There are three "William Antons." The one most of us know (or knew if he is in fact dead) was Bill, Jr. Bill's father, William T. Anton, was also a collector of "Jerseyana" and I have his personal annotated copy of Wismer's "Descriptive List of Obsolete Paper Money Issued in New Jersey," a 1928 reprint of Wismer's articles published in The Numismatist.

Our Bill had a son, William III, whom I have not met, but Roger Siboni might know. Young Bill attended the first of Roger Siboni's summer gatherings. The listing for William Anton in the on-line version of Pete Smith's American Numismatic Biographies is too terse to me to tell which Anton he is referring to.

In the 1960s and 1970s Bill, Jr. ran small ads in The Numismatist under the name Woodcliff Investment Corp. which bought and sold colonial American coins. He was a contributor to both the 1971 and 1976 editions of Scott's Comprehensive Catalog and Encyclopedia of U. S. Coins which had a strong colonial section. Bill had some business dealings with Joseph Rose, probably through Harmer Rooke, a New York stamp collectors' auction house which held its first numismatic auction in 1969.

Bill wrote occasional pieces about his hobby and sometime business, American colonials. His main contribution to the literature was "A Modern Survey of the Copper Coinage of the State of New Jersey" published in The Colonial Newsletter in 1975. Bill Anton's name appears many times in the condition census of varieties of New Jersey state coppers listed in the leading treatise on that topic written by Roger Siboni, Jack Howes and Buell Ish, published jointly by the American Numismatic Society and the Colonial Coin Collectors Club in 2013.

This photo of Bill was taken at Roger Siboni’s house in Mantoloking, N. J. in 2004, with a group of collectors and students of colonial and early American numismatics, and published in a book written about the meeting which has become a much-anticipated annual event. Bill specialized in collecting New Jersey state coppers, his collection is one of the best. He also collected New Jersey colonial paper money; this collection is reported to include a rare 12-subject pane of signed New Jersey bills of credit of the much admired issue of March 25, 1776.

Astonishing that two great colonial specialists pass at the same time. Both Bob and Bill enjoyed their hobby/business and their collections and I have fond memories of both.