RAYMOND FRANCIS HANISCO (1950-2014)

I have mentioned that I am working on a long-term project to write about numismatic criminals and victims. I suggested to Wayne that I use my research to occasionally run one of these stories in The E-Sylum.

Ray Hanisco was born in Philadelphia on September 19. 1950. His parents were Raymond L. Hanisco and Mary Kuchers Hanisco. In 1977 he received a B.A. in anthropology from Pennsylvania State University. He married Paula Hayko and had three sons.

He served with the U. S. Army in Vietnam during 1971-73. He wrote a number of articles on veterans' issues and was identified as veterans' editor for the bellaonline.com website. A collection of his articles was compiled as A Veterans' Anthology which was published on December 22, 2013, about three weeks before his death.

He died at the VA Medical Center in Minneapolis on January 11, 2014. His cremains are in a burial vault at Fort Snelling National Cemetery.

An item in the October 9, 2005, issue of The E-Sylum identified Hanisco as the editor of the Belladona Coin News. That is the only time that periodical is mentioned in the Newman Numismatic Portal.

Hanisco has a LinkedIn listing. He indicates that he is Veterans Editor for Bellaonline.com, that his experience is Jul 2013 – Present, and thus has been at this for 10 years and three months. There is a problem with this information as he has been dead for 9 years and 4 months.

Becoming an editor requires an application. There is no fee to join and no compensation. It is a forum where aspiring writers can get articles published. Perhaps it is somewhat like getting an article published in The E-Sylum.

Hanisco wrote a number articles on coin collecting for the hobbies section of the website. Some have been recognized as important and cited in other references. Here are a few titles:

Getting Started in Coin Collecting
There's Just no Humor in Coin Collecting
The Saint Patrick Coppers
The United States Four Dollar Gold Stella
The Silver Coinage of the Kingdom of Hawaii

In general, I found the articles to be well written and would have required research and knowledge of the subject. This was, in my opinion, unique for a telemarketer.

His obituary stated that he maintained his career in professional numismatics in Minnesota.

In 2001 he advertised for telesales professionals under the name of Westminster Group.

In 2007 he was listed with Independent Coin Services of Bloomington, Minnesota.

Ray joined the ANA as Member 3122738 in November 1989. The December 2007 issue of The Numismatist announced that he was expelled for failure to pay $408.92 for materials purchased.

Hanisco was a salesman for Twin Cities Gold and Silver Exchange (TCGS) in Plymouth. At that time it was a telemarketing firm owned by Jeffery Wolfebauer. Hanisco left in 2009 to form Guardian Gold and Silver Exchange with partner Schaun Waste as vice president and chief operating officer.

To make a good start in the new company, Waste took the TCGS customer list with him. Guardian also recruited salesmen from TCGS to come work for them. This has been a common problem in the Minnesota telemarketing industry. In 2010 TCGS sued and Guardian agreed to pay $35,000 and stop using the list and stop recruiting from TCGS staff.

In 2012, Minnesota Attorney General Lori Swanson sued Guardian, Hanisco and Waste for bilking customers, mostly elderly, on sales of coins and bullion. Guardian filed for bankruptcy in 2012 with debts of $1.7 million.

The case was prosecuted while Swanson was working to get bullion trading regulations passed through the Minnesota legislature. The first version of the law was passed in 2013 and took effect on July 1, 2014.

Schaun Waste took most of the heat. In 2015 he was ordered to pay $2 million in restitution and was banned from the industry for life. By the way, his current LinkedIn page states that he is vice president of Guardian Gold and Silver Exchange, nearly eight years since a court order banned him from the industry for life.

Hanisco avoided prosecution by dying in 2014.

To read the earlier E-Sylum article, see:
NEW NUMISMATIC WEB SITE BUZZ? (https://coinbooks.org/esylum_v08n43a15.html)

	NBS (coinbooks.org) Web