Thomas Elder and Farran Zerbe - ANA President and Tokens
Zoins
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What was the relationship between Elder and Zerbe?
Elder and Zerbe had competed for the position of ANA President. Zerbe was ANA president from 1908 to 1910.
Elder made at least 2 tokens poking fun at Zerbe, one comparing him to an ass and another making fun of his Louisiana Purchase Exposition gold tokens and position at the ANA. The tokens are described in the following thread on CoinPeople.com:
http://www.coinpeople.com/topic/21157-was-ana-president-farran-zerbe-a-n-ass/
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Although the ANA has made Zerbe into an icon today, he was a huckster in his day who didn’t get much respect from the “old school” collectors and dealers of his generation. One need only look at his over blown predictions for the sale of the Louisiana Purchase, Lewis and Clark and Panama-Pacific coins to see that he was an unabashed promoter who used numismatics to make a buck for himself. Elder was part of the more conservative wing of the hobby who did not approve of Zerbe’s antics and promotional schemes.
110 years or so later we have another contested election for ANA president... anyone making tokens yet this year?
Michael Kittle Rare Coins --- 1908-S Indian Head Cent Grading Set --- No. 1 1909 Mint Set --- Kittlecoins on Facebook --- Long Beach Table 448
Ah the internal politics of numismatics....
Cheers, RickO
There should be some
Read my Elder catalogue.
Is it available online or in other electronic format like PDF or Kindle?
Do you still have the dies for Elder’s 1909 Louisi A.N.A. Piker’s Exposition tokens criticizing Zerbe?
Zerbe was a marketer who didn't mind marketing his wares and making money off of his position. that rubbed Elder the wrong way, and he was no peach himself, sort of on the grouchy side of things. they had a running battle for a number of years. I used to have a few good links about the two, mainly Elder since I collect his TD catalogued issues, and there's an ANA Numismatist article in a 1925 era issue that I can't find.
I have the issues of that magazine wherein TD goes into more detail, I think it's from the late 70's but I'm sure the Captain will correct me. both were interesting and influential men during the heyday of Numismatics, they just didn't see eye-to-eye on many things. I think at the core of it is that Elder wanted to promote the ANA and Zerbe was more intent on promoting himself.
The article is available online to ANA members at www.money.org. See The Numismatist, June and July 1980.
I sold my entire Elder collection (with one exception) in 1984. It, including the dies, have recently been disbursed by the heirs of Leon Hendrickson.
TD
A board member has both dies. I'll them identify themselves if they care.
hey Captain, do me and others a favor and explain in short how long it took you to acquire your Elder collection. for myself, I only wish I had started to collect his issues earlier.
I attended the 1976 ANA convention in New York as a representative of Coin World. One of my assignments was to cover the numismatic exhibits, making detailed notes that I would write up later as a series of articles. CW used to cover the exhibits in such depth, back when the revenue allowed it to carry a large staff.
One of the exhibits was a collection of Thomas Elder medals. I was fascinated. As fate would have it, on my flight back to Dayton I sat next to Hank Spangenberger, a great oldtime dealer who did a lot with exonumia. We talked about the Elder pieces, and he mentioned that he had some in inventory. When he got unpacked he sent me one of everything he had on approval. A dozen pieces or so for under $100.
I was hooked. I started buying up everything I could. Joe Levine had them regularly in his auctions, and he was very honest about reducing the winning bid to the next increment above the underbidder. I put in what were then "nuclear bids" of $50 or $100 per lot and got everything for $8-$10 each. Over time the amount I had to pay crept up into the teens or low $20's as the underbidders got tired of being shut out, but I still won everything I bid on. I was young and single and did not care. All the other exonumia dealers figured out that I was the higher buyer and started offering me things first.
When I started working for the ANA in late 1978 I had access to their collection of Elder auction catalogues. I took them home a few at a time and read them line by line for references to the tokens he sold in them, making notes as I went. Roughly 300 catalogues with hundreds of lines of tiny type each. These notes were the basis of my catalogue.
As to the dies, in 1979 somebody sent out a flyer offering a large collection of token dies including a group of Elder dies. I recognized some of the dies in the flyer as having been used by Robert Bashlow. I thought about buying the Elder dies, but as luck would have it Bashlow visited ANA headquarters for some reason and we talked about the dies collection. He claimed that it was his collection which he had left with August C. Frank & Co. for safekeeping, and that they had been stolen from him by Frank's heirs when Frank was declared incompetent. He told me that he was going to sue to get them back when he returned from a trip to Europe.
(Note: A very reliable source has recently told me that the dies had been left with Frank as collateral for Bashlow's coining charges, which Bashlow never paid, and that Frank had legally taken title to the dies in lieu of payment.)
As I did not want to buy any dies if there was a question of their title I held off, but then news came out that Bashlow had been killed in a hotel fire in Spain. With the threat of his lawsuit gone I bought some dies. Then California and small gold dealer Jay Roe contacted me and asked if I would like to go partners with him to buy the Elder gold dollar dies (which I had passed on because I thought they were too high at $200 per die) and restrike them for sale. I did not want to see them restruck, so I bought both pair of small Hudson dies for $800 to keep them from being used.
I published my article in June and July of 1980, but over the next few years found stuff harder and harder to find. There is also the phenomenon that when some collectors publish their collection they lose interest in it. Discouraged, I sold the collection in the Spring of 1984, and wish I hadn't.
TD
That's great history! Thanks for posting it. I wonder who has the Elder dies now and if we'll see more restrikes given the Elder 1909 Money Talks dies have been used recently.
Any restrike from these dies should be stamped with the word COPY in accordance with the Hobby Protection Act.
The important thing is to be able to distinguish new strikes from older strikes which I think is a must.
Using the word COPY is one way to distinguish new strikes but there are other ways to indicate new issues as well.
Yes, but this one is the LAW!
thank you, Tom. that was quite a synopsis of events from a time when I was serving in the USN and quite detached from the Hobby. I suppose that I may have been in Spain(off-shore, of course) at the time of Mr. Bashlow's demise. it would be another 20 years before I returned fully to collecting and by then the areas I was to enter were already played out.
I have heard other similar storeies of members buying SC$'s and Exonumia for the princely sum of $10 up through the early 1990's. unbelievable.........................
below is a picture of a favorite Thomas Elder issue. I also have one of those mentioned in the OP that mocks Farran Zerbe, the aluminum "Pikers Peak" which also mentions the ASS' an which I believe Zerbe was then President of. Mr. Elder was never one to pull any punches.
The law says the COPY word is needed on any item that purports to be a original numismatic item. To make something using vintage dies without the word and comply with the law, just make something that doesn’t purport to be one.
This can be done easily by making a mule as was done recently with the Elder 1909 Money Talks dies which you said you might buy. Also, old dies are often rusted or have die cracks which are not present on the original items. Ron Guth / @CoinKing indicated this was a way to identify restrikes he had made with vintage Edward Knox Elder dies.
The Hobby Protection Act is sadly under-enforced. Hopefully it will be strictly enforced in the future. In the meantime, it remains in effect.
I don’t see anyone saying it’s not in effect. It is in effect and the above is about compliance.
I think I paid $20 for my Brian Boru in Silver.
I wish I could buy So-Called Dollars that cheap! Even unlisted ones can go for hundreds now. Luckily, they are still much cheaper than coins.
Tom, I'm ready to weep. I have never even seen a Silver Brian Boru.
I love the Brian Boru Dollar but haven't been following / collecting them. A quick search found 3 silvers which sold in the past few years, 2 which sold in 2018 and one in 2014. The 2014 looks the most eye appealing and sold for the most. I think the premium looks well worth it.
Here's some info on the issue from the 2014 Stack's auction, credits also available in H&K.
FWIW, here are a couple of the Elder/Bashlow dies, ex Leon Hendrickson. These are nominally a hub for the obverse and a die for the reverse of HK-370.
The reverse die says that it was dubbed by Aug. C. Frank, so presumably that was created for the Hudson Fullton / Sommer Island mules struck by Bashlow.
The hub is unmarked so there's a chance that it was original to Elder. I don't know how to confirm one way or the other.
Nice looking dies @jonathanb. It's great to some pieces of history here. The Bashlow and Frank stamps on the die are interesting and unexpected, but good to see.
I know for sure I never owned that copy reverse die.
The unfinished (because it was forming off center) obverse hub is probably an Elder original. I may have owned it but need to find some notes.
Edited to add: obviously Leon added to the collection after I sold it to him. He originally bought it because it had several Washington pieces he did not have.