The E-Sylum:  Volume 8, Number 49, November 20, 2005, Article 12

GEORGE KUNZ AND THE EXTRA HIGH RELIEFS

Regarding Dr. George F. Kunz of Tiffany's, Roger
Burdette adds: “I have several letters of his
indicating that he was involved in "brokering" coin
sales between people who owned some of the Saint-Gaudens
extremely high relief experimental medal-coins. The
earliest letter is from 1908 and the latest from 1915.
He was also curator of Numismatics for the American Museum
Of Natural History in New York and arranged for the
loan of the Mint's plaster models and gold coins for
a 1908 Saint-Gaudens memorial exhibit.”

[Saint-Gaudens' son Homer was associated with the Carnegie
Museum in Pittsburgh.  I recall a story told by Glenn Mooney,
one of the local volunteer curators who worked alongside
head curator W.W. Woodside.   Glenn said that Homer had
arranged to donate an extremely high relief double eagle
to the Museum's collection.   For a time to coin was
misplaced and no one could locate it.  Eventually it turned
up in the reference library – someone (probably Woodside
himself) had accidentally closed a reference book with
the coin inside.  It was an embarrassing lapse, but everyone
got a chuckle out of it at Woodside's expense.   I assume
this coin was part of the holdings sold when the Museum
dispersed the bulk of the collection in the late 70s/early
80s.   With these coins selling now in the multi-millions,
it would have made for an interesting find in the stacks
of the library (the coin department's reference library
was transferred to the Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh in
the early 80s).  -Editor]

  Wayne Homren, Editor

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