ADRIAN PEREZ INTERVIEW, PART THREE

Greg Bennick
Great — and people don't have to search "coin" to find them anymore, because of you. So with that said: is this the kind of work you'd want to do more of in the future? Would you be fascinated to do this for other hidden collections — or other prominent collections, for that matter?

Adrian Perez
Absolutely — not a shadow of a doubt. This whole project was honestly just fun. I loved it; it was the highlight; I loved doing it. There are a lot of numismatic collections out there — many universities have them. Some are very well digitized; Yale's collection is famously digitized. But others have these collections that aren't visible to the public or aren't on a website, and I really think all these coins should be free for the public to use — for numismatists, for researchers. That freedom to use them, for the benefit of the community, is an amazing thing.

Greg Bennick
Excellent — and your work definitely helped do that for the RISD collection, without a doubt. Congratulations!

Adrian Perez
Thanks. Going in, that was definitely my number one goal: to bring these coins out to the community at large. And there's still more work to be done. These were definitely the highlight of the collection, but they still have more coins, and I hope to go back and continue my work.

Greg Bennick
I'm sure they'll let you — I'm sure they'll invite you and appreciate you doing it. That's wonderful. So let's do this: let's talk about Summer Seminar for a minute, because that's how we met, and it's an amazing educational opportunity, social activity, and research opportunity all in one. Do you want to say a few words about it?

Adrian Perez
Yeah — it's really incredible, isn't it? We met, I think, on the Tuesday or Wednesday of that week. We sat down out of nowhere and just started talking — and here we are now, having this interview, all from a random lunch conversation.

Greg Bennick
That's how it happens.

Adrian Perez
That's the beauty of Summer Seminar: everyone getting together in a low-stakes, laid-back environment — like this interview, actually — having a dialogue, a conversation, and learning something new. It's such a gift to the hobby at large. And you were, from everyone I heard from who took your class, a very good instructor. I didn't have the luck to take your class — I took photography. I had a great time and learned a lot, and I chose that class partly thinking, maybe I can go back to the RISD Museum and redo those photographs. Summer Seminar gave me the tools to do that. I still consider myself intermediate, but my photography has jumped leaps and bounds thanks to Summer Seminar.

Greg Bennick
I'm so glad. Well — shameless plug time; let's do the standard plug. What we're talking about is the American Numismatic Association's Summer Seminar in Colorado Springs. It happens every summer: two weeks of classes — you can sign up for one week or two — in everything from grading to counterstamps to coin photography to how to build a numismatic exhibit, ancient coins, foreign coins, you name it. People can find out more at the ANA's website, money.org. The shameless plug is that every year, during the first week, I teach a class with my friend John Miller on mint errors and varieties and learning the minting process, which we feel is incredibly important — when people understand how coins are made, they know, when they see something unusual, what it is or is not. And in week two I teach US merchant counterstamps — coins that tell their own story — where I talk about the dual purpose of money, and how a coin counterstamped by a merchant in the 1800s was both a coin and a piece of advertising, and often served other purposes as well. But you made the great point that the beauty of Summer Seminar is yes, the learning, but also the experience of being there and meeting people. Our friend Bianca Bart saw you and asked whether you had anywhere to sit at lunch, and invited you to sit with us. Within a couple of minutes, you were talking about this RISD coin collection, and I excused myself and called my friends at The E-Sylum and the Newman Numismatic Portal and said, "I'm sitting with a young numismatist who seems to have discovered a collection of gold coins — can I interview this person?" And they both said, "Yes, please do." Those are the types of opportunities that come up at Summer Seminar, and I'm so glad we met and have had the opportunity to do this interview.

Adrian Perez
Yeah, absolutely — I hope to take your class next year, for sure. And one more thing to know about Summer Seminar: the scholarship opportunities. I personally went on scholarship, and that's just amazing — they have an auction each week, two auctions over the two weeks, and all the proceeds go to YNs for scholarships. I think that's awesome, because otherwise I wouldn't have been able to go.

Greg Bennick
It's cool. And organizations step up — with the scholarships, but also with other benefits. I just spoke to the folks at CONECA — I'm on the CONECA board — and next year, for 2027, we're going to offer a free one-year membership to every student who completes the mint errors class, the learning-the-minting-process class. Things like that — it's all about the promotion of education. I'm just so happy that you've taken part, that I've been able to take part, and that we met. It's fantastic.

Adrian Perez
Absolutely.

Greg Bennick
So — any parting words before we close our interview today?

Adrian Perez
Well, I just want to say, Greg, it was an absolute pleasure to meet you, and thank you so much for this interview. I really appreciate it.

Greg Bennick
You're very welcome. And if people want to get in touch with Adrian, feel free to reach out to me through the Newman Numismatic Portal, and I'll connect you. If you've got a collection, or you're in charge of a museum and you need to know what's in your collection, Adrian is clearly the person to do that — I would highly recommend him. Thank you, Adrian, for being here today; it's been great. And if people are interested in other interviews, please check out the Newman Numismatic Portal — you can search my name, GREG BENNICK, and see the people I've talked to. There are many interviews to come; I actually did one this morning, and there's a whole list of them in the process of being edited and released now. I'm really happy to have done this one today. So thanks, Adrian, for being here.

Adrian Perez
Thank you, Greg — thank you so much.

Greg Bennick
Thank you.

See also:
Rhode Island School of Design Coin Catalogue Spreadsheets (https://tinyurl.com/perezspreadsheet)
Rhode Island School of Design Coin Collection Links and Descriptions (https://tinyurl.com/RISDancients)

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 on the web or via instagram @minterrors. He can also be reached by email at www.gregbennick.com.

To read the earlier E-Sylum articles, see:
ADRIAN PEREZ INTERVIEW, PART ONE (https://www.coinbooks.org/v29/esylum_v29n31a07.html)
ADRIAN PEREZ INTERVIEW, PART TWO (https://www.coinbooks.org/v29/esylum_v29n32a17.html)

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