E-SYLUM READERS REMEMBER VINCENT ALONES

PREV ARTICLE NEXT ARTICLE FULL ISSUE PREV FULL ISSUE

V15 2012 INDEX E-SYLUM ARCHIVE

The E-Sylum: Volume 15, Number 35, August 19, 2012, Article 12

Vinnie was an early guiding spirit to the Lithuanian Numismatic Association (LNA), founded in the 1970s. Here was a specialty club whose newsletter published a seemingly endless wealth of information on the rich numismatic heritage of this small Baltic nation. With the enthusiastic participation of the irrepressible Frank Passic of Albion, Michigan, LNA's newsletter The Knight became a treasure trove of vital information and a file of the publication is a resource of the greatest value to those fortunate enough to possess it. He will be missed.

My Vinnie memories are associated with the Long Island Coin Club and their Grand Central Coin Conventions held at the New York Sheraton on 53rd and 7th. Also his involvement with G.E.N.A. and ANA exhibiting.

The LICC - really started YN meetings about two years before Florence Shook came onto the scene to use their successful model of youth run programs to make them, errr, her-own, and of course to re-write history.

Vinnie loved jokes, and with his fellow LICC coin club committee members, he heard many, however he was awful at remembering them. Thus he often became the butt of another joke.

Vinnie and Aggie were a team, and would clear the dance floor when a polka was played at the holiday dinners. They both enjoyed their Lithuanian heritage.

The Long Island Coin Club tolerated YNs at the convention, to help set-up and break town and pack away cases, to attend meetings and dinners, but they would not allow them to join the club until they were 21. Vinnie helped start a Holliswood Coin Club for YNs which lasted a few years.

The Virginia Numismatic Association will host an auction of the Vincent Alones Collection which includes Colonials, Half Cents and Large Cents on September 29th, 2012 at 7:00 PM. Catalogs are available on-line including mail-in bidder sheets at: vnaonline.org/images/Alones-Catalog-for-VNA.pdf .

Mail bids are being accepted now. Hundreds of additional coins from the collection will be offered at fixed prices at the Virginia Numismatic Association, 54th Annual Convention and Coin Show at the Fredericksburg Expo and Conference Center on the bourse floor. About three hundred coins will be available only seen in person at the show. Preview auction lots until 4:30 PM the day of the auction at the bourse tables of Apoth Coins of Lynchburg, Virginia.

Many of the coins come with original auction flips annotated with prices paid to dealers such as Abe Kosoff, B. Max Mehl, Stacks, New Netherlands Coin Company, Macy’s Department Store and with provenance to Anderson DuPont, Farish Baldenhofer, Richard Picker, the 1973 Pine Tree Auction and many others.

As a boy, Vincent Alones searched his change in the 1920s and 1930s looking for (and finding) 1914-Ds and 1909-S Lincoln cents that could be sold for more than face value or traded for Large Cents. By 1934 he accumulated about twenty dollars in large cents, and decided to start collecting the series over again looking for high grade examples, obtained from coin shops and auction houses in New York from which he acquired with care, since the mid-1930s.

COLONIALS: Colonials include silver and copper coins of Massachusetts, French colonials, William Woods coppers, States coppers from Connecticut, New Jersey, Vermont, Washingtonia and a variety of Fugio Cents. High grade, restrike Continental Dollars and Demi Ecus of Castorland, in various compositions, round out the colonial section. Highlights include a 1670-A Silver, Petit Louis XIII de 5 Sols, coined in Paris for the Compagnie des Indes Occidentales, NGC-AU58, Breen-256. This coin circulated in the French American colonies prior to 1680, and a 1787 Fugio Cent, UNITED STATES, No Cinquefoils, R.4, Newman 1-B, VF, Jarvis & Co., from New Haven.

HALF CENTS: Thirty-three Cohen varieties of Half Cents dated from 1794 through 1857 include several mint state examples. Highlights include an 1835 Half Cent, NGC-MS62 Brown and an 1857 Half Cent, C-1, NGC MS-63.

LARGE CENTS: The Large Cent collection really shines in breadth and scope. From 1793 through 1857 with every date present, 106 Sheldon varieties and 174 Newcomb varieties are offered at auction with mint state examples of 25 different dates. Unusual varieties include an R-6 (Very Rare) variety of 1794, four R-5s (Rare) varieties with dates 1795, 1802, 1805 and 1816, sixteen, R-4s (Very Scarce) coins from 1793 through 1831.

There are too many highlights to mention them all, but they include NGC-MS65 examples of 1846, 1850, 1851 and 1853. Ten MS-64 examples range in date from 1848 – 1856. Mint state dates include 1804 (restrike) 1816, through 1820, 1823 (restrike), 1829, 1831, 1837, 1838, 1840, 1841, etc. Circulated and multiple 1793s (Chain and Wreath), 1804s (Original and restrikes) and a 1799, round out the Large Cent highlights. Group lots of same date/different variety coins in circulated grades should offer something for every budget.