Ladies and Gentlemen of the AVA,

Dr. Coffee fell a while back, but is now hurting so badly that he went back into the hospital this past weekend. The current diagnosis is broken ribs. The hospital is looking to see what else might be broken. He has been in such pain that he could no longer work on the February Fare Box.

Keith Baron (Fare Box mailing expert) and (AVA President) Bob Schneider are going to Boston this coming weekend to meet with Dr. Coffee and see what they can do to put out the February Fare Box.

John Coffee is about the last living charter member of the American Vecturist Association (transportation token collectors organization formed in 1948) and has been editor of our monthly newsletter since way before my time, never missing an issue. It's not an exaggeration to say that John is the AVA.

He is the author of the Atwood-Coffee Catalog of United States and Canadian Transportation Tokens, published by the Catalog Committee of AVA, of which Dr. Coffee is chairman. It is now in its fifth edition, which came out in 1996, with annual supplements. This work started out as the National Check and Premium List of all U. S. Transportation Tokens, compiled by the late Roland C. Atwood and published in loose leaf format by "the American Numismatic Company" of Los Angeles in 1948, with at least one supplement the following year.

AVA took it over in 1963 and published a hardcover second edition, calling it Atwood's Catalogue. By this time Atwood was AVA life member #1. The third edition, now 731 pages, came out in 1970, followed by a 244-page 1977 supplement. The fourth edition, published in 1983, expanded to three volumes and received its present title. Volume 1 was the regular catalog listing, volume 2 the history and encyclopedia of transportation tokens, and volume 3 a listing of minor die varieties, >2200 pages in all. The fifth edition superseded volume 1 of the fourth edition; the other two volumes have not been updated. See Davis 59 and 44. Dr. Coffee is also the author of Land Company and Real Estate Tokens published by AVA in 1991, and co-author with Harold V. Ford of Automobile Washing Tokens published by AVA in 1986.