AUTHOR JOHN S. DAVENPORT

Rarely does a single individual become identified so completely with any area of numismatics as did Dr. John S. Davenport (1907-2001). Over a period of more than 50 years, his name became synonymous with the world of large-size silver coins, generally referred to as crowns and talers.

An educator of note with a distinguished career as professor of English literature, Davenport was born in Buffalo, N.Y. He received his Bachelor’s degree from Cornell in 1928; his Master’s from Harvard the following year and completed his Doctorate at North Carolina in 1934. Most of his teaching career was spent at Knox College in Galesburg, IL.

Davenport began collecting coins in 1921 and carried on until his death 80 years later. Collecting of what were then called “foreign coins” was then in its infancy in the U.S. No comprehensive or specialized catalogs were available, but crowns and talers were a natural as a distinct collecting area.

German numismatists had published multi-volume taler catalogs in the 1700’s, which are sometimes still cited today, but such historic references as Madai and Schulthess-Rechberg were already major rarities in their own right in the 1920’s. There were no such pioneer volumes of world crowns, so the frustrated Davenport soon set out to create them.

Some of Davenport’s first cataloging appeared as articles in the American Numismatic Association’s journal The Numismatist and in Lee F. Hewitt’s Numismatic Scrapbook Magazine during the 1940’s. He found it possible to begin explorations of such clearly defined series as crowns of Swiss Cantons and cities during World War II, when paper shortages made publishing new books nearly impossible.

The first volume in a series of nine of similar size and format appeared in 1947, European Crowns since 1800, bearing the imprint of Foster & Stewart, Buffalo, N.Y. Within its 9¼ x 6½-inch purple-pebbled hard covers were 194 pages covering coins from Albania through Yugoslavia, plus appendices providing translations of hundreds of coin inscriptions and a detailed bibliography.

Though generally seen as separate volumes, Davenport looked upon his crown and taler books as a continuous record, ultimately assigning “Davenport numbers” to talers (1 through 10,063) and crowns (1 through 8,899).

To read the complete article, see:
A Crown and Taler Man, Reflections on Dr. John S. Davenport (www.coinweek.com/education/numismatic-history/crown-taler-man-reflections-dr-john-s-davenport/)

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