CAL WILSON (1944-2018)

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V21 2018 INDEX E-SYLUM ARCHIVE

The E-Sylum: Volume 21, Number 42, October 21, 2018, Article 11

Numismatic literature dealer Cal Wilson passed away last Friday. An early member and officer of NBS, his efforts helped create the numismatic literature market and sustain the club we all know and love today. His house organ The Repository was an avidly-read hardcopy forerunner of The E-Sylum, bringing news and humor to aficionados of the developing hobby of collecting numismatic literature. Here's a memoir by Joel Orosz. -Editor

Cal Wilson became a numismatic book dealer in 1980, joining Frank Katen and George Frederick Kolbe in that then-uncrowded field. How history will judge his eight years as a bibliopole depends a great deal on whether the historian was a customer (who universally loved him), or a consignor, (who sometimes complained of slow or inadequate settlements). Either camp, however, had to admit that his career was consequential. Cal’s second auction sale, on May 31, 1982, was a worthy successor to Kolbe’s breakthrough 9th sale of the year before, and together, these auctions firmly established the market for numismatic literature in the United States.

Cal made another contribution to the numismatic literature hobby, a periodical for numismatic bibliophiles. It began life as Wilson’s Numismatic Repository with vol 1, no. 1 in October of 1982, changed its name to just “The Repository” with vol 2, no 4 in July 1984, and ended with vol 5, no 4 in April of 1988. (a single issue was later published online, dated October, 2001). The Repository was a lively little magazine, where many numismatic bibliophiles (myself included), first saw their names in print. While it did much to advance the hobby, Cal never took it overly seriously. The very first issue carried this tongue-in-cheek notice: “Not copyrighted. Unlike most other publications, any portion of “Wilson’s Numismatic Repository” may be reprinted without permission. Besides, who would want to?”

The Numismatic Bibliomania Society also owes much to Cal’s exertions on its behalf. In the years after its founding in 1979, the Society found it difficult to organize meetings and to publish The Asylum on a regular schedule. Cal rallied West Coast members of the NBS, and they announced the organization’s revival with a letter to the membership dated October 4, 1982. He served as NBS President from 1983-84, and as a lead Board member for some years thereafter, and built a robust organization that met regularly and published its journal in a timely fashion.

A long, and mostly melancholy denouement consumed the last three decades of Cal’s numismatic involvement. Financial difficulties shut down his numismatic literature business after his 18th sale in 1988, and old disputes over payments due and owing scuttled his attempt to rejoin the NBS in 1999. In 2002, Cal offered the records of the formative years of the NBS, gathered during the period of his leadership, to the highest bidder on eBay. That high bidder, thankfully, was Tom Sheehan, who then generously donated those records to the NBS Archives.

Cal was a warm, engaging and generous man who, at the top of his game, was as good as any leader this hobby has ever had. That he could not sustain this level of excellence for a lifetime does not diminish in any way the fact that he stepped up when when our hobby needed him most. This alone is enough to secure his place in the pantheon of numismatic literature.

I met Cal at some of the early meetings of NBS. I'd been a bidder in his sales and was an avid reader of The Repository. Cal was an E-Sylum reader for years, joining our mailing list on December 4, 1998. He was one of the first copyright owners I reached out to when I began working with the Newman Numismatic Portal, and he immediately granted permission to digitize his publications. It's a trip down Memory Lane, and I encourage NBS members and numismatic bibliophiles everywhere to read it - see the link below. -Editor

While searching for information on NBS founding members, I came across the attached photograph from page 62 of the Summer 1981 issue of The Asylum. It was taken at the reception held following George F. Kolbe's sale of June 12-13, 1981. Several of the NBS founding members are in the picture. Cal Wilson is fourth from the left.

Sorry to hear about the death of Cal Wilson. Of the 18 literature sales he had, I bid in most but not all of them. I always did business with him with no problems. One time at a Baltimore coin show I had a long interesting conversation about numismatic literature with him. It is sad that financial problems caused him to stop his sales thirty years ago.

I was saddened to learn that Cal Wilson has passed away.

In the early 1980s, Cal’s entry into the numismatic literature marketplace markedly advanced interest in rare and out of print American numismatic publications. His enthusiasm was infectious.

Regretably, his love and devotion to the world of numismatic books was insufficient to ensure longevity. Cal was at the right place at the right time, though, and he gave numismatic literature and, specifically, the Numismatic Bibliomania Society, much-needed boosts.

Cal did not take himself too seriously. Shortly after Wilson’s Numismatic Repository began publication, Cal mentioned to me that his wife referred to it as the Numismatic Suppository.

Cal was good friends with Armand Champa and John Bergman. Sadly, these three stalwarts are no longer with us.

Mr. Calvin Wilson, 74, passed away on Friday, October 12, 2018 at his residence. He was born August 18, 1944, in Florida to Calvin Otto Wilson, Sr. and Nevada Hall Wilson. He was employed by Crown Cork and Seal Manufacturing Company as their Production Planning Supervisor prior to his retirement. He was preceded in death by his parents.

To read Wilson's Numismatic Repository on the Newman Numismatic Portal, see:
Wilson's Numismatic Repository (https://nnp.wustl.edu/library/book/535865)