DICK JOHNSON ON TOKEN AND MEDAL BOOKS YET TO BE PUBLISHED

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V16 2013 INDEX E-SYLUM ARCHIVE

The E-Sylum: Volume 16, Number 28, July 7, 2013, Article 20

Knowing he'd have a lot to say about the matter, I contacted Dick Johnson for comment on Peter Irion's column. Sure enough, a great submission from Dick follows. Thanks! -Editor

First, I caution Peter Irion in his casual statement "millions of tokens and medals." I suspect there are not that many different tokens and medals -- in the aggregate-- made in America. The total amount of tokens and medals -- of all kinds, that is, the total press runs of every different token and medal (with the exception of transportation tokens) is probably less than the total press runs of ONE DAY's output of coins at the U.S. Mints.

There is far greater rarity in tokens and medals than in coins. That fact coupled with the great diversity of T and M (are you tired of dates and mintmarks on coins of the same old designs yet?) -- you can grasp the appeal of this collecting field. If you can overcome the characteristic you are collecting coins, as MONEY, you might be tempted to collect T and M. There are pleasures in both camps, of course, but tell me why so many longtime collectors turn from coins to T and M?

Second, I am well into the listing of the medals for the book, a History of Medallic Art Company. I must cut off this list after the great outpouring of the American Bicentennial era (to fit in one book). I had record of 6,121 catalog numbers for the period 1906 thru 1976. This included one number for a series or a medal of several design varieties. My count this week if you add these in was a total of 6,995. I am certain by press time we will discover a few others that will certainly push this number over 7,000.

Also this week you may have read Jeff Shevlin was snapped up by Medallic Art / Northwest Territorial Mint after ANA in their collective wisdom thought he was dispensable. One of Jeff's special projects will be assisting me in work on this history of the firm. In addition, a previous company official, Rob Vugteveen, has returned to the firm so how I have two very capable associates in this project. (If you were at the 2011 Boston ANA you may have met Rob at the MACO / Signature Art Medal bourse display.)

Third, there are far more publishing opportunities in the token and medal fields than in coins, as Peter Irion suggested in his TAMS Journal Bookshelf column. Numismatists can make a significant contribution to the field by writing up a specialized collection and getting this published. Also your name will live forever associated with that specialized topic, like Julian is associated with 19th century US Mint medals. This holds true for both tokens as well as medals.

Tokens. There are 64 token topic fields discussed in Steve Alpert and Larry Elman's book Token and Medals. Each of these token topics is given a chapter in their book This book should be in every numismatist's library. It is still available and viable despite its 1992 date. (I ranked it at number 14 greatest work NOT on the List of Suggested Titles in the NBS Survey of the 100 greatest numismatic books).

Of the 64 topics 23 had NOT ONE reference work listed. Here are the unpublished token topics:

Many of the topics have numerous sub -topics. Entertainment, for example. has nine sub-topics each of which deserves a specialized catalog. Only one, Magician items, has a published reference.

Medals. I once compiled a list of medal topics and came up with 350 major topics. Of those only 14 had a published book. So Peter Irion is very much right, in that the field of tokens and medals is much in need of specialized catalogs.

Fred Reed's book on movie prop notes, Show Me The Money catalogs paper notes. A few movie prop tokens are illustrated, however (Acknowledgements, p197). -Editor