Collecting Coins, The 20th Century

The 20th century is history and so are all the coins struck within it. Perhaps it will eventually be diminished in stature to a mere historical footnote, but since coin collectors tend to like history, the development of the hobby within the past 100 years should give important insight into how we got where we are.

German coin dealers dominated the European scene at the turn of the century. In the United States, the best thing that could happen did when in 1901 Theodore Roosevelt became U.S. president. Roosevelt was a champion of better coin designs, supporting Augustus Saint-Gaudens and others in their efforts to perk up our rather dismal coinage.

Roosevelt has been said to have carried an ancient Athenian silver tetradrachm as a pocket piece.

Two years later, world class coin dealer B. Max Mehl began his business in 1903. Mehl was a great promoter. He can be credited with popularizing the hobby as a pastime with such outrageous ads as offering to purchase 1913 Liberty Head nickels, when he already knew who owned each of them.

Some things never change. In 1910 Virgil Brand, the man from Chicago best remembered in history as having assembled the largest coin collection in history in terms of the sheer number of pieces, resigned from the American Numismatic Association (ANA) in protest of their grading policies! If he could have only seen what would happen later during the century.

People today may not realize where the “craze” originated, but it was coin dealer Wayte Raymond of the United States Coin Company who in 1912 first began advertising coins as an investment.

Mehl, being as irrepressible as usual, in 1921 began the landmark coin collection auctions as we now know them, by selling the John Story Jenks Collection. Brand died five years later. At last count, some of his coins were still being offered for the first time at auction.

Coin collecting entered a serious growth period in 1934, due to the ever increasing number of commemorative coins being produced by the U.S. Mint. About the same time, a shift was taking place in Europe when many of the major dealers moved to Switzerland due to the rise of Adolph Hitler to power in Germany.

The middle years of the century saw the rise of coin collecting information through several important books and regularly produced publications. Numismatic Scrapbook appeared in 1935 (last published in 1976), Richard Yeoman introduced his A Guide Book of United States Coins (better known as the “Red Book”) in 1946, “Numismatic News” weekly newspaper was founded in 1952 by Chester Krause and “Coin World” in 1960 by J. Oliver Amos.

The U.S. Mint began to accommodate collectors with Proof sets beginning in 1950. Inadvertently, the Mint also accommodated them with the famous 1955 doubled die Lincoln cent a few years later, an error that encouraged millions of non-collectors to begin checking their pocket change. Some of them later became collectors.

The same year the Florida United Numismatists (FUN) and the Professional Numismatists Guild were each founded. FUN launched its first major coin convention during 1955.

The Long Beach Numismatic and Philatelic Exposition in that California city began in 1958. This show, which has gone under several names since, became the most successful commercial coin show business. During 1974, one of its shows set a record paid attendance of 18,752.

The ANA was not to be outdone. In 1976 the ANA New York convention set a record of 21,900 people. This would eventually be challenged, but unbroken by the 1991 Chicago ANA at which 21,330 attendance was recorded. (The record coin show attendance anywhere is about 140,000 at the 1995 First International Stamp & Coin Expo Beijing in the People’s Republic of China.)

Some other important events effecting the coin collecting hobby were the founding of the Canadian Numismatic Association in 1950, International Bank Note Society in 1961, “Coin Dealer Newsletter” (or “gray sheet”) in 1963, American Numismatic Association Certification Service (ANACS) in 1979 and Professional Coin Grading Service (PCGS) in 1986.

ANACS started third party authentication and grading services. David Hall, founder of PCGS, perfected these services by introducing encapsulation or “slabbing” of the coins examined.

Business aspects of the hobby dominated the later part of the century. In 1989 FUN fielded a record 570 dealer tables at their show. The same year Wall Street investment firms entered and then quickly exited the rare coin investment business.

In 1996, the first public auction, million dollar coin sale took place as Jay Parrino of Kansas City, Mo. bid $1.485 million for a 1913 Liberty Head nickel. This price was shattered by a $1.815 million bid for an 1804 Draped Bust, Heraldic Eagle silver dollar in 1997 while yet another 1804 silver dollar was bid to a record $4.14 million during 1999.

Paper money also set a record when in 1998 $792,000 was bid for a Series 1890 $1,000 “Grand Watermelon” bank note.

We are now in the early part of the 21st century. Where do we go from here? With the 1999 introduction of the circulating commemorative 50 Statehood quarter program I would expect coin collecting to again increase as a hobby. The old century left us on a high note. It now looks like the new century is coming in like a lion.