The E-Sylum:  Volume 5, Number 10, March 3, 2002, Article 5

FULD PERKINS BOOK PROVENANCE REVISED

  Neil Shafer writes: "The comments by George Fuld relative to
  the Perkins Bank Bill Test booklet need to be addressed.  I
  was the source of that item, and it came to me through rather
  unusual circumstances that I would like to share with the
  readership.

  As some of my friends know, I am just a musician "out of work"
  as I used to teach and play before I went to Western Publishing
  Company in 1962.   In 1951 I had the privilege of attending
  the Tanglewood Summer Music Festival at Lenox, MA, run by
  the Boston Symphony.  I had auditioned for Boston Symphony
  conductor Serge Koussevitzky in Phoenix earlier that year, in
  fact exactly one month before he died.   He approved a
  scholarship for me to attend, and I went (by bus!) - Leonard
  Bernstein had taken over the job of leading the student
  orchestra of which I was a member (playing viola).

  The boys stayed at a dormitory house called Wheatleigh,
  and the caretaker (like a house father) was a fine elderly
  gentleman named Frank Reynolds.  He and I had some
  conversations about hobbies, and as it happened, I had
  taken a copy of the newest Red Book of US Coins (1949
  edition) with me.  (After all, who would go anywhere
  without his Red Book?)  He asked if he could read it while
  I was away at rehearsals, and of course I  gladly obliged.

  Well, upon my return late one day Frank is all apologies -
  he had spilled a lot of water on the book and the whole
  lower half was puffed up and wrinkled from having
  soaked up the water.  He said he would make it up to me -
  I didn't make any fuss, just figuring he might/might not send
  me anything- besides, it was certainly nothing of any real
  importance, being just a Red Book.

  Well, a couple of months later I received a rather large
  envelope postmarked Andover, MA, from him - he had
  sent me a list of a few coins he had plus a thin pamphlet -
  and yes, it was the original Perkins 1809 publication out
  of Newburyport.  I put it in my growing library, but as a
  young person of 18, I had no experience with anything
  like this and had no real idea of its potential.  In any case
  it accompanied me when I went to my 4-year military
  assignment of playing in the Air Force Symphony in
  Washington, D.C.

  I subsequently stayed in the area after the service and
  taught music in the Montgomery County schools just north
  of D.C. until I left for my numismatic position in 1962.
  I had gotten acquainted with many of the leading
  numismatists of the area during my stay there;  George
  and his father (from Baltimore at the time) were both
  among those I had come to know.  I suppose somehow
  we got to talking about things like this and I must have
  mentioned that I had this booklet of Perkins.  The rest is
  history - I have no idea how much George paid me or
  what we agreed to. I did get a copy of his reprint (with
  indication of having been made in 1962, not 1960) which
  I have to this day.  Just thought I would set the record
  straight and add a bit of human interest along with it."

  Wayne Homren, Editor

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