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COIN DEALER MAURICE A. STORCKWith the loss of Catherine Bullowa-Moore, some have wondered - who is now the oldest living U.S. coin dealer? Eric Newman has sold coins, but has always been a collector. Harvey
Stack and Dave Bowers have a lot of decades under their belts, but Alan Weinberg has another candidate in mind. -Editor
Alan writes: The longest living professional coin dealer is Maurice A. Storck who retired in 1970 from the coin & stamp business, now lives in Tucson AZ, is alert and well and approaching 100 years, and still mans a bourse booth at the Tucson Veteran's regular stamp and coin meeting. He physically attended the 1954 Sotheby's King Farouk Cairo Egypt auction, successfully bidding and reportedly still owns some of the Farouk bulk lots intact - including one auction lot of large cents, 1793 up. Maurice is one of the few remaining veterans who survived the Pearl Harbor Japanese sneak attack and went on to fight in Guadalcanal, the Solomon Islands and the Philippines until he was wounded. A reporter interviewed Storck in an article published May 25, 2014. Here's an excerpt. -Editor
Well, I work 40 to 60 hours a week volunteering at the VA for the past 6 years plus. I handle the stamp and coin program for the whole USA, sending out stamps, coins, Sports Cards to shut-in and disabled veterans for rehabilitation. I’ve got over 47,000 hours volunteer work there. It might be the most volunteer hours anybody’s got in the United States.[laughter]. [Note: Maurice heads up the Veterans National Stamp and Coin Club at the VA in Tucson] ME: When did you start doing that and why? Well, I’ve been in the stamp and coin business all my life, and I retired April 1st 1970, and I travelled in a motorhome with my wife for ten years around the country; then after that, well I had to have something to do so I contacted the VA. I’ve recovered 100% medically, so it was natural for me to do it, actually. ME: So, how did you end up at Pearl Harbor, of all places? I used to be in the old Hawaiian Division, in fact I’m perhaps the only living member of the old Hawaiian Division; and I was in the Hawaiian Division for over a year before Pearl Harbor. ME: Did you have any warning about the attack? Oh, shit no! The night before I was selling show stubs at the movie theater in Scofield. We had no warning whatsoever. In fact, of my company, there was only about 6 of 198 that was in the barracks. All the others was all around the island, some were married and at home and so forth. Most of the article is about Storck's war experiences. It's fascinating. Toward the end he touches on the Farouk sale -Editor
ME: Is there anything you would like to have people do, or anything people could do to help you at the VA in some way? We’d have to get somebody that knows something about stamps and sports and so forth. Otherwise, I’d be wasting my time – I put in more hours than anybody that works for me. After the war, as I said, I was in the rackets, I was dealing in coins and stamps when I was in school. All through the war I was always dealing in stamps whether I was in New Caledonia or Guadalcanal; Japanese invasion money and stuff, and I done it all my life. In fact, I’m the only living dealer in the whole world that attended King Farouk’s auction in 1954. I bought the bulk of his coin collection. When they kicked him out of Egypt in 1953, they had a big auction in 1954, and I was one of the nine American dealers that was invited to attend the auction. There were other dealers from all over the world – and I knew them all, cause I used to go to Europe every six months, and, they’re all dead. I’m the last living member. I still got most of the coins that I bought. To read the complete article, see:
 Wayne Homren, Editor The Numismatic Bibliomania Society is a non-profit organization promoting numismatic literature. See our web site at coinbooks.org. To submit items for publication in The E-Sylum, write to the Editor at this address: whomren@gmail.com To subscribe go to: https://my.binhost.com/lists/listinfo/esylum All Rights Reserved. NBS Home Page Contact the NBS webmaster 
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