WALTER DOUGLAS ALLAN (1933-2017)

It only made sense that Walt would serve as unofficial guardian of our family history. A lifelong pack-rat, he kept everything – old car keys, expired calendars, every single sales receipt; a butterfly collection started as a child and, literally, thousands of photos of clouds he’d snapped with his little red Nikon.

Like many born during the Great Depression, Walt could not throw anything away. At the end of his life, he had 11 alarm clocks in his small home. A few of them even worked.

From childhood until retirement, Walter worked at Allan’s Drug Store, the Lake Shore Boulevard pharmacy that his parents purchased in 1939. Even as a kid, he knew everyone in the town of Bronte, Ont., (now part of Oakville) – with thanks to his Globe and Mail paper route. Open even on Christmas Day, pharmacy hours always informed the timing of the turkey dinner.

Walt was an exuberant collector of stamps and coins, but also rocks, marbles, maps, pharmacy paraphernalia, seashells, cameras and, especially, anything connected to Bronte’s roots. In 1988, he spearheaded a campaign to save the Sovereign House, a heritage home that would become a showcase of local history.

By far his greatest passion was for collecting and cataloguing paper money, rare banknotes and vignettes. A distinguished expert, he led the Canadian Paper Money Society from 1993 to 1995 and was later named an honorary president.

In July, 2017, he left his Tobermory home for the annual gathering of the Royal Canadian Numismatic Association in Boucherville, Que. He never made it. Walter’s car was later found abandoned in a farmer’s field an hour east of the convention. Police searched for days. They ended their investigation several months later, though he was never found.

To read the complete article, see:
Dedicated numismatist Walter Allan was also a favourite uncle and small-business owner (https://www.theglobeandmail.com/life/article-dedicated-numismatist-walter-allan-was-also-a-favourite-uncle-and/)

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