AL HOCH'S FIRST PUBLISHING VENTURE: MILLER ON CONNECTICUT

George Fuld writes:

Back in about 1957, there was a small group of budding numismatists from the Boston area, whose major interest was U. S. colonial coins. Robert (Bob) Vlack was interested in all colonial issues, especially Washington colonials. Kenny Rendell was involved with early U. S. coinage and issued price lists on a major Hard Times collection and some important large cents. Phil Grecco concentrated on Massachusetts copper coinage. George Fuld was deep into Washingtonia and Civil War cents. Al Hoch was involved with colonials. And especially Connecticut coinage.

Now some fifty years latter, all but one of this group of twenty years oldsters are still deeply involved with numismatics. Bob Vlack has authored several books, on colonial coinage. Kenny Rendell is a major player in the field of letters and autographs. George Fuld has authored aspects of Washingtonia and Civil War cents. Al Hoch, who passed away recently began publishing books on numismatics with his company called Quarterman Publications.

Al Hoch, who was involved in the 1957 period with Bob Vlack and George Fuld with a mutual interest in colonial coinage references. One of them (I can't remember which one) obtained a copy of Miller on Connecticut coins from Walter Breen who had heavily annotated a thorough update of this 1920 vintage publication. The three of us decided to produce an updated reprint of Miller's book in an edition of about ten copies.

A fresh copy of Miller was obtained, and Al had photo copies made. His wife made the hand written updating by hand for the nominal sum of five dollars per copy. Al then had them bound in red cloth binding. Frankly, as the years have passed, I cannot remember what we sold them for and exactly how many copies were reprinted. My remembrance is that they sold for twenty-five dollars per copy.

This initial publishing venture inspired Al Hoch to found Quarterman Publications. One promise he made to George Fuld was the early issuance of the Token Collectors Pages volume in 1972 under the title “Gleanings from the Numismatist” which included a reprint of Dr. B. P. Wright's “American Business Tokens” and D. C. Wismer's “Obsolete Bank Notes of New England”.

Hoch's publication company produced several dozen titles, many of which sell today for multiples of the issuing price. I don't believe that Al made any fortune from these books, but he did it for the love of fellow collectors. Sadly he was quite ill from the past number of years, but his contribution to fellow collectors will live on.

To read the earlier E-Sylum article, see: MORE ON NUMISMATIC PUBLISHER AL HOCH AND THE COLONIAL NEWSLETTER (www.coinbooks.org/esylum_v13n50a07.html)

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