KEN BRESSETT INTERVIEW, PART SIX

PREV ARTICLE NEXT ARTICLE FULL ISSUE PREV FULL ISSUE

V29 2026 INDEX E-SYLUM ARCHIVE

The E-Sylum: Volume 29, Number 27, 2026, Article 13

Greg Bennick's latest interview for the Newman Numismatic Portal is with "Mr. Redbook". Ken Bressett. Here's the final part, with Ken's stories involving Penn Jillette's family, Q. David Bowers, the Atocha dive, the Royal Numismatic Society obituary mix-up, and his major honors including the ANA Hall of Fame. -Editor

Adventures, Honors, and Unexpected Connections: The Later Life of Ken Bressett

Ken Bressett and the Early Days of NENA News 1

GREG BENNICK: So, before we planned the interview, you made quick mention of something which was mind-boggling to me. I know that Penn Jillette of Penn & Teller—his father was a coin dealer—but I would not have made the connection had you not emailed me saying that you enjoyed my juggling performance because of your connection with Penn. So, please tell me more. I would love to know more about that and you made mention to me of having some anecdotes about your connection to Penn and his father, which is a numismatic connection as I understand it.

KEN BRESSETT: Right! I first met Sam, his father, at a coin club meeting because we lived fairly close together and we went to the same coin club meetings. In fact, I had started a coin club in my hometown in Keene, New Hampshire, and Sam used to come to those meetings. We got to know each other very well and found out that we didn't live very far apart. So there was a solid connection between Penn's father Sam, and then my wife and myself and Sam and Valerie.

And so, we just had that connection. Let me see now: when Penn was born, they were expecting another girl. Val, Penn's mother, and Sam and I knew that when she was pregnant, they were expecting another girl. I don't know why, but it was going to be another girl. And they were going to name her Penny because that was what Sam collected mostly—large cents and small cents. He loved pennies. So he was going to name this girl Penny. And that's how Penn got his name. When it turned out to be a boy, they just named him Penn.

KEN BRESSETT: I think I mentioned about Penn's one fingernail that's always red?

KEN BRESSETT: Penn is really devoted to his father and mother. He was very, very close to them. He looks and acts a lot like his father. His father was a big, burly guy. He was a jail guard when he wasn't collecting coins and acting as a coin dealer. Penn is about his size. But in his devotion to his mother—to remind him always of her and to be close to her—that's why he has that one red fingernail.

KEN BRESSETT: Yep. And now, Penn has some children. He has two children. Did you know that?

GREG BENNICK: I knew he had one. I thought he had a daughter, but I didn't realize he had two.

KEN BRESSETT: Yes, he has a son named Zolten, which is after his wife. His wife's name was Emily Zolten. But anyway, his daughter, who is now an amateur magician, is named Moxie. But do you know her full name?

KEN BRESSETT: He told me once that he named her that because he wanted her to have a special name—Moxie. And in case she ever got arrested for speeding or something like that, she could say, "I'm such a crime fighter, that's my middle name!"

KEN BRESSETT: Well, yes and no. Moxie is a carbonated drink. It's the first non-alcoholic carbonated drink, guaranteed not to contain anything harmful. Invented in the 1880s. Very popular in New England. Being an old New Englander, I know all about Moxie.

There's another New Englander who knows all about Moxie, and that is Q. David Bowers. He wrote a book called The Moxie Encyclopedia, Volume 1.

KEN BRESSETT: We've always been very, very close. He's used me often for peer review of his manuscripts or to write a foreword. He once invited me to go to work for him, but I didn't want to move at the time. I probably should have—he's been immensely successful at everything he does. But we've been very close friends our entire lives.

GREG BENNICK: You also mentioned the Atocha and diving. Could you tell me, tell me more about that?

KEN BRESSETT: Yes. Mel Fisher was a con artist who sold stock in his fake company called - I forgot the real name of his company - but it had to do with deep sea diving recoveries. He would take a potential investor in his company out on a little boat ride and, have a diver go down where he thinks there might be treasure and the diver would come up with a, a doubloon, or a piece of eight. And everybody got excited and the investor wanted to invest in the company right away because he knew this was going to be wonderful.

I think he must have sold many more shares than he really should have. One fine day, good old Mel Fisher discovered, the sunken ship, the treasure ship, the Atocha. And nobody wanted to believe him by then. He phoned the ANA and said, "You have somebody there on staff, because you're a numismatic association. You have somebody there that knows about sunken treasure and, can verify that these coins are genuine and that we've discovered a gold mine here." And, they said, "Yes, we have, Robert Hoge, our museum curator, and, Kenneth Bressett, who is in the education department." And they said, "Send them on." And they paid our all our expenses to go to Florida, off the Keys. We had to go out and learn to do scuba diving.

GREG BENNICK: That's great. We have that in common. I'm a PADI certified rescue diver too, so this is wonderful.

KEN BRESSETT: Oh, good for you. Good for you. When I did the dive with Fisher, it was only about 60 feet. Deep enough to need a dive master. We verified his coins. I saw emeralds, gold bars, the big chain. Sometimes you see pictures of divers with this huge gold chain around their neck. When we left, they had a party for us, and I wore that big gold chain all evening.

GREG BENNICK: I had no idea. Again, I'm sure we could talk for hours and uncover more adventures, and eventually you're going to be running across the surface of a moon, with a handful of coins or across the tundra of Africa.

GREG BENNICK: So, an unusual question. When you had emailed me back, you made mention of something that I thought I must have read it wrong, or maybe I read it right and it's just bizarre, but you wrote about your obituary from the Royal Numismatic Society?

KEN BRESSETT: Well, as the story goes, the story of my death has been greatly exaggerated. (Laughs) I was a member of the Royal Numismatic Society for many years and that is really a great honor to be in the Royal Numismatic Society in England.

KEN BRESSETT: It's a special appointment from the Prince. I was very happy to do that and to be that and have that honor. But I only went to England occasionally, and I didn't get to their meetings. I got the subscription to their annual reports and books and things like that. There came a time when I thought, "My goodness, I'm spending a lot of money on this and getting very little out of it because I no longer collect those coins and I've moved on with my interest. So I didn't renew my subscription. That was it.

KEN BRESSETT: And nobody, I mean nobody would give up their membership in the Royal Numismatic Society unless they had died. So they figured I had died! And they wrote a nice little obit for me.

GREG BENNICK: Greatly exaggerated. Well, this is, this is wonderful. I would be remiss if I didn't ask you about some of your appointments. You were on the Citizens Advisory Committee and the US Assay Commission as well. You were appointed to the Assay Commission by President Johnson, as I understand.

GREG BENNICK: Can you tell me a little bit about that work with the US Assay Commission?

KEN BRESSETT: The Assay Commission was founded in 1792 or 1793. It verified the weight and purity of the nation's coins. It continued until around 1968. It was a nice custom. You had to be fairly well known to be appointed by the president. I was fortunate to do that and to get the appointment and get a presidential medal for doing it.

KEN BRESSETT: I have the medal and in fact, I've collected Assay Commission medals, which are rather scarce because people don't really give them up until they die. And, so that's just another branch of my collecting.

GREG BENNICK: I think it's fantastic. So let me do this before we wrap up. You know, of all the books that you've been a part of creating over the years, the association with the Red Book is most widely known. Are there other publications that you feel most connected to, in your time working on and contributing to books and whatnot?

KEN BRESSETT: There's a book called Milestone Coins that I particularly like. that I wrote - I don't know exactly when that was - a few years ago. Its a series of short stories about very interesting coins that tell the history of the world through this small number of twenty coins or whatever it is. I particularly like that book.

Another one I'm attached to is Money of the Bible. I collect the coins mentioned in the Bible. A sequel was Bible Lore and the Eternal Flame. And of course, the Fantastic 1804 Dollar was something that I did with Eric Newman and that's been wonderful.

GREG BENNICK: Yeah, that's one that I'm looking at across the room even as we speak right now.

KEN BRESSETT: There's something called A Penny Saved. Like the sayings of Ben Franklin, "a penny saved is a penny earned." But, the book called A Penny Saved is the story of Yeoman and the Red Book. And it has in it my biography. Up to that date anyway. I haven't finished writing my biography yet, but I'm still working on it.

GREG BENNICK: Unlike the Royal Canadian, or the Royal Numismatic Society who have completed your biography.

GREG BENNICK: Well, Ken, this has been absolutely wonderful. Is there anything that we missed that you hoped that I would ask that we haven't talked about? We are trying to be comprehensive and covering a wide number of things that I found interesting or that I thought other people would find interesting. Is there anything that I didn't cover that maybe you'd want to mention?

KEN BRESSETT: Well I'm as proud as I can be of my election to the Hall of Fame of the ANA.

KEN BRESSETT: American Numismatic Association Hall of Fame. There are only like seven living members. That has been something that has made me feel that my work and my efforts have been really acknowledged. So I guess that was one of the big things in my life was getting into the Hall of Fame.

GREG BENNICK: Well, I'm so glad that you have that sense of being acknowledged. I mean, that plus every single numismatist walking the earth who's been influenced by you, basically all of us. So, I mean, everybody is deeply thankful. When you walk around Colorado Springs, it's like a rockstar has just walked into our neighborhood. So it's wonderful to have a chance to talk to you today. I'm so happy about it.

KEN BRESSETT: Well, I really appreciate you're saying that. Again, I hope this is what you wanted to hear and I hope you enjoy all of this.

GREG BENNICK: Absolutely is. I'll just mention right now that if people are interested in hearing more interviews, I've done more interviews on the Newman Numismatic Portal. You can look up those interviews with other people who are fascinating and amazing, maybe not with some of the wild stories that Ken has told today but equally interesting. I always am looking for ideas for new interviewees and people can be in touch anytime. But Ken, thank you so much. I really appreciate it.

KEN BRESSETT: Oh, good. Well, I thank you and I really enjoyed it and I thank you for all your efforts.

About the Interviewer
Greg Bennick (www.gregbennick.com) is a keynote speaker and long time coin collector with a focus on major mint error coins and US counterstamps. He is on the board of both CONECA and TAMS and enjoys having in-depth conversations with prominent numismatists from all areas of the hobby. Have ideas for other interviewees? Contact him anytime via instagram @minterrors. He can also be reached by email at minterrors@gmail.com.