WILLIAM VON BERGEN (1850-1916)

Wilhelm or Willem (Americanized as William) Von Bergen (1850-1916), was born on April 24, 1850, at Berne, Switzerland, son of Christian Von Bergen and Elizabeth Von Bergen.

He lived at various address including : 87 Court Street, Boston, Massachusetts; 89 Court Street, Boston, Massachusetts; 91 Scollay Square, Boston, Massachusetts; Numismatic Bank, Washington Street, Boston.

Gouldings New York City Directory (1877) : 1460, lists a William von Bergen working as a porter living at 401 West 18th Street, New York. In Scientific American, Volume 45, August 27, (1881) : 138 he is reported to have invented a device that acts as both a camera and magic lantern, while residing at Andover, Massachusetts. In The Boston Directory of 1882 he is listed as an agent for Union Camera Company, living at 20 Conant Street, Roxbury, near W. E. Woodward. Von Bergen was a coin dealer well known through his book Rare Coins, and from his many advertisements. He is ANA Member No. 10. He is the publisher of Rare Coin Encyclopedia. He was a large man with a dark beard who spoke with a German accent and was also fluent in French and at times worked as a translator of French books.

Wilhem Von Bergen published Rare Coins of America in 1885, which borrowed from Dye's Coin Encyclopedia, first published in 1883, largely the work of Ebenezer Locke Mason, Jr, who published it under the name of his old friend and colleague during and after the Civil War, John Smith Dye.

On March 14, 1887, he married Hulda E. Schnorr (1865-1913), a German immigrant. They had three children. His marriage license records him as a boot maker.

In June 1890, Ebenezer Locke Mason, Jr., is the first to give us a report about Von Bergen in one of his signature ribald accounts. It relates an event that probably occurred five or six years earlier when Wilhelm was as green as a new mowed lawn as a coin dealer not even knowing the value of the 1802 half dime, something a beginner should have known.

"A large advertiser, a foreigner, has recently startled the country by opening a "Bank" (he is not a burglar, but on the contrary quite an intelligent gentleman, lacking only in numismatic lore and practiced experience as a "coin dealer"). By "opening a bank," we would simply say, it was a "Numismatic Bank" that he opened, whatever that may mean; but all banks partake of a numismatic character; hence our new dealer is not far astray in his nomenclature. Well, a collector, well known in this balliwick, had a valuable half dime, one of the early United States rarities, and offered it to the above-named "Bank" for sale. The President, or presiding genius, who holds forth in a small office, about three flights up (the nearer to heaven the cheaper the rent) on the street named after the immortal George, of cherry tree fame, and somewhat noted as our country's paternal ancestor. The diminutive coin was handled and examined by the dealer for a few moments, when the following dialogue occurred :

DEALER.-- How mooch you vant for it?

COLLECTOR.-- How would five dolls. strike you?

DEALER.-- Vat, five dolls. for such a little piece like dat. Why my frent, dat is too small, and I would noot gif two dollar for little bit coin like him.

Our friend, the collector, had to retire to the entry to give the concealed titter vent, and when the street was reached, he indulged in a guffaw that was heard in the Daily Globe office.

Lucy it was that a friend was near the two gentlemen at the time, or the above incident would have been lost to posterity. The collector will doubtless offer "cart-wheeled dollars" when he seeks again to sell coins to the "Numismatic Bank"."

“Good Morning Friends,” Mason’s Coin Collectors’ Magazine, Vol. XIII, No. 1, June (1890) : 3.

Four and a half years later in his classic essay, Augustus Goodyear Heaton, "Tour Among the Coin Dealers" The Numismatist, January (1895) tells us :

"On a wide street in the same section of the city we found on a third floor front room of an office building the so-called `Numismatic Bank' of W. Von Bergen. The room contained a long counter and showcase of assorted coins, a safe or two, a young lady clerk at a table, and the dealer who is a rather large man with a dark beard and the deliberate manner of his nationality. We drew a few satisfactory copper coins from the 'bank' and made a deposit of some greenbacks and silver to add to its capital."

"The 1917 Boston city directory lists Edwin (1890-1954), Harry (1888-1971), and William Jr. (1888-1931), all still living at 196 Chestnut Avenue, but it includes the following line---“William died June 18, 1916.”

He committed suicide by gas from his kitchen stove at 196 Chestnut Avenue, Jamaica Plain, Boston. Tragically he suffered severe pain and anguish over a long protracted illness and lost his will to live. A very sad ending to the life of one of American numismatic history's significant men.

To read the complete article, see:
VON BERGEN, WILHELM (https://sites.google.com/a/numismaticmall.com/www/numismaticmall-com/von-bergen-wilhelm)

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