John H. Burns, please remember the H with the (period.) as someone else had the same e-mail, but without the period John had once told me. Even the printer that made John’s business cards forgot the period after the H and John hand wrote on each of them the (.).

John was a great friend of mine and I will miss him terribly and not one coin show will ever be the same without seeing him in the back corner or the back of some coin hall set up with his wooden crates of books stacked high upon his tables. If you knew John this moment was inevitable and you wanted to ignore the future possibilities that one day John would no longer be with us anymore. It has taken me some time to really want to put anything in print as it would seem that the news of John’s death was finally reality and fact, not just some coin gossip spread amongst the show floor or sites.

You could not be John’s friend and not really worry about his health or the effect of the loss of his parents. John was shook at the loss of his Dad, but when his Mom’s health was failing and she needed care, it took a great chunk of John's heart and the biggest piece seemed to go as well at her passing.

I felt fortunate by John’s calls, of him checking in and seeing how life was treating me, our talks about just nonsense, the weather, a movie, music (hard rock of course), what girl he was interested in this week and hugged him, what he was going to be making for dinner or who he’d had dinner with at a show, his pride in being Scottish, a good bottle of Scotch or Wine, his collection of Porcelain Notgeld, how he did not like cats or his great love of his parents.

If John was your friend you knew it, he made the effort. Not just someone you ran into at a show or two and maybe had dinner with on occasion, but someone who genuinely cared when the show was over. Someone really hit it on the head when they wrote, if John was your friend, he really was your friend and if you had a problem or a problem with someone, so did John.

I have great fond memories of John and most of them do not have anything to do with Numismatics or Numismatic Literature, except for maybe the hauling of his books to his van lovingly named “Shamu” and then finally replaced with “Baby Shamu” and that when the show was over there was life beyond, even though it was hard to not talk about something to do with the show, the people or a good book.

One very funny memory for me was shoving John into the front seat of Rich Mantia’s little Black Honda Civic after a CICF show, because John had never been to Wrigley Field and how Rich had insisted how can you come all this way, be so close to Chicago and not go, so we did. John had a great time. We went to so many famous Chicago spots that John finally said, “Are we going to stop for Dinner now?” Taco’s it was. John not only ate his, but finished mine.

My son Spencer wanted to add a note of Thanks as well to John for allowing him the chance to work his first ANA show at the age of 9 years old, which was held at the Stephens Convention Center in Rosemont this past year as a Dealer, badge and all for the week. It was an experience that he relishes and will never forget, a moment and memory that will add to this very young Numismatist forever. Much thanks to John and Nancy Wilson, for posting the picture of John, myself, my son Spencer and Rich Mantia (my son’s God Father).

John H. Burns, you will be and are greatly missed and remembered.

It has taken some time to compose my thoughts and emotions regarding the passing of John Burns. I now find myself able to do so and that this is the best forum for being able to convey them. I could certainly compose a eulogy for him, but this is not the time or place for that.

John H. Burns, John Burns, Big John or John as people invariably knew him was a unique person unto each of us. John Burns was and is my friend! How lucky am I that I can make that claim. I was John’s friend, but I was more fortunate in that he was mine. John was friend to many people and they as well to him, however in the larger picture he was a friend to even those who never met him. It would be too easy to describe John as a book dealer, a bibliophile or as a coin person and he was far more than a movie or trivia buff. John was a man, a Scottish man who happened to be proud to be an American man. He was obviously large physically, which concerned many of us that knew him, because we cared about him and didn’t want to lose him to health concerns, but we all knew John was John and that he did as he pleased. It can be fairly stated that John had immense appetites, for life, for friendships, for conversation, for sharing knowledge and yes for women.

John possessed something that seems to be a rarity in this day. He possessed integrity, virtue, honesty and a lack of greed. Those of us that met and knew John were able to do so at coin shows, but only those shows that he attended. He was a numismatic book dealer as we tend to characterize him, but he only sold books as a means to meet people and share knowledge. Setting up his bookstall at coin shows to which he could travel was how he earned an income, but he didn’t actively sell books at those shows. He paid the bills and earned enough to subsist until the next coin show or if a collection large or small was offered to him to purchase. He didn’t make serious efforts to sell or grow his business, he made serious efforts to share himself with others doing what he liked in life. Books were just a way for John to meet people and gain more friends.

That’s where his wealth was located in his friends and the lives he touched. John’s booth was the place to meet others and where knowledge and gossip was shared freely. It was an oasis of civility in a room filled with greed and avarice where knowledge and enjoyment of a hobby took precedence. John was the barometer for business, if he spoke well of you to others then you were acceptable, but if he spoke negatively you probably deserved it.

Unknowingly and arguably, John sold more coins than books and every dealer that ever coexisted with John at a show benefited by his presence. John’s inventory was such that it was all encompassing for anyone’s collecting topic and priced so that it would sell. When dealers daily struggle to sell their wares to an ignorant public, he struggled even harder to sell the same public the books about their interest. Sold those books he did, through the force of his likeable personality and when he sold a book a collector would gradually become a numismatist and would buy those coins from the dealers in the room. Coin dealers made profits because John Burns made it happen, show after show, year after year. He did so much to advance the hobby and business and he made very little monetarily speaking to show for it, but he made friends.

John Burns was and is my friend! How lucky am I.

I could continue to write about the endless adventures and tales of John, they are innumerable, awe inspiring and enviable. He is gone forever in body, but not in the hearts and minds of those that he touched. Gone too soon, leaving the lament and loss of his friends grieving and trying to find a way to cope. We will go on, but without John … words escape me.

Thank you to John and Nancy Wilson, for posting the photo of myself, my friend Celene and her son Spencer with John at the August 2013 A.N.A. convention here in Rosemont, Illinois. It is our last picture together though mischaracterized as Rich Mantia and family, we considered ourselves as part of John’s family. I had the pleasure of unloading “Baby Shamu” and setting up his booth at the show with his wooden crates, but I also had the pleasure to help him sell his books during the show and at the end I packed up his books and reloaded “Baby Shamu” with him only supervising me. I was sweating profusely after moving thousands of pounds and John was worried about me, little did he know I was worried about him and I didn’t want him to exert himself because I cared about him and looked forward to seeing him again.

I won’t see him again and I miss him.

Thank you John for being my friend!

John Henry Burns used to call me about twice a week, and I miss those phone calls. I didn't find out about JK's memorial ad in Coin World until after it was published, but John did an excellent job, as have you and Pat McBride.

Just for clarification purposes, Nick Economopoulos is an ancient coin dealer from Doylestown, PA, and one of the owners of Pegasi Coins, based in Ann Arbor, MI. He is real, and was a friend of John Burns.