Last week American Numismatic Biographies author Pete Smith submitted Query: Who is Bruce Smith? -Editor

"Bruce Smith suffered a debilitating stroke several years ago and has been out of communication since then.  I have been in touch a couple of times with his daughter who has said that he is "doing okay and progressing" in his recovery, although I personally think she is being optimistic.  He did not publish his Missouri tokens book; he did have a working draft that I think he shared with a few others."

"In addition to his Missouri token research, his Chinese numismatic work also came to a stop. The Wisconsin Bruce who (re?)joined ANA in Feb. 2004 is certainly the same person.  Perhaps his membership had lapsed.

"I visited him and wife Ruth about a year ago in Sheboygan, WI, where he still lives.  He had a stroke in Feb., 2019 and while his memory and speech are adequate, he has reading and mobility challenges which prevent him from pursuing the numerous research projects he had started over the years.  He has voluminous files and incomplete publications, mostly hand-written index cards and clips, though some digital files in catalog or text format, mostly relating to aspects of Missouri exonumia and banking history, and all aspects of Chinese numismatics.  He published many articles over the years in World Coins, World Coin News, and probably TAMS Journal.

"He worked for several coin dealers, including William L.S. Barrett of Montreal, over a long numismatic career, as well as holding more mundane positions, though his primary interest was always numismatic research and writing.  He pursued but did not complete a doctorate in Chinese Studies from Harvard, then spent several years in China prior to the "tiananmin square massacre" of mid-1989 when he returned to the US and worked for me until early 1992.  He did the cataloguing for the Daniel K.E. Ching Sale, which, along with Superior's Irving Goodman sale that same weekend, were the first large public auctions to focus almost exclusively on Chinese numismatics.  Most recently he worked remotely with J.S. Lee of Champion Numismatics in Taiwan, helping locate, research, and catalog important collections of Chinese machine-struck coinage, and editing Lee's magazine, Journal of East Asian Numismatics, which continues as a slicker version of his earlier self-published journal of the same name.

"I'm not aware of any book publications in his name, though could be wrong about that.   Under Colin Bruce at Krause Numismatics he was responsible for creating the China section of the Standard Catalog of World Coins, and probably other Asian sections as well."

"Thanks to Al Doyle at the ANA who confirmed that the Bruce W. Smith who joined the ANA in 2004 is the same individual as the one who joined in 1974.

"Thanks also to Sam E. Coudin, Howard Daniel, Ron Guth, Jim Moores, Yosef Saar and Bruce H. Smith for their contributions."

Thanks, everyone. We wish Bruce and his family the best. -Editor