ROBB REPORT INTERVIEWS DWIGHT MANLEY

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V23 2020 INDEX E-SYLUM ARCHIVE

The E-Sylum: Volume 23, Number 20, May 17, 2020, Article 26

The Robb Report recently interviewed Dwight Manley, a lifelong numismatist known for marketing the S.S. Central America coins, his support of the American Numismatic Association's Dwight N. Manley Numismatic Library, and acquiring much of the Baker collection of Washington medals. Here's an excerpt - be sure to read the complete article online. -Editor

When the Chicago Bulls were atop the sporting world in the 1990s, winning six NBA titles in eight years, Michael Jordan was represented by David Falk, the sports-agent equivalent of His Airness. Falk represented as many as 40 players at the time. Meanwhile, Jordan's iconoclastic teammate Dennis Rodman, a pillar for the team's second three-peat, made a different choice. He hired a world-renowned coin collector from Orange County, Calif., named Dwight Manley to represent him.

Rodman may have been the NBA's most mercurial figure, but there was a good reason why he chose to work with Manley. The noted numismatist (the term for the coin and medal enthusiasts) may not have represented any other big-name athletes, but he had earned Rodman's friendship and trust in the years since they had first crossed paths in Las Vegas in the early '90s. Plus, as Manley put it, "It just seemed like whenever I was around him—whenever he was staying at the house—I found things that made him money off the court."

Rodman's incredibly successful three-year run in Chicago, in which the Bulls won three titles and the power forward led the league in rebounds each season, is once again in the spotlight due to ESPN's 10-part documentary The Last Dance. And the 54-year-old Manley, who was right there with his friend rubbing shoulders with Bulls superfans like Eddie Vedder and Billy Corgan, hopes the docuseries will remind everyone just how big of a deal those Bull teams were. The coin collector and agent recently spoke to Robb Report about his life's passion, his new prized coin collection and what it was like to represent Dennis Rodman during the Bull's dominance.

I really liked the two-pattern half-dollars. So, the US Mint was founded in 1792 and issued the coinage officially in 1793. The two 1792-pattern half-dollars that had Washington on them—they're technically coins, pattern coins versus being [medals]. As a coin collector, I really liked those, and there's only a few known of each. The slave token, the emancipation for Henry Clarck, things like that. That's obviously unique to that person. That in itself is a collectible thing.

That transcends coin collecting . . . That's a patriotic thing, something about good winning out over bad. That was literally someone's freedom in your hand. That's more than just buying something. That's your life. They didn't have driver's licenses, but that was somebody's life. I think that's pretty important.

Yes, I contacted the American Numismatic Association, and they're going to do an exhibition in 2021, which I am going to help underwrite for them. And ultimately it either tours from there or has a permanent home somewhere in a museum. I don't ever see myself selling it and having it be a for-profit event. It would be just as wrong for me to break it up or sell it, as I think it was for the museum to do that.

So, how did you go from being a coin collector to being Dennis Rodman's agent?

I think there's a similarity to buying and selling rare coins. Identifying something as a hidden gem and figuring out who needs it or wants it for the most money. With an athlete I see a lot of similarities in that. And I see Dennis, when I met him originally, when he had black hair and was a Piston, was like that. He was obviously scouted and on a team and playing on the highest level. But he still had so much more. The first thing I did for him was get him that book deal, and that became huge. As a platform, I think the published written word is still the most powerful thing to go in any direction you want.

We met in '93. [In] July 10, 1995, he was supposed to come for a few days to Orange County to stay at my house and then he never left.

I was having dinner at the Mirage, and the host said do you want to meet Dennis Rodman . . . And then, after dinner, I said hello [and] played craps with him. After half an hour, I said nice to meet you and left. I went back [to Vegas] a week later for a bachelor party, and I walk right into him again. And I'm like, what are you doing here. And he says, oh, I didn't leave. That's weird, but I said, I'm going to George Carlin tonight, you want to go? Yes. So he comes with me. Next day, you want to come to the pool? Yeah. Next day going to Laughlin for this bachelor party, you wanna go? Yeah. And so we became friends, exchanged phone numbers. Then he got traded to San Antonio. He would come stay at the house in Orange County.

Final question: Do you have any advice for young collectors beginning to explore the world of coins?

I would give the same advice I was given: "Buy the book before the coin." There is nothing better than knowledge about that which one is interested in, whether to collect, or as a career, and learning about it is what makes the adventure all the more enjoyable.