THE FROST SHIPS AND SHIPWRECKS SHELVES AT THE ANS LIBRARY

I was doing some research in the American Numismatic Society Library the other week and I came across the shelves of books on ships and shipwrecks dedicated to the memory of F. Gordon Frost, with many of the books donated from his collection (not all - I think the book about Homer's Catalog of Ships was already in the ANS Library).

The shelves look so attractive that I asked ANS Librarian Elizabeth Hahn if she could send me photographs of the shelves, which she very kindly did. The photographs are excellent - one of them I was able to enlarge enough to read most of the titles so I could virtually "browse" the shelves. I sure wish my library looked this good.

When working through Gordon's books, I sorted out the maritime titles into a separate area, all alphabetized by author's last name, that Rosalie Frost dubbed "The Seawall" - it filled about nine bookcases. John Huffman (who, like Gordon, left us all too soon) and I went through the Seawall and compared it with the ANS online catalog and chose books to donate that the ANS didn't already have (the ANS has such an incredible library that it is hard to find books they don't have).

John Huffman himself was a very advanced collector of books in this area - when he retired from the IRS his co-workers gave him a pirate-themed farewell party (they are a lot more fun-loving in the IRS than you might expect!). He knew more about the books in this area than I do, but when I added volume 57 of Transactions of the American Philosophical Society to the pile of books for the ANS and John Huffman didn't know what it was, I was proudly able to tell him that it was George Bass's final report about the Cape Gelidonya shipwreck and we definitely wanted to give ANS that.

Gordon hated using the term "rare" in regard to books, but I am more sloppy in this respect, and Bass's report about Cape Gelidonya fits my definition of rare, viz. I wasn't able to find it in the collection of the New York Public Library.

To read the earlier E-Sylum article, see: GORDON FROST 1935 - 2011 (www.coinbooks.org/esylum_v14n10a02.html)

Wayne Homren, Editor

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