BEBEE BUYS A BANK BUILDING: COIN SHOPS IN AMERICA

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V19 2016 INDEX E-SYLUM ARCHIVE

The E-Sylum: Volume 19, Number 40, October 2, 2016, Article 19

Dick Johnson submitted this this article about coin shops of yore. -Editor

In 75 years of collecting coins I have visited, if not hundreds, at least dozens and dozens of coin shops and coin dealers in the Eastern half of the United States. I recall the dealer and the type of shop he had, if not what I bought at each.. Most were street level stores. some occupied offices In larger city high rise buildings

Often my conversations over-the-counter with the dealer led to an invitation to the back room, an inner sanctum of numismatics. One of these was Art Kelley of St. Louis. In a shop filled with dusty antiques the showcase of coins lined one wall. Coin business was most often conducted in the back room where the coffee pot was always hot. If two people showed up at the same time you couldn’t talk to the other person. Gruff old Kelley demanded you only talk to him. He would berate any person who dared speak to another.

It seems the larger the city the smaller the shop, with some exceptions. After all that was needed was one showcase and a safe. Contrast this with some more elaborate and decorated emporiums. Silvertown in Indiana, holds the record for the most elaborate I visited. It is the Coin Castle of America. Two stories tall, winding staircase, showrooms, and, of course, the backroom. It wasn’t long befor the Hendricksons, father Leon and son David, invited me back to the work area. They delighted in showing me two bound volumes of the first issues of Coin World, most of which was when I was editor.

New York City dealers were almost always in high-rise office buildings. Bob Friedberg’s Coin & Currency Institute was in a high rise across the street from Macy’s where he had a first floor coin department. Hans Schulman was also in a midtown building, filled with odd and curious money and lots of books.

Since mail order is a large part of coin dealing, many dealers eschew shops to operate out of their home. Look at the ads in The Numismatist 60 years or more - most were their home addresses. In modern times you could even operate out of a warehouse and some did.

My blue ribbon here goes to Harry Forman. He found a building hidden behind a Post Office. A large room was where he and his longtime assistant Ruth Bauer worked, This was adjacent to a storeroom with shelves where you could find most anything related to numismatics. But you had to find the hidden driveway to that hidden building.

Longtime coin dealer Aubrey Bebee found the most ideal location. After years in South Chicago he bought a former bank building in Omaha, Nebraska with a walk-in safe. Now that was protection plus accessibility!

As a youth I shopped at a Kansas City Missouri coin dealer, Wilbur Bishoff. His backroom was his bedroom. He lived in his coin shop.

Modern times bring modern coin shop locations, notably the shopping mall. Some have given up this ideal location, with its inherent problems, and moved back to the home office. Joe Levine did this for his Presidential Coin and Antique company in 2005.

With the increasing number of coin shows and conventions, plus the burgeoning power of the internet and eBay it doesn’t matter any more where you conduct coin business. After all, even a coin shop with the best ambiance, it’s still the bargains inside that attract collectors.

Thanks, Dick. I remember visiting the shop of old-time coin dealer Addison Smith. I must have been high school aged, so this would have been in the 1970s. His "shop" was actually an office on an upper floor of the Jenkins Arcade building in downtown Pittsburgh. To me, he looked about 90 years old and was there by himself. There were some coins in the dusty window display, a desk, and not much else. I bought a large cent - I think it was an 1803 in F or VF condition. I paid about $20, and still have it somewhere in my collection.

Elsewhere in Pittsburgh was the tiniest shop I've ever been in. Run by Gordon Dodrill, it was located off the lobby of a Smithfield Street office building, tucked under a stairway in what must have been designed as a broom closet. There was room for a counter, but only enough room for one or two people to stand in front of or behind it. I remember some odd and curious money decorating the walls, including a creepy mounted and framed elephant tail.

I asked some of my old Pittsburgh coin friends to confirm my memories. -Editor

When I visited Addison Smith a couple of times Bill Ross was there with his cigar just chatting.

Dodrill- The Pittsburgh Coin Co. had a safe, a desk and two chairs behind the counter. Dodrill relocated from a spacious shop on the 2nd floor across the street in the Park Bldg. The elephant tail was there also, which fit his style of the best place to find “foreign” coins.

Ted Young [Young's Coins] works out of a triangle shaped building in Rochester, PA that was once the Rochester National Bank, I believe. It has an impressive original brass railing on the mezzanine.

The place is always busy. It is like a bakery on Saturday morning. Ted still does the PAN show. Ted and son Rick bring a hundred huge cinnamon rolls on Friday morning for all the dealers.