Mel Wacks Ancients Collection sale coming up

Zoins

Anyone familiar with Mel Wacks's collection which is coming up for sale?

• https://www.coinworld.com/news/world-coins/mel-wacks-coin-collection-being-offered-in-nyc-sale

Collector, author and expert Mel Wacks is selling his collection of ancient coins. The coins are being offered as part of the New York Sale consortium’s auction XLVIII of ancient coins Jan. 14, during the New York International Numismatic Convention.

Many of these coins reflect aspects of the stories of Jewish people throughout the ages. One such highlight offers an object lesson in how scholarship — even on coins that are 2,000 years old — is ever-changing.

A bronze sestertius of Nerva, issued circa A.D. 97 in Rome, references the Jewish head tax, which was a half shekel (equivalent to two Roman denarii).

[...]

BillDugan1959

IIRC, Mel Wacks was a prolific producer of exomunismatic items. His name was in Coin World and Numismatic News very frequently.

Gentlemen like that were generally well-liked and they attended a lot of coin shows and coin club gatherings. This puts a person in the position to see many nice coins, tokens, medals and banknotes. Guys in this position often get to see special, nice things that aren't publicly in the dealer showcases too. One supposes that the gentleman picked up some good things along the way.

I despise Spellchecker. I hope that the Department of Defense doesn't allow it on their computers.

harasha

My father worked for the DoD, but he passed way before common use of computers became a thing. The way my father described it, going to public school in the 20s and 30s, if you couldn't spell a word in class, you got a rubber hose across the knuckles or a hammer thrown at your head (seriously, though that may have been the shop teacher). Spell or die!

DNADave

@Zoins said:
Anyone familiar with Mel Wacks's collection which is coming up for sale?

• https://www.coinworld.com/news/world-coins/mel-wacks-coin-collection-being-offered-in-nyc-sale

Collector, author and expert Mel Wacks is selling his collection of ancient coins. The coins are being offered as part of the New York Sale consortium’s auction XLVIII of ancient coins Jan. 14, during the New York International Numismatic Convention.

Many of these coins reflect aspects of the stories of Jewish people throughout the ages. One such highlight offers an object lesson in how scholarship — even on coins that are 2,000 years old — is ever-changing.

A bronze sestertius of Nerva, issued circa A.D. 97 in Rome, references the Jewish head tax, which was a half shekel (equivalent to two Roman denarii).

[...]

He wrote the Handbook of Biblical Numismatics. I have two copies, one of which is signed.

I was surprised to see that PCGS is slabbing his counterstamps now. (They call them counter marks LOL).

Iosephus

There is a video of Mel Wacks from the Medal Collectors of America (MCA) about Jewish-American Hall of Fame medals:
https://medalcollectors.org/multimedia/video/victor-gerta-ries