HIRAM EDMUND DEATS (1870-1963)

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V19 2016 INDEX E-SYLUM ARCHIVE

The E-Sylum: Volume 19, Number 3, January 17, 2016, Article 20

John Lupia submitted the following information from his Encyclopedic Dictionary of Numismatic Biographies‎ for this week's installment of his series. Thanks! As always, this is an excerpt with the full article and bibliography available online. This week's subject is coin and stamp collector extraordinaire Hiram Deats. -Editor

Hiram Edmund Deats "the Sage of Hunterdon County" (1870-1963), was born at Brookville, Hunterdon County, New Jersey, on May 20, 1870, son of Hiram Deats (1810-1887) and Elmira Stevenson (1830-). His father was a very wealthy farmer and bequeathed to his son a fortune.

At the age of 16, he joined the American Philatelic Association (name changed permanently since 1908 to American Philatelic Society).

As a youth, Deats started collecting postage stamps of the United States and the Confederate States of America, and eventually created one of the finest collections of his era, eventually selling the collection. Deats specialized in the collecting of United States revenue stamps, and his collection, which in 1888 included the revenue collection of Edward Boker Sterling, was unsurpassed.

Deats amassed one of the finest libraries of Philatelic Literature in the United States, rivaling that of John Kerr Tiffany and that abroad of Lord Crawford, which, in 1952, he donated to the Free Library of Philadelphia.

He served on the first Board of Trustees of the ANA. He was also a member of the ANS. He collected New Jersey coppers, Masonic medals, curios, stamps, and paper money. Collected especially encased postage stamps. He was a Fellow of the ANS in 1890. He was an active life member of the ANS since January 20, 1880. He advertised looking to buy the deluxe editions of Frossard’s Nos. 161, 163, 165, 166, and 170 printed on thick paper. He also advertised to buy encased postage stamps.

He served as a member of the Grand Jury, which indicted Bruno Richard Hauptmann in 1934 for the kidnap murder of Charles A. Lindbergh, Jr.

He died at the age of 92 at the Union Forge Nursing Home near Clinton, New Jersey. His wake was held at the Holcombe Funeral Home, and was buried at the Cherryville Mountainview Cemetery, Flemington, New Jersey. After his death on March 16, 1963 his son Charles T. Deats, of Plainfield, New Jersey, sold the remaining numismatic literature to Allen Levine who years later sold the bulk of them to John N. Lupia.

To read the complete article, see:
DEATS, HIRAM EDMUND (https://sites.google.com/site/numismaticmallcom/encyclopedic-dictionary-of-numismatic-biographies/deats-hiram-edmund)