MORE ON AUTHORS, BOOKS AND LIBRARIES ON COINS

 

I know it's not a trade token, but in 1892 Joseph Leroux issued two advertising tokens (one English, one French) that depict his numismatic catalog. I guess it qualifies as a store card (the $5 is just the price of the book, quite high at the time).

Because it's actually advertising a numismatic book, I thought it was particularly worthy of mention.

I enjoyed reading Pete Smith's article, "Books on Coins, Medals and Tokens" in last week's E-Sylum. He covered a very broad subject succinctly, and the photos were great.

I may be misreading the first few sentences of the article, but Pete leaves the impression that authors appear more frequently on coins and medals than do images of books. I'm not sure about coins, but that seems unlikely for medals. That is, unless you think of every medal having a portrait bust — where the person depicted also happened to have written a book of some sort — as an author. Sure, that might make it technically true, but even then I'm not sure that portrait busts on medals depicting people who wrote some sort of book outnumber images of books on medals.

In my collection alone, I have over 800 medals with books on the obverse (over 600) or reverse (over 200). Granted, I collect school award medals and these are all inherently academic. But my casual count of the pieces in my collection database suggests that 10-15% of these types of award medals show books — open, closed, stacked up, resting on a table, lined up on shelves, held in a student's hand, or scattered among various other symbols of academic pursuit. As Pete observes, most of these books are generic. The identified books are mostly the Holy Bible or Anglican Book of Common Prayer, and that is most often spelled out at the top or middle of open pages, only rarely on the cover or spine. Sometimes a specific Biblical chapter and verse is identified, encouraging the recipient of the medal to go reading for further intended meaning.

 

I've attached photos of an interesting late-18th century Irish medal, with the names of classical authors (Euclid with the word BOOK, Xenophon, Homer, Virgil) on the edges of the stacked-up books. Also attached are photos of the earliest school award medal showing a book, from the Altdorf Academy outside Nuremburg. This particular example is a mule of the 1588 Class II award, showing a winged tortoise on a book (Stopp 44), and the 1584 Class II award with roses (Stopp 28).

 

The image of a flying tortoise on a book is intended to convey the concept that with the learning made possible by books, even the most extraordinary things are possible. I'm sure we agree that applies to numismatic books!

I am on two medals. Both are in the British Museum Collection.

 

My first is the Scarinci Hollenbeck 15th Anniversary of Scarinci Hollenbeck LLC, medal by Alex Shagin, 2004, 76mm, Medalic Art Company. The Obverse is a portrait of Ken Hollenbeck and I and the reverse is a rising phoenix. Each medal in the edition of 100 bronze and 50 silver were numbered on the edge. This medal is the first medal ever to depict a web site address.

 

The second medal was an honor bestowed on me by Bogomil Nikolov. He made it in 2003, brass, cast, 110mm. It is #317 in the cataloged work of his medals Bogomil is a great sculptor working in Bulgaria. He is represented in my collection by over 100 medals.

For some background about me, I can share the following:

I am a lawyer in NY and NJ, a life member of the ANA, a Fellow at the ANS where I served as Chair of the Saltus Award Committee. Dick Johnson has said that I have the largest privately held collection of art medals in the United States. FIDEM awarded me the first "FIDEM Collector Award" for my commitment to contemporary medallic art at the XXXVI FIDEM congress in Tokyo in 2020. I am the longest serving member of the Citizens Coinage Advisory Committee and have served uninterrupted 4 year terms since 2005. This year is my 20th Anniversary on that committee.

I am a nominator of the Coin of the Year Award and the author of a book on that subject which will soon see a second edition. A Chinese edition of the book sold out as well as the English language edition.

I read with considerable interest Pete Smith's list of the medals of American Numismatic authors because I have collected such medals, both American and foreign. Taking American Numismatic authors to mean medals of individuals who were numismatic authors in America rather than writers exclusively about American numismatic subject matter, I find that I can suggest some additional names. These are persons who in my opinion have written significant numismatic articles or books; I'm sure that many other occasional numismatic authors could be added from the medallic series issued by the New York Numismatic Club, the Token and Medal Society and many others. Here are images of those I happen to have.

 
Thomas Elder and Raphael Solomon

 
Moritz Wormser NYNC and ANA Medals

 
Mel Wacks and Ira Rezak

 
Horatio Storer and Henry Grunthal

 
George Heath and Edward Newell

 
Daniel Friedenberg and Bruno Kisch

 
Augustus Heaton and Asher Durand

 
Albert Frey and Alan Stahl

To read the earlier E-Sylum articles, see:
MORE ON AUTHORS ON COINS AND MEDALS (https://www.coinbooks.org/v28/esylum_v28n33a12.html)
Books on Coins, Medals and Tokens (https://www.coinbooks.org/v28/esylum_v28n33a17.html)

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