STANLEY THOMAS KIRBY (1940-2005)

Last week I asked the question, Who was behind Tri-State Coin Supply Co. Inc., distributor of the numismatic bug jewelry? The first response came from Julia Casey. She suggested it was Stanley Thomas Kirby. This article is based primarily on her research.

Kirby was born on October 27, 1940, in Temple, Texas, and died on December 30, 2005, in Pewee Valley, Kentucky.

His obituary states that he served in the U. S. Army during the Korean War. This is highly unlikely since he would have been 10 to 13 years old at the time. He was stationed in Korea in 1959.

He moved to Louisville, Kentucky, and worked as district manager for Alden's Catalogue and Appliance Store 1967 to 1969. He started Action Lawn and Garden Center on St. Matthews Avenue in 1969 and later in 1990 bought an interest in Cooper-Kirby Chevrolet in Crestwood.

He was married to LaRita Elizabeth Wilkes (1940-2019) in 1959, and had a son Stanley Thomas Kirby, Jr. (1960-2006). They were divorced and she remarried in 1962. He also remarried and had a daughter, Helen Elizabeth Kirby, in 1969. There is a record that Stanley married Larita again in 1993 and were divorced in 1999.

His obituary does not mention an interest in numismatics or any involvement with Tri-State Coin Supplies, Inc.

The address for the Tri-State Coin Supplies Co., Inc. was 310 West Liberty Street in Louisville. When S. T. Kirby joined the ANA in 1965, he gave this as his address. This is the address for the Landmark Building in Louisville, a large building with many tenants. No reference has been found that links Kirby directly to Tri-State, but it is a reasonable guess.

 

Bettye Klauss was secretary of the Evansville, Indiana, coin club from 1961 to 1964. Stan Kirby was a board member for the Louisville, Kentucky, coin club in 1965 about 125 miles away. When she was looking for a distributor for her product, he may have been the closest option.

Julia Casey found a photo of a Tri-State sales display from the University of Louisville Photographic Archives. They offered a small selection of common supplies but also showed the numismatic bug jewelry on the right panel, halfway down on the left.

 

The Tri-State Coin Supplies Co., Inc. ran ads in Coin World for four issues late in 1964 and in Coins Magazine December 1964 through May 1965. It might be assumed that the advertising blitz saturated the market and sales dropped off.

Stanley Kirby's employment and marital status are hard to document for 1960-1967.

We may have identified the distributor but have not identified the manufacturer. There appears to be a maker's mark on the back of the pin, but the photo quality is poor. Who will come up with an example to check? What did it cost to have the pins made? Did the project make a profit or did they take a loss?

An item in the November 11, 1964, issue of Coin World stated, Anyone purchasing or receiving a coin bug as a gift Miss Klauss advises will be eligible for membership in the Numismatica Domestica Club. How successful was the club?

If Bettye Klauss is an obscure figure in numismatics, Stan Kirby is about ten times more obscure. The hobby has had sixty years to forget about a very small story that made little impact at the time. It took a Beatles collector to bring the story to our attention.

To read the earlier E-Sylum articles, see:
CATCHING THE NUMISMATIC BUG (https://www.coinbooks.org/v27/esylum_v27n07a12.html)
BETTYE SNOW / KLAUSS / ROBERTS (1927-2013) (https://www.coinbooks.org/v27/esylum_v27n08a22.html)

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