True Numismatic Weekend Stories - hopefully to become a long running thread.

Insider2

I enjoy reading/hearing stories about or told by famous numismatists about the way things were in the "good-old-days" (1950's - 1990's). I wish much of them could be collected and published sort of as a famous stamp dealer did in his book Nassau Street.

In the May 2019 Numismatist there is an interview with dealer Harry Foreman that was not published when he was alive. It is a great read! I apologize for not citing the interviewer here as my magazine is gone. Mr. Forman had some amusing stories and without that interview, they would have been lost. The story of the first time Mr. Forman met Amon Carter is classic. I could not do it justice by trying to relate it here. Perhaps I'll try later.

Tom Delorey is one of my favorite posters as he often writes the behind the scenes stories about coins we would never know. There are a few others too.

I'm begging all the old timers here to PLEASE TELL US A TRUE STORY from your past dealings. Hopefully, you'll have time on the weekends. DON'T BE MODEST! I'll have a few at some point.

bidask

Funny you mentioned Harry.

As a 18-21 year age coin collector i use to hustle ( sell coins ) for Harry Forman at coin shows. He always set up at shows and he would let me peddle his coins on the bourse floor. He was always always fair in paying me a commish at the end of the day.

Great guy!

I learned alot selling on the floor and just talking coins with him .

Insider2

@bidask said:
Funny you mentioned Harry.

As a 18-21 year age coin collector i use to hustle ( sell coins ) for Harry Forman at coin shows. He always set up at shows and he would let me peddle his coins on the bourse floor. He was always always fair in paying me a commish at the end of the day.

Great guy!

I learned alot selling on the floor and just talking coins with him .

This is exactly what I'm hoping for.

The ANA in DC was my first big coin show. I was in my twenties and working at the Smithsonian (pre-coin authenticator days). Going down an escalator two young boys were each counting large wads of cash. I cautioned them about flashing money and saw they also had coins. They told me that dealers would give them coins to sell and they could keep any money over what he wanted. Later, after the ANA, I did that for several local dealers at our local shows. I didn't learn much but the money was really good.

I had some contact with Mr. Forman on several occasions. My best story about him was about something I did. He had a blazing gem headlight 1926 Sesqui 50c in his case but the original uncleaned coin had some hairlines. I bought it for $50 planning to let it tone so they would not be visible.

The best way to learn how to detect AT is to learn how it is done and what it looks like. I planned to use this coin as a learning experience. Dumb. Anyway, I placed it in my wall oven (gas pilot flame) on a dish with a ring of powdered sulfur at the edges of the dish. I forgot all about the coin. Several months later, after using the broiler several times to make steak (I rarely ever used the oven) I happened to open the oven. There in the center of the dish was my coin with a caked-on, dull, steel-gray crust!

HoledandCreative

Hairlines no longer visible. Plan worked.

TwoKopeiki

Man, you guys have some cool stories.

I was exposed to coins by my brother when i was 12-13 years old. I remember helping him catalog his collection the old school way - by creating pencil rubbings in an album and writing-out the legend and description. Haven't thought about coins for the next decade or so, especially with immigration to US and having to adapt to the new life and then, at 25, while deployed in Baghdad, came across a neat gold Saddam Hussein medal that led to weeks of researching this poorly documented area of numismatics / exonumia. It ended-up being a neat medal issued to commemorate the anniversary of Iraqi Air Force. While I sold the medal shortly thereafter, i loved the research side of it and that feeling of the hunt for information. Coincidentally, this was also when I moved to Toronto for work and started to have some disposable income. I've attended a few local shows trying to figure out what area I should collect. Russian coins felt like a natural fit for me, since i'm fluent in Russian, but that was during the hot market for anything Russian, so i passed on that idea. I was buying anything that appealed to me until I ran across a dealer from Niagara Falls who had a nice crown-sized Guadalajara 8 Reales from the War of Independence period. I loved both the crudeness of the design and the attractive gun-metal blue toning with hints of purple. I was hooked on 8 Reales after that. Started with War of Independence issues, but quickly got disparaged by TPG's not being to properly grade or attribute this series (i had early Chihuahua pieces come back as damaged due to the mint counterstamps, for example). This is when i also got my hands on Calbeto volumes and decided to collect by Calbeto number, including varieties. Working with both TPG's, I've helped develop the Mexico portrait registry sets and when NGC registry stopped accepting PCGS coins, moved the entire collection over to our host.

Since then I've dabbled in Mexico counterfeits. I loved attributing to Riddell numbers, plus Swamberbob was pretty active on CCF back then and I really enjoyed the knowledge he shared. My best highlights in this hobby include my first CICF and NYINC shows and meeting some of the world-class dealers like Andy, Josh, John A, Josh at Atlas, folks at MCC and the like, and developing a relationship with them. These forums have always been a great dimension to my collecting and I enjoy the camaraderie and passion of folks here. Especially having met some of you in-person. In fact, there are numerous pieces in my collection that i cherish pedigreed to board members.

Edited to add: that crude 1814 Guadalajara 8 Reales that started me on this series is still in my collection:

asheland

Great thread!