CARL H. SUBAK (1919-2022)

It has been a difficult few weeks for me personally as I lost someone who had a tremendous impact in my life and career. On the morning of February 6th I received a phone call that my beloved friend and coin conspirator Carl Subak had died at the ripe old age of 103.

Carl was nothing short of a miracle. He was born into a well-to-do Viennese family but as a teenager when WWII broke out he endured tremendous adversity as a Jew. He decided to leave his home country of Austria when he went into a park and saw a sign that said not for Jews on a bench. He was only a young man. His parents perished at the hands of the Nazi's and only through the eventual help of the Unitarian Service Committee was he able to find refuge in the United States.

Carl was interested in geography and was a lifelong lover of mountain climbing. He also made his career early on in stamps selling through the mail order company of Sears Roebuck. This led him to eventually embrace his childhood passion of coins into a business. Carl was lucky enough to attend the famous Franz Trau sale (a collaboration between Gilhofer & Ranschburg Vienna and Adolph Hess A.G. of Luzern) in May of 1935 (Carl was only 16 years old at the time) and purchased his first ancient coin in auction, a Gordian III denarius.

After moving to Chicago in order to be closer to Sears management (he told me that they only agreed to employ him if he would move closer so if he made a mistake they could wring his neck easier), he rented office space and well, the rest is history.

I never wanted Carl to be forgotten by the coin world so I made several hours of videos with Carl starting right after his 100th birthday. Those videos were gifted to his son Jon to enjoy and perhaps one day they will be available for others to hear.

Carl was a man that did a lot behind the scenes. When I asked him about all the auctions he attended and who he was most influenced by, he was honest. He said he had a representative help him overseas in auctions but mainly he stayed away from that craziness. He was close friends with Tom Eden and also the late Pierre Strauss (of Münzen und Medaillen). He loved Roman quinarii and Aes Grave. Dr. Cathy King, through the help of the Ashmolean museum, published a book on Roman quinarii and did a two page dedication to Carl at the beginning of the book. His collection also graces many of the contents of that book. A quiet but extremely generous and thoughtful man, Carl has left an incredible empty space in my heart. I will never forget our lunches at Italian Village in Chicago where the waiters all knew him by name and saved his favorite table in a nook on the second floor. Even to his last days (I saw him four times before he died) his mind was clear but his body just was giving away to the natural order of things.

Rest in peace Carl. May his memory be a blessing.

 
Carl and Shanna

To read Carl's online obituary, see:
Carl H. Subak (https://www.legacy.com/us/obituaries/chicagotribune/name/carl-subak-obituary?id=32816043)

 

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