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How Reliable is Walter Breen's info?
GoldenEyeNumismatics
Posts: 13,187 ✭✭✭
I've heard numerous instances where he reportedly made stuff up, just to have an answer to a question.
So, on the whole, how reliable is he? If there is contradictory information between what he says and what another reputable source says, who will generally be correct? (I know that's kinda a hard question to answer.
So, on the whole, how reliable is he? If there is contradictory information between what he says and what another reputable source says, who will generally be correct? (I know that's kinda a hard question to answer.
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Leo
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We already know, though newer research, that most of his anecdotes about the 1907-1921 coinage designs are fabrications or repeats of somebody's old story.
It will take a great deal of time to work through the maze. The only suggestion I can make is to start with Breen and do your own digging to confirm what he says.
To believe Walter Breen implicitly, means you are either lazy or ignorant!
Some of the finest American numismatic authors and researchers are regular forum responders.
<< <i>I've heard numerous instances where he reportedly made stuff up, just to have an answer to a question.
So, on the whole, how reliable is he? If there is contradictory information between what he says and what another reputable source says, who will generally be correct? (I know that's kinda a hard question to answer. >>
In QDBs book
<< <i>the Expert's Guide to Collecting & Investing in Rare Coins >>
I believe I read some comment that Breen sometimes filled gaps in the historical record with his own conjecture, passed off as fact.
Now I'ml going to race off to find the citatations in that 700-pg. book to support this post.
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Read his comments in his Encylopedia of US Coins in reference to the Franklin half dollar. He mentions the intials JS causing controversy by being mistaked for Joseph Stalin. Look at the half itself. The initals are JRS (for John R. Sinnock)! The R was added after the designer's death but before issueing so as to prevent this problem. I also find it hard to believe the Fine arts Commision would object to the crack in the Liberty Bell, but I don't really know. He documents his source for that as Taxay.
I also find it easy to believe that some of his assertions may be called into question, which throws a shadow on everything else.
That's the problem. I do believe there was some real genius there, but how does one sift the wheat from the chaff?
more importantly, there's an enormous majority of RELIABLE information in the book.
K S
Some of the finest American numismatic authors and researchers are regular forum responders. "
I never said that I believed Walter Breen implicitly, what I implied was, most of the information here is questionable (even if there are some experts here). I've found that some of the experts are here really aren't as expert as one would be led to believe, and you need to check their "facts."
I know of no other numismatic researcher with Breen's intellectual vigor, let alone his prodigious output.
A work the size and scope of Walter Breen's Complete Encyclopedia of U.S. and Colonial Coins would be expected to contain at least some errors in its first edition.
I have never heard people who knew Walter to say he "made things up".
this is the problem, misrepresentations that go so far as to suggest that the book is nothing but a compendium of errors. as others have said, there is far more correct than incorrect. i would suggest that perhaps less than .01% of the entire Encyclopedia is in error or "made up" in any way. have you guys actually read it, referenced it in it's whole??
<< <i>I have never heard people who knew Walter to say he "made things up". >>
I knew Walter Breen. Since his death, I think I've studied his life and his work as much as anyone around.
He made things up.
Walter's book is an enormous feat. Unlike most researchers, his curiosity about American coinage knew no bounds -- he was just as excited by doubled dies on Shield nickels as he was about rare Connecticut coppers, and his knowledge of both ranked among the finest of his contemporaries.
Because of his catholic (small C) interest in American numismatics, he was shown EVERYTHING over the period from the early 1950s to the early 1990s when he met his demise. He had a chance to see most of the best collections, and any new discovery at a coin show was raced to him first for his blessing. And he was at most of them. His copy of the Encyclopedia was so scrawled full of notes as to be almost unintelligible, but it was where he preserved all of his written observations for his long-hoped-for second edition.
Walter was not always so good about keeping notes. Walter often claimed notes were stolen, missappropriated, borrowed and never returned by his enemies, destroyed in a flood, taken by landlords, etc. Walter was disorganized, and though he had enemies I'd bet many of them were just lost over the years (though at least one major theft did occur). He had gained a reputation early in his career for his photographic memory. I've heard friends of his tell stories about opening a phone book, giving it to Walter for 10 minutes, and then asking the 14th number down on the left side. He'd comply and give you the number above it and the one below too! I tend to believe these stories, as genius and memory capacity like this does exist. However, his early feats of incredible memory gave way to decades of drug use and mental decline. I'm 30 and my memory is not what it was when I was 15 (it was then semi-photographic, which came in handy in school). Walter continued to depend upon his youthful memory long after he had lost that remarkable talent. Maybe he didn't know he had lost it. Maybe he was too proud to admit it.
So he made things up, and he made errors and promulgated them as fact. As the most knowledgeable numismatist of his day for decades, people trusted him. As a self-proclaimed genius and MENSA member, a man who once was studied for incredible mental powers alongside Uri Gellar, everyone believed that he could really remember all this stuff off the top of his head. But he couldn't. His recollections of the content of the Eliasberg Collection ended up blending with his memory of what was in Norweb and what was in Garrett. He occasionally reported getting special knowledge in visions -- something most historians frown upon.
Walter's best work was done in the 1950s and early 1960s, which was when nearly all the research upon which his later books were founded was actually conducted. He read and corresponded for two years from a VA hospital bed in Massachusetts for nearly every waking moment. He was "discovered" in the early 1950s and turned loose on the National Archives, on the Chase Manhattan Money Museum collection, on the Smithsonian collection, and on the libraries of Stack's and New Netherlands in New York. He was young, engaged, hungry (literally), and doing work that NO ONE had ever done before. RWB may have had an experience I had in the National Archives once, finding pencil scrawled notes from this early era in Breen's hand written in the margins of original documents -- I located these marginalia in Salmon P. Chase's letterbook, for instance.
Then the 60s happened. And for Walter, they really happened. He was living in the Village in the early 60s, then moved to Berkley, then returned to NYC in the late 60s when the Bay Area "scene" became too crowded. He spent time with the countercultural greats of the time (a few of who I've corresponded with about Walter, such as the critic Paul Krassner). His partner and friend Bob Bashlow, also a numismatist, co-authored "1001 Ways to Beat the Draft" with the lead singer of The Fugs. From Ken Kesey to Jerry Garcia to Joan Baez, Walter rubbed elbows with them all. I'm guessing that social scene did not help his memory or his numismatic skills.
Nonetheless, he relied on them, despite getting decades distant from his best original research. Most of Walter's later books read like whisper-down-the-lane versions of his early work. A scrap of evidence and a thought became a paper trail with proof. This was the nature of Walter's prevarications -- not maliciious lies, but certainly academic negligence.
So what to do with Walter's work? It is tempting to throw the baby out with the bathwater. My dad used to say "at least you know what a thief is, but you can never trust a liar." When an historian's ability to sort proveable fact from other stuff is questioned, he is usually consigned to the academic scrap heap -- sad, but so it goes.
I disagree with the contention that 0.1% of WB's work is false in the Encyclopedia -- count the number of varieties called "very rare" that were not then and are not now. Read the chapter intros with footnotes to Taxay and nothing else -- Walter claimed he mostly ghost wrote the Taxay book, and it's bad form to cite yourself with no other footnotes. I'm sure I could cite specific examples (the story about the Washington Roman Head comes to mind), but this is being written on a long train ride away from my library. Y'all are stuck since I have nothing better to do.
Further, late in his life, Walter let his poor financial status affect his integrity as an expert. And he lied about non-numismatic facts. He was not the Lindbergh Baby. He widely published that he graduated Hopkins in 18 months. While true, he never mentioned the 2 years he spent at Georgetown before that! When Walter joined the ANA, his address was a dorm at G-town.
Walter had difficulty separating fact from fantasy throughout his life. His research was brilliant, but once a researcher loses the ability to properly assay the truth value of what he writes or reads , it taints every word he's written -- even if 90% of his work is flawless and state of the art.
Sorry for the longest post every made! There are some things, though, that can't really go into a Coin World column.
Betts medals, colonial coins, US Mint medals, foreign coins found in early America, and other numismatic Americana
In honor of the memory of Cpl. Michael E. Thompson
i always find it fascinating that this book receives such intense scrutiny almost 20 years after it was written, almost as though there's a campaign to impugn the entire work by dissecting and examing it's wrongs. what you tend to say leads me to believe he probably didn't "make things up" as much as he just remembered things incorrectly or perhaps in the wrong context. perhaps that sounds like i'm splitting hairs but that's how your description sounds. also, i wonder how well you could have known him as a lad in your early teens while he was obviously in the early stages of mental decline, sauffering poor health and faced with legal problems and an eventual prison term??
one additional fact that's never mentioned is that many modern Numismatic researchers and writers probably use the Encyclopedia to some degree. imagine if it had never been written and the knowledge it compiled/contains were lost with the author. we would all be poorer, even if we didn't know it.
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<< <i>I never said that I believed Walter Breen implicitly, what I implied was, most of the information here is questionable (even if there are some experts here). I've found that some of the experts are here really aren't as expert as one would be led to believe, and you need to check their "facts." >>
Perhaps, but I wouldn't check them against Breen first.
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The accomplishments of Breen's numismatic research in the 1950s was extraordinary. By the 1980s, after continual "poor" decisions in his personal life, the reality of his numismatic research, based on nothing more than an exalted image from the past, was in a severe decline.
His story reminds me of a talented, yet often traded sports player, who never achieved their early goals.
As for the comment about the difference in ages between Breen and Pistareen, I can say this - age is funny, it doesn't matter what your chonological age is, it only matters that you continue to live and learn, while at the same time being able to change your previous mindset as new information becomes available.
Unfortunately, Breen never changed his mind, only his stories.
(Just think of city streets clogged with a hundred thousand horses each generating 15 lbs of manure every day...)
Walter claimed he mostly ghost wrote the Taxay book, and it's bad form to cite yourself with no other footnotes.
I am a little surprised that Walter claimed credit for ghosting Taxay’s book. Don Taxay is an excellent
researcher and I corresponded with him when he was writing the book. Walter was one of those who
read Don’s book, however, and made useful suggestions.
Ray Williamson and his wife were also helpful to Walter after the latter was discharged from the army.
Walter spent several weeks at the Williamson home in Virginia, recovering from the troubles that came
during his final time in the military.
Walter told me on several occasions that he had a storage locker in the basement of his apartment
building in Berkeley and that it had been flooded repeatedly.
Denga
The moral of my post is that relying on one source is foolish, you have to take as many into consideration as possible.
Yes Breen is very comprehensive, but as time has shown us, the facts can (and do) change.
In many areas, Breen's work has been replaced by that of superior and more thorough specialists. That process will continue over time, and we will have more and more reliable new research sources. But even today, Breen's work is still quite useful when used the right way.
Best,
Sunnywood
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<< <i>
<< <i>I have never heard people who knew Walter to say he "made things up". >>
I knew Walter Breen. Since his death, I think I've studied his life and his work as much as anyone around.
He made things up.
Walter's book is an enormous feat. Unlike most researchers, his curiosity about American coinage knew no bounds -- he was just as excited by doubled dies on Shield nickels as he was about rare Connecticut coppers, and his knowledge of both ranked among the finest of his contemporaries.
Because of his catholic (small C) interest in American numismatics, he was shown EVERYTHING over the period from the early 1950s to the early 1990s when he met his demise. He had a chance to see most of the best collections, and any new discovery at a coin show was raced to him first for his blessing. And he was at most of them. His copy of the Encyclopedia was so scrawled full of notes as to be almost unintelligible, but it was where he preserved all of his written observations for his long-hoped-for second edition.
Walter was not always so good about keeping notes. Walter often claimed notes were stolen, missappropriated, borrowed and never returned by his enemies, destroyed in a flood, taken by landlords, etc. Walter was disorganized, and though he had enemies I'd bet many of them were just lost over the years (though at least one major theft did occur). He had gained a reputation early in his career for his photographic memory. I've heard friends of his tell stories about opening a phone book, giving it to Walter for 10 minutes, and then asking the 14th number down on the left side. He'd comply and give you the number above it and the one below too! I tend to believe these stories, as genius and memory capacity like this does exist. However, his early feats of incredible memory gave way to decades of drug use and mental decline. I'm 30 and my memory is not what it was when I was 15 (it was then semi-photographic, which came in handy in school). Walter continued to depend upon his youthful memory long after he had lost that remarkable talent. Maybe he didn't know he had lost it. Maybe he was too proud to admit it.
So he made things up, and he made errors and promulgated them as fact. As the most knowledgeable numismatist of his day for decades, people trusted him. As a self-proclaimed genius and MENSA member, a man who once was studied for incredible mental powers alongside Uri Gellar, everyone believed that he could really remember all this stuff off the top of his head. But he couldn't. His recollections of the content of the Eliasberg Collection ended up blending with his memory of what was in Norweb and what was in Garrett. He occasionally reported getting special knowledge in visions -- something most historians frown upon.
Walter's best work was done in the 1950s and early 1960s, which was when nearly all the research upon which his later books were founded was actually conducted. He read and corresponded for two years from a VA hospital bed in Massachusetts for nearly every waking moment. He was "discovered" in the early 1950s and turned loose on the National Archives, on the Chase Manhattan Money Museum collection, on the Smithsonian collection, and on the libraries of Stack's and New Netherlands in New York. He was young, engaged, hungry (literally), and doing work that NO ONE had ever done before. RWB may have had an experience I had in the National Archives once, finding pencil scrawled notes from this early era in Breen's hand written in the margins of original documents -- I located these marginalia in Salmon P. Chase's letterbook, for instance.
Then the 60s happened. And for Walter, they really happened. He was living in the Village in the early 60s, then moved to Berkley, then returned to NYC in the late 60s when the Bay Area "scene" became too crowded. He spent time with the countercultural greats of the time (a few of who I've corresponded with about Walter, such as the critic Paul Krassner). His partner and friend Bob Bashlow, also a numismatist, co-authored "1001 Ways to Beat the Draft" with the lead singer of The Fugs. From Ken Kesey to Jerry Garcia to Joan Baez, Walter rubbed elbows with them all. I'm guessing that social scene did not help his memory or his numismatic skills.
Nonetheless, he relied on them, despite getting decades distant from his best original research. Most of Walter's later books read like whisper-down-the-lane versions of his early work. A scrap of evidence and a thought became a paper trail with proof. This was the nature of Walter's prevarications -- not maliciious lies, but certainly academic negligence.
So what to do with Walter's work? It is tempting to throw the baby out with the bathwater. My dad used to say "at least you know what a thief is, but you can never trust a liar." When an historian's ability to sort proveable fact from other stuff is questioned, he is usually consigned to the academic scrap heap -- sad, but so it goes.
I disagree with the contention that 0.1% of WB's work is false in the Encyclopedia -- count the number of varieties called "very rare" that were not then and are not now. Read the chapter intros with footnotes to Taxay and nothing else -- Walter claimed he mostly ghost wrote the Taxay book, and it's bad form to cite yourself with no other footnotes. I'm sure I could cite specific examples (the story about the Washington Roman Head comes to mind), but this is being written on a long train ride away from my library. Y'all are stuck since I have nothing better to do.
Further, late in his life, Walter let his poor financial status affect his integrity as an expert. And he lied about non-numismatic facts. He was not the Lindbergh Baby. He widely published that he graduated Hopkins in 18 months. While true, he never mentioned the 2 years he spent at Georgetown before that! When Walter joined the ANA, his address was a dorm at G-town.
Walter had difficulty separating fact from fantasy throughout his life. His research was brilliant, but once a researcher loses the ability to properly assay the truth value of what he writes or reads , it taints every word he's written -- even if 90% of his work is flawless and state of the art.
Sorry for the longest post every made! There are some things, though, that can't really go into a Coin World column. >>
easily 1 of THE FINEST posts ever made on this forum. it meshes very nicely w/ my memory of breen as well (though my brush with his genius was fleeting by comparison).
K S
Williamson's interest in the early U.S. Mint, led Walter on a whirlwind of activity in the 1950s.
IMO, Breen would have continued his worthwhile academic ways regarding American numismatic research, if Williamson hadn't been transferred to Milan Italy, and he was still around to watch over Breen.
Instead, we end up with the Ford / Breen combination at New Netherlands. The outcome of that interaction was the intense rejection of authority and civilized manners by Breen.
Walter Breen was a genius. Perhaps that is why he could go so far astray on occasion.
Read his comments in his Encylopedia of US Coins in reference to the Franklin half dollar. He mentions the intials JS causing controversy by being mistaked for Joseph Stalin. Look at the half itself. The initals are JRS (for John R. Sinnock)! The R was added after the designer's death but before issueing so as to prevent this problem. I also find it hard to believe the Fine arts Commision would object to the crack in the Liberty Bell, but I don't really know. He documents his source for that as Taxay.
As late as 1950 or 1951 one would occasionally hear that the initials on the Franklin half were those of Stalin.
It was more common, however, to hear that Sinnock's initials on the Roosevelt dime were Stalin's.
Denga
His encyclopedias were the best done to date. Specialized books are always better than encyclopedias, but until someone does another encyclopedia, Breen's will stand as the best.
JK wrote an excellent post and to have Denga and Firstmint comment as well make this thread even more valuable.
I firmly believe in numismatics as the world's greatest hobby, but recognize that this is a luxury and without collectors, we can all spend/melt our collections/inventories.
eBaystore
Worry is the interest you pay on a debt you may not owe.
<< <i>
<< <i>
<< <i>I have never heard people who knew Walter to say he "made things up". >>
I knew Walter Breen. Since his death, I think I've studied his life and his work as much as anyone around.
He made things up.
Walter's book is an enormous feat. Unlike most researchers, his curiosity about American coinage knew no bounds -- he was just as excited by doubled dies on Shield nickels as he was about rare Connecticut coppers, and his knowledge of both ranked among the finest of his contemporaries.
Because of his catholic (small C) interest in American numismatics, he was shown EVERYTHING over the period from the early 1950s to the early 1990s when he met his demise. He had a chance to see most of the best collections, and any new discovery at a coin show was raced to him first for his blessing. And he was at most of them. His copy of the Encyclopedia was so scrawled full of notes as to be almost unintelligible, but it was where he preserved all of his written observations for his long-hoped-for second edition.
Walter was not always so good about keeping notes. Walter often claimed notes were stolen, missappropriated, borrowed and never returned by his enemies, destroyed in a flood, taken by landlords, etc. Walter was disorganized, and though he had enemies I'd bet many of them were just lost over the years (though at least one major theft did occur). He had gained a reputation early in his career for his photographic memory. I've heard friends of his tell stories about opening a phone book, giving it to Walter for 10 minutes, and then asking the 14th number down on the left side. He'd comply and give you the number above it and the one below too! I tend to believe these stories, as genius and memory capacity like this does exist. However, his early feats of incredible memory gave way to decades of drug use and mental decline. I'm 30 and my memory is not what it was when I was 15 (it was then semi-photographic, which came in handy in school). Walter continued to depend upon his youthful memory long after he had lost that remarkable talent. Maybe he didn't know he had lost it. Maybe he was too proud to admit it.
So he made things up, and he made errors and promulgated them as fact. As the most knowledgeable numismatist of his day for decades, people trusted him. As a self-proclaimed genius and MENSA member, a man who once was studied for incredible mental powers alongside Uri Gellar, everyone believed that he could really remember all this stuff off the top of his head. But he couldn't. His recollections of the content of the Eliasberg Collection ended up blending with his memory of what was in Norweb and what was in Garrett. He occasionally reported getting special knowledge in visions -- something most historians frown upon.
Walter's best work was done in the 1950s and early 1960s, which was when nearly all the research upon which his later books were founded was actually conducted. He read and corresponded for two years from a VA hospital bed in Massachusetts for nearly every waking moment. He was "discovered" in the early 1950s and turned loose on the National Archives, on the Chase Manhattan Money Museum collection, on the Smithsonian collection, and on the libraries of Stack's and New Netherlands in New York. He was young, engaged, hungry (literally), and doing work that NO ONE had ever done before. RWB may have had an experience I had in the National Archives once, finding pencil scrawled notes from this early era in Breen's hand written in the margins of original documents -- I located these marginalia in Salmon P. Chase's letterbook, for instance.
Then the 60s happened. And for Walter, they really happened. He was living in the Village in the early 60s, then moved to Berkley, then returned to NYC in the late 60s when the Bay Area "scene" became too crowded. He spent time with the countercultural greats of the time (a few of who I've corresponded with about Walter, such as the critic Paul Krassner). His partner and friend Bob Bashlow, also a numismatist, co-authored "1001 Ways to Beat the Draft" with the lead singer of The Fugs. From Ken Kesey to Jerry Garcia to Joan Baez, Walter rubbed elbows with them all. I'm guessing that social scene did not help his memory or his numismatic skills.
Nonetheless, he relied on them, despite getting decades distant from his best original research. Most of Walter's later books read like whisper-down-the-lane versions of his early work. A scrap of evidence and a thought became a paper trail with proof. This was the nature of Walter's prevarications -- not maliciious lies, but certainly academic negligence.
So what to do with Walter's work? It is tempting to throw the baby out with the bathwater. My dad used to say "at least you know what a thief is, but you can never trust a liar." When an historian's ability to sort proveable fact from other stuff is questioned, he is usually consigned to the academic scrap heap -- sad, but so it goes.
I disagree with the contention that 0.1% of WB's work is false in the Encyclopedia -- count the number of varieties called "very rare" that were not then and are not now. Read the chapter intros with footnotes to Taxay and nothing else -- Walter claimed he mostly ghost wrote the Taxay book, and it's bad form to cite yourself with no other footnotes. I'm sure I could cite specific examples (the story about the Washington Roman Head comes to mind), but this is being written on a long train ride away from my library. Y'all are stuck since I have nothing better to do.
Further, late in his life, Walter let his poor financial status affect his integrity as an expert. And he lied about non-numismatic facts. He was not the Lindbergh Baby. He widely published that he graduated Hopkins in 18 months. While true, he never mentioned the 2 years he spent at Georgetown before that! When Walter joined the ANA, his address was a dorm at G-town.
Walter had difficulty separating fact from fantasy throughout his life. His research was brilliant, but once a researcher loses the ability to properly assay the truth value of what he writes or reads , it taints every word he's written -- even if 90% of his work is flawless and state of the art.
Sorry for the longest post every made! There are some things, though, that can't really go into a Coin World column. >>
easily 1 of THE FINEST posts ever made on this forum. it meshes very nicely w/ my memory of breen as well (though my brush with his genius was fleeting by comparison).
K S >>
Karl and others, I agree. JK's post was fabulous. I probably learned more about Breen in that one post than I have in my previous five years on the forum.
<< <i>Karl and others, I agree. JK's post was fabulous. I probably learned more about Breen in that one post than I have in my previous five years on the forum. >>
Yea, verily.
Walter had difficulty separating fact from fantasy throughout his life. His research was brilliant, but once a researcher loses the ability to properly assay the truth value of what he writes or reads , it taints every word he's written -- even if 90% of his work is flawless and state of the art.
I concur. I still use Breen's encyclopedia as a starting point. In the series I collect I can discern errors, but I also wish I could find the sources for some of his claims. I don't have time to bury myself in the Mint archives and check to see how many obverse and reverse dies were sent for which coin in which month as he did. Not knowing whether he made up the numbers or had his facts straight on a certain issue is terribly frustrating.
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As a result, I discarded almost everything previously writen about the 1905-1921 period, and let the documents tell as much of the story as possible. Only after that was substantially complete were prior publications consulted for new content.
<< <i>In all fairness to Breen, it would have taken him another lifetime to verify everything in that book. Rather that trying to perfect it before publishing, it was probably better to put all the info out there ASAP and wait for the corrections to flow in for the next edition. Unfortunately, there never was a second edition. >>
Maybe somebody, or a group of somebodies, should sit down and create a second edition.
Probably would be beneficial to the hobby, but someone would have to fund the project - a guaranteed money loser. Idea has been suggested on several past occasions, but that’s as far as it got.
If Breen had kept track of his sources and consistently annotated his published materials, checking and updating would be much easier to do.
Doubleday published it and owns the rights.
From wikipedia:
Doubleday was sold to Bertelsmann in 1986. In 1988 it became part of the Bantam Doubleday Dell Publishing Group, which in turn became a division of Random House in 1998.
Here's a project for Whitman, if they can get the rights (dentuck, are you listening?)
I'd gladly contribute the Flying Eagle and Indian cent portion. In fact I was thinking about writing my own update for the Fly-In Club's Longacre Ledger .
Edited to add: JK, I hope you take the train very often! Great post!
In my own speciality, there are 53 Breen numbers. I quite sure that 1 of these numbers don't exist (whether they were made up or assumed I couldn't say), one of these was very incorrectly described, many issues with population estimates and relative rarities, and many omissions. The omissions are certainly excusable, but the overall accuracy is fairly suspect. He got a lot in the series correct. I use it as a guide, not as a reference.
keoj
This is easily and by far the most informative and knowledgeable post I've ever seen on the man, who has been a point of fascination not only for his literally encyclopediaic knowledge, but for his demons.
Thanks!
Here's a warning parable for coin collectors...