ERNEST JOHN MONTGOMERY MD (1935-2019)

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V25 2022 INDEX E-SYLUM ARCHIVE

The E-Sylum: Volume 25, Number 52, December 25, 2022, Article 6

He passed a few years ago, but I just learned this week that fellow Pittsburgh-area collector Dr. Ernie Montgomery is gone. I'd lost touch with him after we both moved out of the city. Thanks to Larry Dziubek who notified me of a notice in the Civil War Era Numismatics journal. A fellow member of The Sphinx Society, "Doc" was a regular with wide collecting interests. In addition to Civil War tokens, I know he collected half cents, Chinese paper money and model trains, having a massive train setup in his Natrona Heights home.

"Ernie and I used to get into arguments about coins during Sphinx meetings. That is what he remembered when we met a few years ago. When he was liquidating his collection he did sell me a really nice Feuchtwanger cent. The Confederate half dollar token that I sold you also came from him."

I remember him displaying his half cent collection at a meeting in a Capitol Plastics holder (those were the pre-slabbing days). Heritage sold his half cents in August 1997. Above is an 1840 original bought in that sale by another Pittsburgher, Jim McGuigan.

Here's what Heritage wrote when they sold his Chinese banknotes in December 2020:

Dr. Ernest J. Montgomery's collection of Chinese banknotes is the result of many years of careful study and patience, through which he impressively acquired over 95 percent of the issued notes from the early People's Bank of China series, to include four of the six rarities from the challenging 1951 Outer Province Issues, which were limited to circulation in the remote outer provinces of Inner Mongolia and Xinjiang.

In the formation of his collection, Ernest had an objective of obtaining quality examples of each of these notes. The extraordinarily well-preserved examples he acquired are a testament to his success in this endeavor, with a large portion of this collection landing in the top 10 percent of grades registered in the PMG Population Report, and with the majority achieving the Exceptional Paper Quality designation.

To his online obituary, see:
Ernest John Montgomery MD (https://www.dignitymemorial.com/obituaries/las-vegas-nv/ernest-montgomery-8200080)

To read the complete lot description, see:
1840 B-1a Original Half Cent, PR65 Brown (https://coins.ha.com/itm/proof-half-cents/1840-original-b-1a-c-po1-low-r6-pr65-brown-pcgs-our-eac-grade-pr60-cac/a/1348-3129.s)

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