LYMAN HAYNES LOW (1844-1924)

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V20 2017 INDEX E-SYLUM ARCHIVE

The E-Sylum: Volume 20, Number 14, April 2, 2017, Article 13

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 dealer Lyman H. Low -Editor

Lyman Haynes Low (1844-1924), was born on July 22, 1844, at Boston, Massachusetts, son of Captain Francis Low (1795-1860) of Barre, and Reliance Cobb Burrill Low. He is a descendent of great-grandfather Low born at Cape Ann in 1720. His grandfathers of both parents served in the Revolutionary army. Born in Vernon Place, Charter Street, Boston, Massachusetts on July 22, 1844. His parents soon moved to Chelsea where he grew up as a young child.

As a youngster he collected coins when the nickel Flying Eagle cent was minted in 1856. At the outbreak of the Civil War he sold his small collection for $5.00. He took a numismatic hiatus for seventeen years returning to the field of collection in 1878. During the Civil War he served in the Company B, Thirteenth Massachusetts Volunteers.

Low wrote in his autobiographical sketch in the October/November 1908 issue of The Numismatist,

"In that year, [sic 1878], when a commercial traveller, I was sojourning in the West, on the Mississippi, just below St. Paul. Many foreign copper and silver coins were in circulation in that community, and I soon found myself making a collection of the various kinds I met with. By this means I became acquainted with three collectors in the town, and their hord[e]s were sufficient to rekindle the flame of twenty years previous. My ardor was thoroughly aroused, and the interest I took was intense! I dreamed and talked of coins incessantly; but I soon became rational, and launched into the subject in sober earnest.

"Almost immediately I began to sell as well as purchase. The captures, whether of pieces or customers, were not large or important. In the fall of 1879, after returning to New York after one of my trips, I passed the old store of Bangs & Co., on Broadway, opposite Astor Place, and read the bulletin at the door, "Coin Sale to-day". A few brisk steps took me up to the spacious rooms where the coins of the late Theodore Riley were displayed on those long, flannel-covered tables, which some of you perhaps remember. I attended the sale that afternoon and most of those that followed, whenever I was able to do so."

He was an active member of the ANS since May 18, 1880. His first advertisement in Numisma appears in the July 1880 issue. The exact same advertisement ran into the November 1881 issue. In January 1882 he revised the advertisement including siege pieces. He was busy acquiring coins he would eventually list at fixed prices selling them on December 25, 1882.

From 1883 Low professionally entered the coin business full-time, issuing his first fixed price lists from B. Westermann & Company, 838 Broadway, New York City. He became a member of the ANS. When he joined the Western Pennsylvania Numismatic Society (WPNS) he was still early in his career as a coin dealer. He became the librarian of the American Numismatic and Archaeological Society (ANS) in 1885 until 1891.

Low's first significant coin auction sale was that of the late Alexander Balmanno of Brooklyn, New York, comprising 1,064 lots, held on June 10, 1885. Previously, Balmanno had a coin auction sale ten years earlier on April 9, 1873 at Thomas Birch & Son. However, Low was to sell more from the Estate of Balmanno twenty years later on October 30, 1903.

In 1886, he published his classic work, Hard Times Tokens. This work was revised by him in 1899. Since then it has undergone several reprintings and expanded updated editions by later numismatists. The most significant being those of Edgar Holmes Adams, known as the plated edition, and that of Russ Rulau, called the complete and enlarged edition.

September 1, 1887, he became the manager of the Coin Department of Scott Stamp & Coin Company, Limited until early 1896. Low compiled all the numismatic literature, fixed prices lists and eighteen coin auction catalogues, of which three merited Davis numbers : 913, 914, and 915.

n the January 1895 issue of The Numismatist, Augustus Goodyear Heaton wrote his classic essay, "A Tour Among the Coin Dealers," and Lyman Low at Scott's Stamp & Coin Company was on his tour itinerary.

"The Scott Stamp and Coin Company has become a conspicuous location on Madison Square, one of the handsomest centers of the metropolis. The stamp department occupies the large and deep first floor of the building and many clerks are employed. The coin department is in a basement floor nearly level with the pavement. Near the show window two or three young ladies are behind a counter, busy at desks, or showing any desired part of the coin stock of several large fireproofs [safes] to the customers. Many coin publications are on the counter.

Far in the rear, in a skylit office and numismatic library, is found Mr. Lyman H. Low, the manager. He is a scrupulously attired gentleman in middle life, with white hair, mustache and goatee, a military aspect, but with a brisk genial manner. He is a member of the American Numismatic and Archaeological Society of New York, one of the editors of the American Journal of Numismatics, and a man of great experience in the science and of sagacity in business."

He died on Saturday, February 16, 1924, at his residence, 28 Clinton Place, New Rochelle, New York.

His last catalogued coin auction, Part II of J. Coolidge Hill was sold by F. C. C. Boyd on April 4, 1924.

To read the complete article, see:
LOW, LYMAN HAYNES (https://sites.google.com/a/numismaticmall.com/www/numismaticmall-com/low-lyman-haynes)