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RON GILLIO INTERVIEW, PART TWOGreg Bennick's latest interview for the Newman Numismatic Portal is with longtime dealer Ron Gillio. Here's the second of five parts, where Ron discusses his first coin shop, and working with Walter Breen. -Editor GREG BENNICK: For sure. Now, when did you open your first shop? Did you open a first shop around that time? I mean, how old were you at this point?
GREG BENNICK: Tell me more about that. Yeah, I'd like to hear about that. RON GILLIO: Yeah. Well, at the time, I opened the office, but I still worked. I worked at General Motors assembly plant. My uncles worked there. My father worked there. So, I had a job there. And I was buying silver certificates during the day, working at night at General Motors. And then I had this job where I got a promotion and I had an offline job. So, I had extra time. So, I decided that I would tell the guys who worked that I was buying these silver certificates. So, during my work time, I would buy silver certificates from them and I would buy them during the day from coin dealers. And then I would take a couple of days off and go up to the San Francisco Mint and cash them in for the silver. And then sell the silver to a guy that was a coin dealer in San Francisco, Wayne Portelli, great guy. He's retired now, living in Mexico. But that was a great experience buying the silver certificates and cashing them in. So, I did that at the same time, but I was making more money in a week than I was making in six months working. So, I told my father I was going to quit. He didn't want me to quit, but I convinced them that I'm going to do it anyways. And I quit my job and I just went full-time into the coin business at that time and then going to coin shows and just kept going. GREG BENNICK: Now, at this point, was this around the time or just before you opened Western Coin and Antiques? Was that around the same time? RON GILLIO: No, it's not. What happened was, is to give you a little bit more of what I did in the 60s. I was still in the San Fernando, Van Nuys. I had the office there. I was going to coin shows. I actually ran a little coin show and an auction with a coin dealer at the time named Paul Copenhaver. He and I had an auction company. We ran auctions 1967-68 in the San Fernando Valley. And then I decided that I wanted to move out of the LA area. So, I used to go to Santa Barbara a lot in the 60s. So, in 1970, I moved to Santa Barbara and opened a store in Santa Barbara, but at the same time, kept the office in Van Nuys. Oh, and what I haven't mentioned yet, there's so many little things that I did during that time. I also formed this American Institute of Professional Numismatists. I hired Walter Breen to write a book, How Coins Are Made and Mismade. And I had an office in Beverly Hills for the Institute, which was just a mailbox. It was not a mailbox. It was a building. It was 435 North Roxbury in Beverly Hills, where I'd go pick up my orders for the book that Walter wrote. And at the end of the course, the book, we would have a test. And I would actually give people that did it diplomas. GREG BENNICK: So, the book was like a workbook of sorts, like it was a workbook or a course of some kind? RON GILLIO: It was a course on how coins were made and mismade. At the same time, I ran that, I closed my office in Van Nuys, opened the store, Western Coin Antiques in 1970 in Santa Barbara. GREG BENNICK: So, what was it like working with Walter Breen on this project? I mean, Breen at the time was already quite well-known. So, I mean, that must have been a pretty exciting time to work with him on that book. I've not seen a copy of that. I wonder if there are any existing in the world somewhere. RON GILLIO: There are. There's been a couple of, I mean, I still have a couple of copies, but they're still around. They come up every once in a while. Somebody will send me a picture of this book. We found this book. Do you remember doing it? Tell us a little bit more about it. Actually, the E-Sylum, they had an inquiry about it. So, I did a little blurb on it for them one time. And it was fun working with Walter. That was my first experience with Walter in the 1970s. We did things later together, like the California Fractional Gold book, but he was very interesting. At that time, Walter, he was the main figure at a coin show, writing letters to people, authenticating their coins and writing them a letter. At the time, there was no grading services or certification services. So, he was kind of it. So, he was an interesting character, to say the least. And at that same period of time, from 63 to 71 and continuing on, I went to San Francisco a lot. So, I had occasions to visit Walter in Berkeley, where he lived. And he was quite interesting of a character. Then we did the California Fractional Gold book in 1983. GREG BENNICK: As I understood it, he had a photographic memory for coins, like literally remembered every coin he saw, as the legend goes. RON GILLIO: Oh, yeah. He was amazing. He could remember everything, every little detail. GREG BENNICK: Wow. Now, how many people do you think passed the course and got your diploma? I need to go find some of these graduates someday. RON GILLIO: How many people passed the course; I would say that there was at least a thousand people. Yeah. I mean, the course was $10. I mean, I'd go to the Beverly Hills. I live in the San Fernando Valley. I'd go to Beverly Hills, go there, get the checks, put them in the mail, send out the catalog. Some people would correspond with me. And then when they sent in the tests in the back, Walter had an answer. We used his answers, naturally. So, there was a lot of people that didn't pass the test. But many did. I would say close to a thousand. GREG BENNICK: Amazing. It's almost like your own college, essentially. RON GILLIO: Yeah, it was. It was interesting. GREG BENNICK: Very much so. RON GILLIO: One of the things I did in my career.
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