THE FABULOUS ERIC NEWMAN COLLECTION, PART 1

it has not been revealed just how much of the Newman Collection will be auctioned and future consignments have not been finalized. My present purpose, here in part 1, is to discuss an 1845 Proof set, an 1852 territorial gold piece, and U.S. Mint errors that will be sold by Heritage in April, and to provide some general background regarding Newman and his collection.

In part 2, I will discuss U.S. patterns that will also be sold by Heritage in April. This group of patterns from the Newman Collection is excellent, especially in terms of quality.

So far, I have been unable to determine how sales of items from Eric Newman’s collection will impact the Newman Money Museum. Beyond the upcoming Heritage auction in April, not much has been revealed regarding plans for releases of items from Newman’s collection.

Many of Eric Newman’s rarer items were acquired from the estate of Col. E. H. R. Green, who had one of the all-time best collections of U.S. coins. Actually, Newman had met Green while Newman was a student at MIT in the 1930s, then and now, one of the best educational institutions in the world for the study of science. Newman and other MIT students were permitted to use Green’s radio station at Green’s facility in South Dartmouth, Massachusetts. I am not aware of any evidence that Green and Newman ever discussed coins or that Green knew of Newman’s interest in numismatics.

After Col. E. H. R. Green died in 1936, Newman contacted someone associated with Green’s properties in an effort to acquire paper money relating to the State of Missouri that was in Green’s collection. There is much information regarding Newman’s efforts in a book that was published in 2003, Million Dollar Nickels, by Paul Montgomery, Mark Borckardt and Ray Knight.

While Newman’s inquiries were rebuffed at first, he was persistent. Not long afterwards, he was able to purchase important pieces of paper money from the Green Estate. Regarding his efforts to obtain items from the Green estate, Newman confided in Burdette Johnson.

When Johnson was told by Newman that Eric had successfully obtained numismatic items from the Col. Green Collection, Johnson offered to invest funds and proposed that he and Eric become partners in a project to acquire numismatic items from the Green estate. By the early 1940s, Newman and Johnson had succeeded in obtaining a large part of Col. Green’s numismatic collection, including all five 1913 Liberty Nickels!

To read the complete article, see: Coin Rarities & Related Topics: The Fabulous Eric Newman Collection, part 1 (www.coinweek.com/featured-news/coin-rarities-related-topics
-the-fabulous-eric-newman-collection-part-1/)

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