JEAN COHEN'S LINCOLN CENT BOOK

   

There was a recent discussion of the Howard Newcomb book on cents and similar publications that reproduced the author's handwriting rather than being typeset. This reminded me of something along that line that I meant to submit earlier.

A book I bought a few years ago is Jean Cohen's massive work on Lincoln Cent varieties that was published in 1969. While the text is in conventional printing, the book is illustrated with standardized line drawings furnished by error/variety specialist Mort Goodman and then meticulously drawn on by Cohen herself. There are over a dozen categories covered, most of them minor flaws of the sort that seemed to obsess collectors during the 1960s. Cohen drew exactly what she saw on the coins, producing thousands of illustrations that fill this 600-page book. A cloth-covered volume, it is quite heavy, and I had to pay more for the postage to ship it to me than the book cost!

   

   

All of the information has been superseded by later works or simply rendered irrelevant by time, so I did not acquire the book for its reference value. Instead, I just had to own something over which the author clearly spent so many hours drawings squiggles and blobs. The sample pages attached only begin to hint at the amazing variety and breadth of the illustrations.

I couldn't find out much about Jean Cohen. It doesn't appear that she belonged to the ANA; at least, I couldn't find a membership application for her. According to the NNP she did have some brief articles published in Coin World during the late 1960s, but I wasn't able to read them. About the only thing I can add to her story is the presentation letter found within my copy of the book. I can't say for certain who "Frank" is, but it wouldn't surprise me if it were Frank G. Spadone, who did so much to promote these same sort of minor errors and varieties. I couldn't locate any review from 1970, when the letter was written, but I did find one written by Alan Herbert in the August 1973 issue of The Numismatist.

   

   

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