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Looking for Information on Alfred V. Melson
Zoins
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I'm researching some coins and came across Alfred V. Melson. His collection was sold by Heritage in 2010. Notably he had a 1943-S bronze cent!
- 1943-S Bronze Cent
- Alfred V. Melson Collection, Part One, Jan 2010
- Alfred V. Melson Collection, Part Two, Feb 2010
I looked up some information and found the following for a Alfred Vaughn Melson Sr., who was "co-owner and chairman of Atlantic/Smith, Cropper & Deeley Insurance in Willards, a real estate developer and president of Atlantic Insurance Associates."
Does anyone know if this is the same Melson as the coin collector?
- Obituary: https://www.legacy.com/us/obituaries/delawareonline/name/alfred-melson-obituary?pid=145785000
- Grave: https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/55555690/alfred-vaughn-melson
- Family History: http://wvancestry.com/ReferenceMaterial/Files/The_Melson_Family_in_America_Volume_1.pdf
Here's his 1943-S Bronze Cent!
Amazingly, this old slab still verifies. Lately, I've been getting the feeling that error collectors don't seem to need to play the upgrade / crackout game and slabs can stay active for a long time.
https://www.pcgs.com/cert/3457896
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Of note, the Heritage sales were in 2010, and Alfred Vaughn Melson Sr. lived from 1942 to 2003, so the dates are plausible.
It appears his sale did very well in Part One, with four coins over $25k and two coins over $50k.
Also of note is that some of his coins have his pedigree on the PCGS insert. All these coins appear to be in Part Two.
Given the age of the slab, could the pedigree have been added after the performance of the sales in Part one?
Having a pedigree noted by PCGS is quite an honor!
I sold the father some nice off-metal errors 20 - 25 years ago - then started dealing with his son, who requested the Pedigree line for the raw error coins he had certified At PCGS
for PCGS. A 49+-Year PNG Member...A full numismatist since 1972, retired in 2022
Great info @FredWeinberg!
Seems like both father and son had the same name, Alfred V. Melson?
They did.
Not much on Newspapers.com about the Melsons, but references to "Jr." confirm this.
Pete
That was clear from the obit you linked in your first post,
and there is also the giveaway when one person puts Sr. after their name.
I am wondering if the person in the obit is the same as the collector.
The collector is known as "Alfred V. Melson".
The real estate developer (obit) is known as "Alfred Vaughn Melson Sr.".
I'm wondering if they are the same person.
It seems quite likely because both had son and I haven't found any other person with the name Alfred V. Melson.
There's only one match to the name "Alfred V Melson" in the collaborative tree on familysearch.org,
so it's apparently a rare combination, except that it's shared by him and his son.
It's rare enough where I would conclude it's a match based solely on the name.
But Fred's answer is very direct, of course.
The may have diff middle names that start with V (although could be stretch with that letter).
My father and I have the same first name but diff middle names that start with same letter. We are both John R. Smith, but he is Robert and I'm Richard, for example, so I am not a Jr, nor he's a Sr.
It's true that Sr/Jr do not apply if the middle name is different.
However the middle name is the same in this case:
Sr/Father: Vaughn is on his on headstone
Jr/Son: listed as "Albert Vaughn Jr." in his father's obit.
It seems the remaining question is whether the V. on the slab is short for Vaughn.
My argument above was yes, because it's a rare name.
For a non rare name like John R. Smith, I would not declare a match on the name only.