The E-Sylum:  Volume 11, Number 18, May 4, 2008, Article 18

MORE ON ASYLUM EDITOR CARLING GRESHAM

[A May 1st article by Fred Schwan on NumisMaster provides
more background on Carling Gresham, a onetime editor of
our print journal, The Asylum.  Carling was also a founding
editor of Krasue Publications' Bank Note Reporter newspaper.
-Editor]

Carling Gresham, the first editor of the Bank Note Reporter,
died in January in Palatka, Fla., after a short illness.
He was 81.

Of course this is a sad milestone for the paper. It is also
personal for me. Carling was also my first editor. Carling
himself in his final editorial at the paper stated that
helping to "give birth" to a newspaper can be frightfully
frustrating and also, very rewarding.

Within a few months of the founding of Bank Note Reporter,
I was recruited by Grover Criswell to write for the paper
and here I am 35 years and quite a few editors later.

Grover recruited me, but then I worked with Carling for the
July 1973 issue, my first with a byline and his last as editor.
I only met him face to face a few times. I think that the
meetings were all at American Numismatic Association conventions.
In spite of working with him on the paper, I never got to know
him very well - a fact that I now regret.

The early months (and years) in the history of the Bank Note
Reporter were chaotic at best. It was an idea whose time had
come, but its survival was far from assured and much of the
credit for getting the early issues out surely belongs to
Carling. Without him I am sure that the paper would have failed,
and it is hard to imagine what we would have today as a regular
commercial paper money publication.

My recollection is that Carling was a bit cantankerous and
eccentric in at least some ways. I think that he liked that
image. He made comments to provoke discussion and to test
the knowledge and convictions of the other party. I think
that he was a bit (or more) eccentric in several ways, too.

The July 1973 BNR was the last under Carling's leadership.
His editorial describes some of the victories, failures, and
difficulties of the birth of our paper.

Carling Gresham will be missed, but his legacy remains.

To read the complete article, see:
Full Story

  Wayne Homren, Editor

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