PCGS The Standard for the Rare Coin Industry

2011 Inductees

David Akers started collecting coins in 1949. After graduating from Notre Dame, obtaining a Masters degree in mathematics from Oregon State, and serving as a U.S. Army combat artillery officer in Viet Nam, David became a full time coin dealer in 1971. He was President of Paramount International Coin Corp., one of the largest and most influential dealerships of the 1970s and 1980s. In 1973, David was instrumental in Paramount's purchase and sale of the Dr. John E. Wilkinson collection of gold U.S. patterns and produced the definitive book on those legendary rarities. Between 1975 and 1982, David Akers published a six volume analysis of U.S. gold coins that is considered one of the key references for the market. He conducted numerous important auctions, including the three part 1997-99 sale of the legendary John J. Pittman collection. He is one of only two dealers to ever receive all three of the Professional Numismatists Guild's three top honors: the Robert Friedberg Literary award, the Abe Kosoff Founders award, and the PNG Lifetime Achievement award. David Akers is considered one of the top rare gold experts of all-time.

John Love has handled more Morgan and Peace dollars than anyone in the world. He is quite simply “Mr. Silver Dollar.” John began selling silver dollars from his shop in Cut Bank, Montana in 1962. By 1964, he was attending national coin shows and soon became one of the biggest buyers and sellers of silver dollars. He was one of the country’s major silver dollar mail order dealers thru the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s. In his career, he was involved in most of the most famous silver dollar deals, including the two largest ever, the LaVere Redfield estate (484,000 coins) and the Continental Illinois Bank hoard (about 1.5 million coins). John is famous for two things, his handling of extremely high quality silver dollars (including some of the most famous individual coins in the series) and his over five decades as one of the market’s most prominent silver dollar market-makers. He has literally had a fifty year run of being the “go to guy” for uncirculated Morgan and Peace dollars.

Harvey G. Stack, whose family has been famous in the numismatic scene since the 1930s, is an industry leader whose contributions to the hobby and the profession have been profound. Many of the great "name" sales of the past 75 years were handled by Harvey and his family, including those of Anderson-Dupont, H.R. Lee (duplicates from the Louis Eliasberg collection), Floyd Starr, Harold Bareford, Jimmy Hayes, John Ford, and hundreds of others. Harvey has been an indefatigable supporter of numismatics, serving as an expert witness for governmental agencies, world banks, and law enforcement agencies around the world. He assisted in the development of the first American Numismatic Association Grading Guide, has been a member of that organization for over 50 years and a recipient of their Medal of Merit. Beneficiaries of his generosity over the years include the National Numismatic Collection at the Smithsonian Institution, the American Numismatic Association, and the American Numismatic Society. He served as President of the Professional Numismatists Guild from 1990-1991 and was awarded their Founders Award (not once, but twice). In 2011, Harvey came out of retirement to join Stack's Bowers Galleries.

(Quentin) David Bowers (2010) Chairman of Stack's in New York and New Hampshire, is a prolific author of over 50 books and monographs, and is the only person to ever serve as President of both the Professional Numismatists Guild (1977 - 1979) and the American Numismatic Association (1983 - 1985). He is a Trustee of the New Hampshire Historical Society, Fellow of the American Antiquarian Society, Massachusetts Historical Society and American Numismatic Society and an annual lecturer at Harvard University. Bowers began buying and selling coins at the age of 14 while still in high school. He has cataloged and sold at public auction some of the most important numismatic collections ever assembled including the collections of Louis E. Eliasberg Sr., Harry W. Bass Jr., Ambassador and Mrs. R. Henry Norweb and the John Work Garrett Collection sold by order of The Johns Hopkins University. In addition to his own writings, Bowers now is helping to expand numismatic knowledge in his role as Numismatic Director of Whitman Publishing, LLC. Numismatic Literary Guild Executive Director Ed Reiter has described him as "A one-man library." Bowers is one of the most revered and honored numismatists in the world.

Samuel Hudson (S.H.) and Henry Hudson Champan (2010) were both young men (21 and 19, respectively), when the brothers formed their numismatic partnership in 1878. Their first auction catalog, issued in 1879, set a new standard for the industry with the introduction of phototype plates; all of their sales are characterized by a level of scholarship and quality that had not been seen before. This helped the brothers land the coup of their career, the sale at auction in 1882 of the collection of Charles I. Bushnell. Today, all of the auction catalogs produced by the Chapman brothers are highly prized, especially the small version formats with plates. In 1906, the bothers each formed his own firm, but continued the same level of professionalism and scholarship that characterized their joint partnership. Much of the style of cataloguing and presentation seen in today’s auction catalogs was influenced by the works of the Chapman brothers. (Image courtesy of George Frederick Kolbe.)

B. Max Mehl (2010) started his career as a part-time dealer circa 1900 while still a clerk in a shoe store, but went on to become one of the most prolific coin dealers of his time. His secrets: hard work, intense advertising campaigns, tireless self-promotion, and innovative marketing. He was the first to advertise in non-numismatic media. He published a small booklet and sold over a million of them for a dollar apiece. By the 1930s, when America was suffering through the great Depression, Mehl was spending upwards of a hundred thousand dollars a year in advertising. In a record day, he reportedly received 72,000 pieces of correspondence. He offered a reward for any example of the 1913 Liberty Head Nickel, causing people from all walks of life to examine their pocket change for elusive treasure. He handled incredible collections built by the likes of H.O. Granberg, Waldo Newcomer, William Forrester Dunham, William C. Atwater and many others. And he did this all from Fort Worth, Texas, far from the numismatic scenes in New York, Philadelphia, and California. One can only imagine the many ways that B. Max Mehl, called the "P.T. Barnum of numismatics" by fellow dealer Abe Kosoff, would have used today’s technology to popularize the hobby.

Wayte Raymond (2010) was a prolific dealer and publisher whose legacy includes his still-useful National Coin Albums (first made in 1928) for which he secured the franchise and promoted them extensively in the 1930s, and the ground-breaking research he sponsored and promoted. From 1912 to 1918, Raymond was involved with Elmer Sears in the United States Coin Company; later, he was associated with James G. Macallister in J.C. Morgenthau & Co.; still later with the Scott Stamp and Coin Co. In 1952, Raymond hired a young man named Walter Breen to conduct research in the National Archives, a fresh approach that resulted in numerous publications and a rapid advancement in numismatic knowledge. Much of the data uncovered by Breen was incorporated into later editions of Raymond's The Standard Catalogue of United States Coins, a reference book introduced in 1934 that was the first comprehensive price guide with mintage figures of U.S. coins. Additional publications he launched over the years included the Coin and Medal Bulletin, the Coin Collectors Journal and Coin Topics. In honor of Raymond and his contributions to numismatic research, the American Numismatic Association instituted the Wayte and Olga Raymond Memorial Award for Distinguished Numismatic Achievement in the Field of United States Numismatics.

William Elliot Woodward (2010) was one of the first American coin dealers, entering the business on a part-time basis in 1860. Woodward issued auction catalogs from 1860 to 1890, eventually producing 111 in total. Scattered throughout his catalogs are interesting tidbits, including scholarly material, collector biographies, scathing criticisms of his competitors, and comments about other individuals that would probably lead to slander suits today. Woodward accused the U.S. Mint of questionable practices, when made-to-order rarities began appearing on the market or when certain individuals appeared to have an "in" with Mint officials. Highlights of his auction career include the sales of the collections of the Rev. J.M. Finotti, John F. McCoy, J.N.T. Levick and William Jenks (among others). Woodward is perhaps best remembered for his 1867 sale of the celebrated collection of Joseph J. Mickley. Woodward was a true numismatist, well-versed in many areas, thus adding to the breadth and depth of the offerings he brought to market.