilkins, Roessler faked a facsimile of a New York cancellation to create additional covers after the trip when demand for the covers exceeded the supply actually taken aboard the airplane.

The second charge was that Roessler overprinted “GRAF ZEPPELIN” on a 1c Franklin, and then advertised it for sale at 10c each (Newton, 1977, p. 95) and used it 10/28/28 in combination with other stamps when servicing Graf Zeppelin LZ-127 Flight Covers (See ROE-FZ15, Newton, 1977, p. 95). The overprinting was identical to the font style as the Post Office Dept had used on a 2c Washington stamp for the #646 2c Molly Pitcher and #647/648 2c and 5c Hawaii Issues, which Roessler had previously mocked publicly.

On June 21, 1933 Roessler pled guilty to both charges in Federal Court in Newark. He was sentenced to two years in the Atlanta penitentiary, but the sentence was suspended and he was placed on probation for three years. (Linn’s Stamp Review, July 15, 1933, quoted in Newton, 1977, p. 106).

Roessler appears to have been completely out of business by 1940. Barry Newton suggests that Roessler was near-blind and (citing an article by Stan Fryczynski in May/June 1961 First Days) collected unemployment compensation and welfare benefits from then until his death on January 26, 1952 in Orange, New Jersey. (Newton, 1977, pp. 106-107). However, he may not have been blind but lacked sharp vision adequate enough to draw and carry on his hobby business.

Roessler's cacheted covers are a collecting area for me and I have studied them and him with interest since I grew in his shadows so to speak. The first coin shop I ever visited as a youngster was that formerly owned by Roessler.

Some of the coin and medal inventory of Roessler was still there in the late 1950's and early 1960's of fond memory of this writer, and included ancient and U. S. Colonial coins, among them Fugio, Massachusetts, New Jersey, Connecticut, and New York Cents, as well as Washington pieces, and a variety of American and foreign medals. I remember Spadone talking about Roessler and his arrests and the Federal agents that came into the shop and seized everything.

Thanks also to Ron Haller-Williams who dug up a good bit of information on Roessler online. It was far too much to include here, but I passed it along to Dave Lange and John Lupia. -Editor

To read the complete article, see:
ROESSLER, ALBERT CHARLES (https://sites.google.com/a/numismaticmall.com/www/numismaticmall-com/roessler-albert-charles)

To read the earlier E-Sylum article, see:
THE COIN NEWS (www.coinbooks.org/esylum_v19n30a10.html)