BARON DE GUICHAINVILLE (1831-1911+)

M. Le Métayer-Masselin was a French, Canadian and later American numismatist who was a noted expert on ancient and medieval coins, who has fallen through the proverbial cracks of history and is now an unknown and rather obscure personality. This biographical sketch was created to reestablish him to the annals of history in the hope of resurrecting him and his son Raoul to the numismatic fame they rightly deserve.

Léon Philippe Le Métayer-Masselin, Baron de Guichainville (1831-post 1911), was born in Guichainville, Évreux, Normandy, France. He lived in Bernay in a mansion designed and built by prix de Rome winner, Adolphe Bouveault. He was a French archaeologist, entomologist, and numismatist. In 1861 he was the archaeologist who discovered the so-called Berthouville treasure, which included 3,000 Roman medals and coins in a site he believed was either a city, temple, or cemetery.

His family lost their fortune in the 1870's during the Franco-Prussian War, when his family had borrowed off the estate and the mortgage foreclosed. The de Guichainville family fled as refugees packing what portable valuables they could quickly and easily transport in flight. They emigrated to Montreal, Quebec, Canada circa 1874 to establish a ribbon factory, and M. Le Métayer-Masselin became a dear friend and secretary to the parish priest at Chambly about whom he wrote a pamphlet. While living in Canada M. Le Métayer-Masselin became a member of the Numismatic and Antiquarian Society of Montreal. He donated documents and seals to that Society in September 1877. After his attempt at establishing a ribbon industry failed about 1880, he then moved to New York where he became a naturalized citizen in 1898. There he worked as a private French tutor seeking elite New York families as patrons.

M. Le Métayer-Masselin owned the only known specimen of the William III Orange medal commemorating 1690 and struck in the nineteenth century by J. Belling,[1] a jeweler from Hamilton, Ontario, Canada, and published in a list on "Canadian Numismatics" by Robert Wallace McLachlan in the American Journal of Numismatics in a series of articles, with the citation of this piece No. CCLXIV in the January 1881 issue on pages 59-60.

He sold his coin collection and antiques in 1881 in New York. By 1898 he was reported in the New York Journal as being destitute in an article that circulated in newspapers throughout the United States. In September 1911 he was struck by a trolley car and broke his leg. He lived with his son Raoul and daughters Marie, and Elisa, who was blind.

Thomas L. Elder had written about the Guichainville family early in 1914 and read from his text as a letter before the New York Numismatic Club on Friday evening, March 13, 1914. Later in 1936, Elder wrote a series of three short essays on the Guichainville family published in Hobbies : The Magazine For Collectors in his monthly column "Recollections of An Old Collector".

To read the complete article, see:
DE GUICHAINVILLE, LÉON PHILIPPE LE MÉTAYER-MASSELIN (https://sites.google.com/a/numismaticmall.com/www/numismaticmall-com/de-guichainville-leon-p-le-metayer-masselin)

	NBS (coinbooks.org) Web