Martin Paul Passed Away....
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I have so many memories of Martin. For those who knew him feel free to share yours with us.
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Damn.
He used to sit in the back of the room and buy half a sale
I knew martin when he went to Ithica and was doing small shows. He was one tough bird. in the end they never could figure out what he had
I helped him decide on whether to work for Heritage. At the time it was right form him. I still remember going over to Jimmys house for dinner (at the time he had part of the huge attic) and he had to wear a tie.
We all know he had a bit of temper, but he would always share his knowledge about a coins condition.
RIP buddy...
Sorry to hear that - thanks for letting us know.
I'm sure he was a great guy but he was a pain in the auction room. Seems he valued everything on the fly - pages flying as he tried to decide wether to bid or not. Auctioneer would frequently wait for him to finish his research. At least 5 time an auction, he would say he accidentally bid on the wrong lot and they would have to auction that lot over again.
Like TDN said, he would buy an awful lot so the auctioneer had to put up with his bidding style.
Martin was famous and infamous. Everything said here is true, and then some, but the one thing not said (yet) is that he had a great sense of humor. I'll never forget his visit to DLRC offices in 2004 to view the Richmond Collection. He spent a couple relaxed days in the office and told one story after another and most of us were rolling on the floor. That's the way I choose to remember Martin...RIP, my friend.
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Very sorry to hear this. RIP.
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Martin was certainly brutal to bid against at auction. Before 3rd party grading was too far along, I would go to Stacks in NYC to buy from their auctions. Most coins were still raw, and this was well before the internet. It was usually the same 10-20 people bidding against each other. Several times after the sales were done, I would sit with Martin and have a drink or two, smoke a cigar, and just "BS" about everything (most of the time NOT about coins). Once you got to know him, he was a great person as well an incredible numismatist. Once I went to Stacks Bowers in 2011, he was already there working in the wholesale department with Spectrum Numismatics, and we got to spend more time together. I also think as he got older, he did mellow out - he was pretty intense for most of his professional life. And JF is right, he had a great sense of humor!
As an aside, Martin would buy pretty much anything. I remember him owning items from Muhammad Ali's boxing gloves and shorts to the Original Yellow Submarine from the Beatles movie with the same name!
ugh he did own a real sub too
RIP
I worked for Martin for several years and as mom taught me, if you can't say anything nice don't say anything at all.
Back in 1987 or 1988, I am 15 year old attending my first ANA auction. Some guy in the back row, the wayyyyy back was buying EVERYTHING cool. I couldn’t believe it. ‘Who was that man?!’ I’m thinking. Hes making jokes and was very loud but funny. I remember at some point an old fart collector from the front row turned around and yelled at him to shut up. The man in the back row just laughed. It was Martin Paul. RIP.
RIP.
Anyone have a link to his obituary?
Martin Paul was a genius at coins, covering, grading and trading across a broader range of Federal coinage than any I've seen in the last 40 years. His reach sometimes exceeded his grasp. He both succeeded and failed in spectacular ways. He was a very major force at every name auction from the early 80's till about ten years ago.
I met him at a Cobb Center GA show in 1980, when he was just finished at Cornell and attended his wedding to Maria the next year. One could easily believe, from the number of times and variations on the story, that he paid his way thru college donating blood every other week.
We were partners, competitors, colleagues and intimate frenemies. I learned more from participating in, mimicking and watching his successes and failures than I did from anyone else in the coin business. Our best jokes were about our failures
To Maria, Matthew, Mark, Michael and his beloved second wife Gayness, who gave him much joy and hope even as she accompanied him on his long tragic illness, I wish you peace.
I'm sorry to hear and condolences to his friends and family. From what I heard, and saw his intense analysis at work in auction lot viewing, he was a legend.
I was waiting for you to post. Yikes, everyone is getting old. I've only spent about 15 total minutes with him (I've been in very few auctions) but I always wished I could pick his brain. There are folks still alive that were his close peers. We get to pick your brains a little here. Most I heard about him came from one of his employees - Dave Camire. Apparently, Martin taught him 95% of what he knows about coin "conservation."
RIP
Coin's for sale/trade.
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Interesting fellow. A coin genius, to be sure. A legend. Never saw any coin dealer like him, or even close.
My condolences to family and friends.....RickO
It's very nice to see messages from many of my father's past colleagues, friends, employees and competitors in the coin business. Much of what has been said on here rings true to Martin's persona, he was an intense man who did everything on a grand scale.
To know him on a personal level was to sit across from him, smoking a cigar and listening to some of his hilariously outrageous stories, he could go on for hours.
Watching him, with glasses pushed up onto his forehead, intently examining every coin he picked up from a lot, was a sight to see. I could only envy how much he enjoyed his work, and the desire for knowledge that he held so closely, especially when it came to coins.
If anyone has other stories they wish to share, I welcome them, we've all had great joy from reading these posts.
Many thanks,
Michael
I’m sorry to hear about your father. My condolences.
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my condolences and best wishes to the family.
Dear Michael Paul and other family, friends and colleagues of Martin,
Martin and I started collecting coins together when we were about 10. We lived across the street from each other and were, I suppose best friends. We had very different personalities but were allied by being the younger brothers of more assertive boys who were into sports, and maybe because we both had a wide ranging interest in the world. Martin was known as Moochie at the time, later shorted to Mooch. I don't remember the details of why that name but I still have a hard time thinking of him as Martin.
Martin started raiding pocket change for silver coins and then found a stationary store downtown that had a small coin selling business. He was a lot more serious about it than I was, and was generally almost obsessive about things that caught his interest. We went to my first coin convention with him a few years later, at the old Jack Tar hotel in San Francisco, where I filled in some blanks in my Indian head penny collection and he was finding under-valued Liberty nickels, by recollection. As he told me, he made and lost millions of dollars over the next decades. My penny collection is still intact and still worth about the same as it was in 1968.
Martin and I both went to Berkeley and he even took econometrics classes from my Dad -- sorry I never did that -- and mostly supported himself with coin dealing during his years at Cornell from what I understood. I had a great time while he was on his honeymoon with Maria, driving around New England and Pennsylvania in his car.
We drifted apart over the years but he's still one of the more remarkable people I've ever met. I was sorry to hear of his passing while searching around for news of him last year.
Michael -- if you want to hear more stories of his younger days, please feel free to reach out to me at bob@beausoleil-architects.com.
Amen! I went to an auction one time just to buy a 1799 large cent. There were 3 of them in the auction. I thought a bid of $1050 would get me one. (They were selling for $900-1000 at the time, if you could find one.) I was enthusiastically thinking that I would get one of them. I bid $1050 on each one. They all went for the next higher bid. Marty Paul bought them all. They were promoted right after and I had to pay a lot more for one. I think that Marty Paul may have been the promoter.
My condolences my friend! Looks like your Dad had a lot of friends!
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I just saw this for the first time. Wow. I don’t know where to begin. My first job out of high school was for Martin. I lived with Martin and Maria and slept on the couch in natick in 1984 in a small apartment.
Martin was a genius and so energetic. He could not be outworked!!
RIP
Dwight...you knew he passed away correct??
Martin was a legend in coin auctions - he would routinely "cover" an auction and bid on the vast majority of lots - whether it be $100 coins or $100,000 coins. No grades, finest graded, raw - everything. Even foreign coins. He worked very hard and rarely slept (I think). He was always very nice to me - and when I asked him coin questions, he was very good at explaining and going overboard to ensure I understood.
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I met Martin back in 1981, while working for Steve Ivy. He came to our office in Dallas with the the thought of buying a Proof 1838-O half dollar we had advertised. If I remember correctly - and I might not - he didn’t end up buying it. But either way, I am certain that he and I worked out a deal and he bought a Proof 1801 Bust Dollar (on layaway).
We hit it off immediately. He showed me his inventory, I bought a few coins from him (including an utterly superb, golden toned PL 1897-S Morgan that I couldn’t stop admiring) we talked coins tirelessly and we had a great visit. He even gave me credit for getting him into the rare coin business, because he said he had to do coins on a full time basis, in order to make money to payoff his layaway. And he reminded me of that several times over the years.
As others have written, he covered auctions virtually completely - all types, qualities and value ranges of coins. He bid on just about everything and was usually a major buyer, if not THE major buyer.
Martin had a fantastic memory, a wonderful sense of humor and an amazing work ethic.
Since he sat through most auctions from start to finish and I didn’t, he bid for me on many occasions. I trusted him completely to execute my bids. And that was whether he happened to be interested in the lot for himself or even if he had consigned the lot. Once in a while, I tried to compensate him, but he never allowed me to.
As best I can tell, Martin knew more about more coins and their values, than anyone I’ve ever met or heard of. And his appreciation and love for coins was equally special. I think it’s accurate to say that Martin was truly one of a kind.
Mark Feld* of Heritage Auctions*Unless otherwise noted, my posts here represent my personal opinions.
he's in a better place now where every coin is undergraded, gold beaned and priced 20% back of bid
Ih my, i just found out that Martin Paul passed away nearly6 years later!!!!
What did Martin pass away from?
Was he ill?
Some of my nicest coins came from his finding them and plucking them in the wild ANACS slabs back in the 1990’s and selling them to Mike Phillips and Jay Parrino.