CHAPMAN BID BOOKS DIGITIZED BY NEWMAN PORTAL

The auction catalogs of the brothers Chapman (Samuel H. and Henry), published in Philadelphia from 1879 - 1931, are among the most pursued by collectors of American numismatic literature. The Bushnell catalog (1882), in particular, was a shot across the bow, a large format emission with photographic plates that challenged the cataloging standards of the day. The competition could not remain silent, and Edouard Frossard offered a grudging review in his Numisma of May 1882. Frossard damned with faint praise, commenting “the carelessness in composition, indifferent grammar, and tautology, found in the former combined productions of Messrs. Chapman, have to a certain extent been avoided in this.” While Frossard could not deny the quality of material in the sale, he concluded his commentary with a final jab, noting “….collectors will always prefer a good coin ungrammatically described to a poor one enshrined in the flowery language of rhetoric.”

Critics aside, the Chapman’s made numismatic history, and today their catalogs are collected in all formats, with examples containing original plates being the most coveted. The catalogs in the series, 162 sales in all, exist in sufficient quantities that complete sets can be reasonably attempted. Certain of the plated catalogs are rare, but these can be substituted with lesser, unplated copies as collectors await their “white whale” on the auction or secondary market. While this is a justifiably popular endeavor, the bid book copies of the auction catalogs are decidedly more difficult.

The Chapman bid books were used by the Chapman’s to record the winning bid and name of the winning bidder for each lot. As such, each is unique, used during the sale to capture the necessary data for preparing invoices. A complete set of the Chapman bid books necessarily comprises exactly 162 examples, the majority of which today reside in the Dan Hamelberg collection. Hamelberg has generously loaned a group of these to the Newman Numismatic Portal for scanning, and this first group, all small format catalogs, is now online at https://archive.org/details/newmannumismatic?and[]=chapman.

A total of 84 bid books are here, representing over half of all Chapman sales. An announcement regarding the large format bid books will be made in the future.

The Chapman bid books were first featured on the secondary market in 1970, in the Harmer, Rooke February auction of that year. This sale included 51 examples. Prices were shockingly low, ranging from two to 34 dollars. These bid books largely went to either Harry Bass (reappearing in the Harry W. Bass. Jr. Numismatic Library sales, parts I and IV, 1998-2000) or Armand Champa (Parts I and III, 1994-1995). By now results easily reached into four-figure territory.

A second large group, completely complementary to the Harmer, Rooke group appeared in the John J. Ford, Jr. Reference Library Part I sale in 2004. Ford’s library contained 38 bid books. Hamelberg aggressively pursued the bid books at the Champa, Bass, Ford, and Craig Smith (who had purchased out of Bass) sales. It is thought that not all of the bid books survive, although other groups may exist outside the Hamelberg library. The American Numismatic Society retains a small number.

Not all bid books are created equal, and those for more important sales are more highly prized. The crème de la crème are those containing original plates, and these appear to have been a matter of chance – if an extra plated copy was still on hand at the time of the sale, it might have been used. Of the nine small format plated bid books in the Hamelberg collection, all passed through the John Ford library, with none represented in the Harmer, Rooke 1970 sale.

Whether picked by Ford or a predecessor, these seem to have been set apart as more “special” from an early date. George Kolbe, numismatic bookseller, is of the opinion that Ford likely had access to all of the bid books at some time prior to the 1970 Harmer, Rooke sale and simply ignored those he felt unimportant. The fact that none of the Harmer, Rooke books appear in the Ford library seems to corroborate this.

Again, thanks to the generosity of Dan Hamelberg, longtime literature collector and ANS Trustee, a substantial quantity of the bid books are now freely accessible, via the Newman Numismatic Portal, to all collectors and scholars within reach of the Internet. These contain information found nowhere else, tracing the ownership of thousands of rare coins through the late 19th and early 20th century.

Here we see, for example, John Clapp collecting high-grade branch mint coinage before anyone else was interested (Wetmore sale, 1906, https://archive.org/details/collectionofunit1906chap, lots 437, 438). In other places the Chapman’s record their administrative costs (Shorthouse sale, 1889, https://archive.org/details/catalogueofveryf1889chap, inside back cover), a rare insight into the financial side of the auction business in the 19th century.

There are many more stories hidden inside these special books, and their general availability, for the first time, will be welcomed by the numismatic research community.

	NBS (coinbooks.org) Web