Did You Know: Test Your Rare Coin Dealer IQ

Test your knowledge about rare coin dealers, past and present, and see how you do, a little numismatic IQ quiz:

1. Points of distinction: The New Hampshire office of Stack’s Bowers Galleries,  located in a lakeshore townhouse, may be the only rare coin dealer to have its own boat/yacht dock on premises. We are a division of Spectrum International Group, the only collectibles company to be listed in the Fortune 500. We trace our beginning back to 1933 when Joseph and Morton Stack began business in New York City. The rest is history. Now, find the right answer for Littleton Coin Co., an esteemed colleague:

a: Has offices in London, Paris, Zurich, and Hong Kong.

b: Listed on NASDAQ.

c: In its own 85,000-square-foot building and employs over 350 people.

d: Is the main shareholder in the Professional Coin Grading Service (PCGS).

2. Which dealer was president of Rotary International, never saw a grizzly bear during his visits to California but liked the one pictured on the 1925 commemorative half dollar, had his own building, and allowed his house to be featured in an advertisement for Williams Oil-O-Matic furnaces? He also desperately wanted to buy a 1913 Liberty Head nickel, but did not handle one until 1944, but even then, his buyer, a figure in European royalty, sent it back when another, finer piece came to hand:

a: Ebenezer Locke Mason, Jr., Philadelphia, PA.

b: F. Trifet, Boston, MA.

c: Toivo Johnson, East Holden, ME.

d: B. Max Mehl, Fort Worth, TX.

3. This dealer had New York City dealer Thomas L. Elder as his father-in-law (probably not an easy relationship, but who knows?), was an early marketer of plastic holders for coins, and signed National Bank Notes:

a: Eugene DeKleist, North Tonawanda, NY.

b: Paul Seitz, Glen Rock, PA.

c: John Allan, New York City, NY.

d: Frank Katen, Milford, CT, later of Washington, DC.

4. This dealer on his own, and later with his son-in-law John W. Haseltine, did a lively business in restrikes and rarities, many of which he secretly obtained from officers of the Philadelphia Mint. He also issued a cent-size store card made for him by Robert Lovett, Jr.

a: Ira S. Reed, Sellersville, PA, and Philadelphia.

b: William K. Idler, Philadelphia, PA.

c: Max Berenstein, New York City, NY.

d: S. Hudson Chapman, Philadelphia, PA.

5. This fellow, a New York City rare coin dealer who was even better known as a stamp dealer, was unkindly referred to as “the great boaster” and the “Fulton Street octopod,” by a competitor, Ed Frossard, who also referred to that dealer’s clerk, David Proskey, as a “shirker of auctioneer’s bills” and having an “India rubber conscience.” The alleged eight-tentacled rare coin professional was none other than:

a: Alexandre Vattemare.

b: John K. Curtis.

c: John W. Scott.

d: Jacob Perkins.

Answers: 1-c, 2-d, 3-b, 4-b, 5-c