The E-Sylum:  Volume 8, Number 29, July 10, 2005, Article 6

JOHN J.FORD, JR.

Dave Kellogg writes: "You compiled a wonderful tribute
(Vol. 8, # 28, July 8, 2005) to John J. Ford, Jr., a man I
had heard of but never met. I look forward to more
contributions from E-Sylum readers."

George Fuld writes: "Some of my recollections on John Ford
were published in the Stack's Part IV Ford sale. He was a friend
of many years standing as I was his first customer at New
Netherlands in 1950, the week before he was hired by Charles
Wormser. I only echo the thought that if he had put in writing
more of his vast knowledge, his written memory would be
unbelievable. Simply, an era has passed."

Fred Lake writes: "My favorite John J. Ford reminiscence is
the time at an NBS meeting when John showed the "slabbed"
catalog of the Herman Halpern Paper Money sale catalog
from Stack's.

John had received two copies with somewhat bent corners
or other problems. He had called Martin Gengerke (at Stack's)
and requested a perfect copy.

Martin put a fresh catalog between two sheets of Plexiglas,
duct-taped the edges and sent it to John.

Ford proudly showed this to the NBS attendees and I was
lucky enough to get a picture of a beaming John with his "prize".

More to the story....I carefully printed an 8x10 print of the
picture, carefully framed it, packed it in bubble wrap, put it
in a box and placed the mailing label on it. However, prior to
placing all the contents in the box, I ran it over with my trusty
Toyota truck so that the dirty tire tracks were quite evident.
I even cracked the glass in the frame so that John would have
something to bitch about.

John, ever kindly, sent me a copy of my picture in another
frame that is inscribed "To Fred Lake, a man who recognizes
a Pioneering Effort when he sees one."

John was a pioneer in his own right."

Dan Hamelberg writes: "I can recall a John Ford story
regarding my quest to complete all the plated Chapman catalogs.
At the Cincinnati ANA, John brought a plated Sleicher with
the 6 plates bound in at the end. As I recall, he was either
going to sell it or loan it to Del Bland for Del's ongoing research.
I got to John first. I convinced him that the plated Sleicher
would be just fine in my library, and that I would be happy to
loan it to Del for his research. As we negotiated a price, John
told me the "story about the Sleicher". It was about the time
he moved to Arizona, and the books in his library had be
shipped ahead of time. When he arrived at his new home, he
discovered that there had been a break in, and a few of the
boxes of books had been ripped open with a sharp object.
The Sleicher was near the top of one of the boxes ripped open.
The sharp object (probably a knife) had gone thru a few of the
pages with plates, but none of the coin images were affected.
So John prepared a paste-paper mixture, and carefully repaired
the small tears that were between the coin images on the plated
pages in the rear of the Sleicher. The work was completed in
typical John Ford fashion---perfect as usual. I could not tell
where the repairs were made. Later at the ANA, after I had
acquired the Sleicher from John, I saw Del. News travels fast
at major coin conventions, and Del asked me about the Sleicher.
We shared a good laugh on my "intercept purchase" and I gave
the Sleicher to Del for him to continue his research, and told
him to send it back to me whenever he was finished.

I have written up the story of the Sleicher as above, and tipped
it into the actual catalog for future bibliophiles. John was the
ultimate perfectionist, and the Sleicher repair was just one story
of many that highlighted "his way". We all owe a great debt
to John for "his way". He accumulated and preserved a great
collection of numismatic material as the recent Stacks and Kolbe
sales illustrate. We will all miss him."

Tom Fort, editor of our print journal, writes: "Naturally, the
Summer issue of The Asylum should contain tributes to Ford.
Thus, if anyone would like to publish one or know someone who
would like to publish one, I will need the completed text by
1 August."

[Tom's email address is etfort at comcast.net. -Editor]

  Wayne Homren, Editor

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