HOWARD GIBBS, PRINCE OF PRIMITIVE MONEY

Our next meeting will be at the ANA World’s Fair of Money in Chicago, Friday, August 13, from 4:00 to 5:00 p.m., in Room 24 of the Donald E. Stephens Convention Center, Rosemont. An outstanding program has been secured; see below.

Wayne Homren: Howard Gibbs, Prince of Primitive Money Collecting

Our speaker will be Wayne Homren, editor of the weekly numismatic newsletter, The E-Sylum, and a consultant for the Newman Numismatic Portal. Wayne is also a member of the ANA, the ANS, the Numismatic Bibliomania Society, the Pennsylvania Association of Numismatists, and the Western Pennsylvania Numismatic Society. His subject is one of the best known members of the Western Pennsylvania Numismatic Society: Howard Gibbs, Prince of Primitive Money Collecting.

Howard Gibbs was the greatest primitive money collector of his time. An executive of the Pittsburgh Coal Company, he assembled a collection of over 200,000 items including coins and primitive pieces from Africa, the Far East, the Pacific Islands and North and South America, at a time when many of these primitive monies were still is circulation:

This collection was dispersed by Hans Schulman in a series of auction and fixed-price sales from the 1950s through the 1970s. Yap stones, Polynesian shells, Ethiopian salt pieces, Swedish copper plates, ancient Etruscan rings, and elephant tails from Kenya were all included. Gibbs was an Indiana Jones type who went to great lengths to acquire prized acquisitions, and the story of how Wayne acquired an archive of Gibbs letters and collection records is an Indiana Jones tale in itself.

For more information on the International Primitive Money Society, see:
http://www.facebook.com/internationalprimitivemoneysociety/

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