The E-Sylum:  Volume 6, Number 10, March 9, 2003, Article 7

KLEEBERG COMMENTS ON W. H. SHELDON

  John M. Kleeberg writes: "In a recent posting, John W.
  Adams comes to the defense of William Herbert Sheldon
  and asks us "not to be glib with the truth."  Actually, if we
  examine the truth more carefully, we can understand
  Sheldon's life of crime better.  Sheldon made many
  extensive thefts of large cents: in the course of ten years
  of litigation and many more of research, I have found
  that he stole not only from the American Numismatic
  Society, but also from many of the leading dealers of the
  day - Abe Kosoff, Stack's, New Netherlands, Celina
  Stamp & Coin - and from collectors (the T. James
  Clarke Estate, the Gaskill estate, and Ted Naftzger)
  through coin switches.  Yet many have been puzzled,
  asking "Why would a tenured professor at an Ivy League
  university do this?"  One answer is that he didn't
  have tenure at an Ivy League or any other university.

  We can understand the motive for these crimes by
  reading J. E. Lindsay Carter & Barbara Honeyman Heath,
  Somatotyping - Development and Applications (Cambridge
  University Press, 1990).  This has an extensive introduction
  discussing Sheldon.  Sheldon's career fell apart after the
  "Starlight" crisis of 1936.  A woman he thought he was
  engaged to, whom he nicknamed "Starlight," married
  another doctor.  Sheldon wrote a foul, abusive letter.
  Her husband circulated this letter among medical academia.
  His bizarre letter led him to being squeezed out of the
  profession, and after 1936 Sheldon did not ever hold
  again another formal, salaried academic post (Carter &
  Heath, p. 6).

  His chief income was his full disability as a major after
  he developed Hodgkin's disease while in the army in
  World War II C & H p. 7).  Heath, who worked as
  Sheldon's research assistant, broke with him after she
  discovered him altering his data to fit his theories.  He
  wanted her to trim photos to fit certain somatotype
  measurements (C & H p. 12).  At the University of
  Oregon Medical School, Sheldon was given desk space
  and the title of "clinical professor," but no salary and no
  benefit under the grant.  In 1953 Columbia University
  threw him out of his space at the hospital (C & H p. 14).
  Sheldon insisted rigidly on a 7 point scale for somatotypes
  (C & H p. 13).

  Sheldon had many mystical beliefs, in particular about the
  number 7, which explains why he fit both somatotypes
  and coin grades into Procrustean scales of 7 and 70.

  After the Second World War, Sheldon had no substantial
  pension and no large salary - except for whatever he got in
  disability - and he turned to theft to pay for his retirement.
  He wrote his cent books and created his grading system as
  part of his plan - after all, I can always fool you into believing
  it is colder than it is if I make the thermometer.  He was a
  talented, charming man, but also a psychopath and a thief.
  We do not do justice to history or to numismatics when we
  sweep his crimes under the rug."

  Wayne Homren, Editor

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