The recent sale of Armand Champa's numismatic library by the auction firm of Bowers & Merena provided the opportunity to acquire rare books and unique source materials seldom seen on the market, resulting in a very successful year for the library's acquisitions program. Primarily through the generosity of the Harry Bass Foundation but also with the support of Joseph Lasser, Allen Lovejoy, and David Hendin, the library was able to participate in the Champa sales. In the three public sales held, the library acquired a fine selection of manuscripts, letters, auction catalogues, counterfeit detectors, and rare nineteenth century pamphlets and monographs.
To our already strong holdings of counterfeit detectors, most of which came from the library of William H. Dillistin, we are adding a fine selection of new material. Dilliston wrote the definitive ANS monograph on the subject in 1949, pointing out that by the year 1863, when the National Bank Act was passed, there were more than 1,600 note issuing banks in this country. The proliferation of notes issued by these state banks brought about a drastic increase in the number of counterfeit, spurious, and altered bank notes. What little protection businessmen and merchants had was through the bank note reporters and detectors, wherein they could find under various bank names warnings concerning notes to avoid.
Perhaps the earliest variety of this type of publication was issued as a broadside in 1805 by the Boston newspaper publisher Gilbert and Dean. True banknote reporters and counterfeit detectors, however, made their appearance around 1826. Their purpose was twofold: to show the rate of discount at which uncurrent notes would be purchased or exchanged for specie and to furnish a brief description of counterfeit, spurious, altered, and raised notes.
At the first Champa sale, the library was fortunate enough to acquire one of the earliest New York bank note reporters, published by John Thompson. Entitled Thompson's Bank Note Reporter, it is dated September 16, 1843, and in the catalogue of the Champa sale it is described as "the earliest number seen." Also acquired was Dye's Book of Bank Note Plates... (1853), (fig. 41) a work not mentioned in Dillistin's monograph, which may attest to its rarity. It is an album of reproductions of counterfeit notes, both entire bills and selected vignettes. Hodges' New Bank Note Safe-Guard... (1859), also acquired, gives the library its earliest edition of this work. Dillistin claims that the first edition of the Safe-Guard was pirated from another of John Dye's publications, the Bank Note Plate Delineator... (1855) by J. Tyler Hodges. Dillistin has shown how typographical errors in Dye's Delineator were copied exactly in Hodges Safe-Guard. Despite this instance of plagiarism, the name Hodges figured prominently in the history of bank note reporters during the decade 1856-66.
Two of the detectors acquired are of interest because they may well have influenced that most successful of all detector publishers, Laban Heath. As Eric Newman points out in his recent article on Heath's counterfeit detectors, the 1859 edition of Gear's United States Bank Note Detecter [sic] at Sight, with its use of the words "at sight" and "infallible," undoubtedly influenced Heath's choice of concepts and expressions. A later version of Gear's work. The National Bank Note Detector at Sight, has also been acquired as hat Foote's Universal Counterfeit Detector at Sight, which some have claimer also influenced Heath. As for the Detectors published by Heath himself, the library has acquired three pocket editions—a first, a tenth, and an eleventh edition. They are a fine complement to our existing holdings, most of which came from the David M. Bullowa library.
Though not a counterfeit detector of the type just mentioned, the next acquisition is most often used for just that purpose. It is the extremely rare Register of Issues of Confederate States Treasury Notes (fig. 42) by Raphael Prosper Thian. It is essentially a list of the serial numbers of most of the notes issued by the Confederacy along with the names of the two individuals who signed each note. Thian, who came to America from France in 1850, served briefly in the Union Army and, following the Civil War, worked as a civilian in the Adjutant General's Office. It was during the period 1867 to 1881 that Thian sifted through the records of the Confederate Treasury Department which were stored in the Rebel Archives Bureau in Washington. Thian had planned to produce a multi-volume work on the Confederate currency but it never came to be. However, the Register was published and survives in only five copies, of which we now have one. Among the unique items acquired in the Champa sales was the personal diary of Joseph J. Mickley (fig. 43), who figures prominently among this country's nineteenth century coin collectors. Mickley was involved in trades with the United States Mint and purchased old dies from the Mint from which he prepared restrikes. He was also the first president of the Numismatic and Antiquarian Society of Philadelphia. His diary, which covers the period 1866-69, provides an excellent record of his numismatic activities. Along with the diary, the library acquired The Genealogy
It has been suggested that David Proskey was perhaps one of the most accomplished numismatists of his time. While he did not write very much in his own name, we are fortunate in having acquired a manuscript which he penned on the varieties of United States gold eagles and half eagles. In it he describes 17 eagles of 1795-99 and 54 half eagles of 1795-1836. Proskey was in the coin trade from 1873 until his death in 1928 and among the collections which he catalogued and sold was the Confederate currency of Raphael Thian. He also edited most of the volumes of the Coin Collector's Journal. The next acquisition provides an interesting example of coin dealer business relations and practices during the early decades of this century. It is the confidential black list (fig. 45) of the renowned Philadelphia coin dealer, Henry Chapman. Arranged alphabetically on 72 ledger sheets are the names of those to whom Chapman refers as the "List of Men Reported Bad." The period covered by the ledger is 1904-19. Among the auction catalogues acquired at the Champa sales were the first two coin sales held in Canada, both of which were conducted by John J. Arnton. The first, dated November 1, 1865, is the sale of the Rattray collection which consisted largely of Roman bronze coins. The second, dated February 23, 1866, is of the Adelard Boucher collection.
A final acquisition from the Champa library came as a generous donation from Anthony Terranova of New York. It is the manuscript notebook (fig. 46) of James A. Bolen in which are described 23 of the medal dies cut by Bolen. This manuscript, dating from cat 1866, was the source of the listings con- tributed by Bolen to vols. 1 and 3 of the American Journal of Numismatics. The notebook contains 15 pages, the first 13 of which are in Bolen's hand and provide descriptions of the 23 dies. The two additional pages are in the hand of Bolen's colleague, Charles Porter Nichols, and bring the total of dies listed to 38. The items described above are but a small portion of the more than 100 items acquired in the Champa sales.
Early in the year, the library also received from the estate of our late President, Harry W. Fowler, all of the numismatic books, auction catalogues, and peri- odicals in his personal library. Most of the standard references on the coinage of Alexander the Great's successors and, especially, the coinage of the Bactrian Kingdom are represented in this fine library. We have also received another portion of Dr. Pierre Bastien's personal research library. Included in this gift is virtually all of the Aufstieg und Niedergang der r”mischen Welt, edited by Wolfgang Haase and Hildegard Temporini. Dr. Bastien has also donated the journals Latomus, Revue d'‚tudes Latines, vols. 4-47 (1940-88), Revue des ‚tudes anciennes, vols. 30-88 (1928-86), and several important numismatic reference volumes. These include Sylloge Nummorum Graecorum Deutschland. Pf„lzer Privatsammlungen, vol. 4, Pamphylien; Sylloge Nummorum Graecorum Deutschland. Sammlung der Universit„tsbibliothek Leipzig, vol. 1, Autonome griechische Mnzen; and Hans Voegtli's Die Fundmnzen aus der Stadtgrabung von Pergamon.
Francois de Callatay gave us a copy of his Les t‚tradrachmes d'OrodŠs II et de Phruate IV: tude du rythme de leur production mon‚taire … la lumiŠre d'une grande trouvaille and Frances Van Keuren, University of Georgia, sent her recent work entitled The Coinage of Heraclea Lucaniae. Jyoti Rai of Bellmore, NY, donated two works which will be added to our Indian hold" ings: Coinage, Trade, and Economy, 3rd International Colloquium of the Indian Institute of Research in Numismatic Studies, January 8-11, 1991, edited by Amal Kumar Jha, and Coins, Seals, and Sealings from Sanghol, by G. B. Sharma. From Gnther Brockmann comes Die Medaillen der Kurfrsten und K”nige von Brandenberg-Preussen, vol. 1, Die MedaillenJoachim I-Friedrich Wilhelm 1, 1499-1740. Gale E. Hawkes furnished a copy of his A Collection of Georgian Medals and Neal W. O'Connor, his Aviaton Awards of Imperial Germany in World War I and the Men Who Earned Them, vol. 4, The Aviation Awards of the Kingdom of Wrttemberg. Horst Kimpel's Traditionelle Zahlungsmittel; Fruhformen des Geldes, Vorformen der Mnze, Zahlungsmittel und Wertobjekte der Naturv”lker, Reichtumsanzeiger adds a new and interesting work to our primitive money section.
Horace P. Flatt has published and sent the library the third volume of The Coins
Krause Publications has generously provided Albert Pick's Standard Catalog
Among the visitors to our reading rooms were Dan Freidus of Ann Arbor, current recipient of a Donald Groves Fund grant, and Steven Ross of the University of California, Berkeley, current recipient of the Society's Fellowship in Roman Studies. Freidus made use of the library's auction holdings in his research on Samuel Higley of Granby, CT, who struck the so-called "Higley coppers" of 1737-39. Ross, a participant in the Society's Graduate Seminar, is carrying out research on Roman coins of the mint at Edessa. While visiting the Society to present the 1995 Joseph B. and Morton M. Stack Memorial Lecture, R. W. Julian was able to find needed information on copper coins in the library's rare book holdings. David Hendin, of Nyack, NY, came to research the coins of ancient Gaza, and R. Ross Holloway, Brown University, consulted both the library and the photo file. Francis Van Keuren, University of Georgia, visited in order to find numismatic representations of Jupiter as lover and father and Ben Damsky of Belmont, CA, made a return visit in order to continue his research on Roman coins. Charles Helfand of New York examined the Virgil M. Brand Archives in order to trace the pedigrees of particular Latin American coins and Richard Margolis, Franklin Lakes, NJ, gathered information on medals for an article. Both Charles Hoskins of Philadelphia and Henry Chitwood of Old Greenwich, CT, visited in order to attribute a number of coins in their possession. Nine students in the Cloister's Summer Internship Program also visited the library as part of a general tour of some of the institutions on Audubon Terrace. The librarian provided a tour of the collection, highlighting the medieval numismatic literature. From abroad there were visits from A. K. Narain, University of Wisconsin/University of Benares (at Varanasi, India), and Osmund Bopearachchi, of the Centre Nationale de Recherche Scientifique, Paris.
This year's Graduate Seminar students and the visiting scholar, Fran‡ois de Callata˜, kept the library staff busy with a variety of bibliographical queries. In addition to the reserve books usually set aside for seminar use, several additional volumes pertaining to seminar topics were added to the collection. On February 25, in conjunction with the "Day of the Etruscans" conference the librarian mounted an exhibition of eighteenth to the twentieth century works from the library's collections which deal wholly or partially with Etruscan numismatics.
In order to accommodate the Aufstieg trod Niedergang der romischen Welt, donated by Dr. Bastien, we have added some shelving to the west library's reference book section, where the volumes from the Bastien library have been installed by Pablo Arroyo, Library Assistant. Arroyo has also begun a relabeling project, which will eventually see new labels placed on all of our card catalogue trays and file cabinets. Normand Pepin has also served as a library volunteer on various occasions providing helpful assistance with many of our routine duties.
The year has also seen some staff changes. Associate Librarian, Carlene Stober, who was with the library for some two years, decided to take a cataloguing position at the Mannes College of Music in New York City. Since Stober holds a master's degree in music this move seems a logical one and we all wish her well. On March 14, Ms. Ge (Grace) Lin filled the position of Assistant Librarian. Lin, a graduate of the Library and Information Science Master's program at St. John's University, has both library and archive employment experience. She has a reading knowledge of Chinese, English, and French and speaks both Chinese and English. She has also had experience in searching a variety of online databases.
Activity
Accessions
CAMPBELL
Materials Catalogued 4,400
Reference Inquiries 3,575
Books 1,006
Pamphlets 430
Periodicals 4,230
Auction Catalogues 1,664
Fixed Price Lists 536
Microfilms 4
