CLIFFORD MISHLER ON 55 YEARS IN IOLA

It was on a cold and snowy late winter morning – Monday, March 16, 1963 – when I stepped into the Numismatic News office building at the corner of Washington and Water streets in downtown Iola to begin my Krause Publications career as the associate editor of the News. The sidewalk to the entrance had been freshly shoveled by an individual I would shortly meet for the first time, Chet Krause, who had arrived on the scene in advance of the rest of the staff.

There was a light shining from the open doorway of a small office on the immediate left inside the front entry door. Poking my head around the corner I introduced myself, as the occupant and I had not previously met. A hardy welcoming rejoinder greeted me: “Hi, I’m Chet.” That first exposure to Chet forever changed my life, much as his exposure to coin collecting, collecting old cars and similar involvements with many other hobbies changed lives in those pursuits as well.

Our coin hobby was on the threshold of exponential growth, a trend-line that in 1965-1966 would come crashing down to earth. At the time two periodicals were being published out of Iola, Numismatic News and Coins magazine. Before the summer was out, there were two more. One was Canada Coin News, which while short-lived as an Iola product, still serves the hobby today as Canadian Coin News out of Toronto. The other was The Coin Dealer, which continued into 1966.

In all, at its height around the turn into the 21st century, Krause Publications was publishing in excess of 50 periodical titles, their combined annual deadlines being nearly 800, along with more than 100 new books or editions annually that infused an active book list of more than 800 titles. The number of employees was upwards of 500. We were also producing a dozen affiliated trade/collector shows across the country from Atlantic City to Hawaii. That was a momentous, enjoyable and rewarding time to be in the hobby publishing business.

When I stepped away as president with the close of the 1999 calendar, turning the reins of the company over to another collector, Roger Case, whom I’d lured away from eastern Montana in 1988 to take charge of the numismatic division, things were starting to change. Both the Internet and eBay were still in their infancy. Both have exacted their toll, over the past 15 years, since my formal and full retirement in 2003 after 40 years, in siphoning from the marketplace strengths that print publishing had enjoyed for so many years.

To read the complete article, see:
Looking back on 55 years in Iola (http://www.numismaster.com/ta/numis/Article.jsp?ad=article&ArticleId=29250)

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