FLOYD HAZELWOOD'S OLYMPIC PRESS

Olympic Press reprint first six volumes The Numismatist

Floyd Phineas Hazelwood (1911-1983) served with the U. S. Marine Corps during the Second World War. After the war he returned home to his wife and children in Salina, Kansas. In 1948 to joined Frank Bennett to form the Salina Coin and Stamp Shop. In 1957 he began making and selling 2x2 cardboard coin holders with acetate windows. He drove around neighboring states providing supplies for local coin shops. The supply business covered costs and an occasional coin deal produced the profits.

In 1961 Hazelwood organized the Olympic Press to produce coin supplies, philatelic supplies, and reprints of numismatic literature. An early effort was to reprint the early volumes of The Numismatic Scrapbook Magazine. These did not sell well. Later they reprinted 300 copies of the first six volumes of The Numismatist. Over the years they published three hardbound books and about fifty soft cover titles with 1000 copies of each.

Loren Hazelwood described the Olympic Press for an article in The Numismatist, July 1984, pages 1376-1380.

"Olympic's initial equipment consisted of a Heidelberg press (used almost exclusively for die cutting), Multilith 1250 offset press, paper cutter, Varitype headliner, camera and plate maker. Later a 16-station collator and a gluing machine were added."

Henry Udell Hazelwood (1912-1991) was Floyd's brother and made Plexiglas coin holders. His wife and children helped assemble the 2x2 coin holders.

Jackie (Jack) Duane Hazelwood (1937-1969) was the son of Floyd. In 1957 he joined his father to form the Wichita Coin and Stamp Company. Another business was HZD Enterprises, a large nationwide wholesale coin business, and Spartan Coin & Stamp Center.

Jack disappeared under mysterious circumstances on November 1, 1969. It could have been murder or kidnapping or a planned disappearance to avoid debt. His companies were dissolved soon after the disappearance. In 1977, a probate judge declared that he died of accidental causes on November 2, 1969. This ruling allowed settlement of the estate. In 1980, after contesting a payout, an insurance company was ordered to pay the family $375.000 in death benefits.

Loren Hazelwood was Jack's younger brother and was a charter member of the Numismatic Bibliomania Society. He formed the Numismatic Bookstall about 1978, initially to sell reminders of the Olympic Press reprints but expanding into other titles. This business closed after the death of Floyd in 1983 and unsold stock was discarded.

I talked with Loren Hazelwood on the phone in November of 2019 and we later corresponded by email. I was investigating another Akron connection unrelated to Hazelwood. He said that his brother has never turned up and his disappearance remains unsolved. He also mentioned that he took the photographs used to reprint The Numismatist. The original did not belong to his father and was borrowed but he did not recall the source.

I'm familiar with the Numismatist reprint and have a copy in my library. I recall Ken Lowe's delight in snaring a case of them for The Money Tree from Sanford Durst for $10 apiece at a time when they could be readily sold at $200 a copy.

Lot E318 in the Kolbe-Fanning Ephemera sale #4 (October 24, 2018) is a handwritten 1961 letter from Floyd Hazelwood to John Pittman. From the catalog description: "The Hazelwoods are most celebrated, however, for their facsimile reprint of the first six volumes of The Numismatist, and the letter present here establishes its beginnings and, apparently, the set from which it was duplicated. Remarkably, all of the reprints were done in Hazelwood's basement on a small printing press purchased without any prior printing experience."

I'm not at all familiar with the Numismatic Scrapbook reprints. Does anyone have any of these? Charlie reminded me that these are listed in his 1992 American Numismatic Literature book (Davis 506, p105): "The first two volumes were reprinted c1960 in slightly reduced format, the yellow covers of Volume 1 being printed with a black border while on the originals, four of the six issues have a border printed in color." -Editor