ERIC SCHENA INTERVIEW, PART ONE

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V27 2024 INDEX E-SYLUM ARCHIVE

The E-Sylum: Volume 27, Number 28, July 14, 2024, Article 18

Anther of Greg Bennick's interviews for the Newman Numismatic Portal is with exonumia researcher and collector Eric Schena. Here's the first part, where Eric talks about his diverse collecting interests. -Editor

GREG BENNICK: Awesome. Well, just a little background, everybody. Eric and I met last year at the ANA show. Is that right? Yeah, I think it was at the ANA.

GREG BENNICK: Yep, at the ANA show. So, we struck up a conversation because we had a connection through the Token and Medal Society, both an interest in tokens and metals, but also a literal connection, a person, Dave Schenkman, through the Token and Medal Society, and we started chatting. Well, within the first five minutes of chatting, from my side of the conversation, as I was asking Eric, as I often ask people, "What do you collect? What are you interested in?" Eric had given me a list of things, and where normally somebody will say something that I can relate to, collect, or I'm interested in, the list of things that Eric was absolutely fascinated by were either things I'd never heard of, things I never imagined collecting, and I was immediately interested. So, I said, let's do an interview, and this can be almost a 101 for people like me who have no idea about some of the things that you find interesting. So, I'm really glad that we get a chance to talk today.

GREG BENNICK: Absolutely. So, let's put ourselves back at the ANA. We're standing on the bourse floor, and you don't have to remember word for word, but I ask you, so Eric, I mean, you're on the Board of Directors, the Board of Governors, is it, of TAMS, or Board of Directors?

ERIC SCHENA: It's technically Board of Governors, but we're basically Board of Directors.

GREG BENNICK: Yep. So, you're on the board at TAMS, and you've won a number of awards, a Mishler Cataloging Award. You've won, I think, is it named after Dave Schenkman, the Dave Schenkman Literary Award?

ERIC SCHENA: Yes. I won a Dave Schenkman Literary Award, as well as the bronze version of that as well.

GREG BENNICK: I love it. So, there you go. So, I've got that much of a background. We're standing on the bourse floor, and I ask you, so Eric, "What do you collect?"

ERIC SCHENA: Oh, I collect basically the items that are off the beaten trail. The path less traveled would probably be the best description for it. My primary hobby is, my primary focus in collectibles, is the numismatic history of the Mid-Atlantic region, which is primarily Virginia, which is the state that I call "my adopted home,"Maryland, D.C., Delaware, North Carolina, and West Virginia. Those are my core states.

And by numismatics of those states, I am talking about the early paper money, colonial paper money, fiscal instruments, tokens, store scrip, picker's checks, all sorts of things of that kind, and including foreign coins that circulated here in the Mid-Atlantic prior to the establishment of the U.S. Mint. So, I run the whole gamut, and a little bit of national currency, and a little bit of national bank notes. Though, that sometimes gets a little bit out of my price range, so I don't have that many from my area.

GREG BENNICK: So, of that list, where do you think your main focus or area of expertise is in particular? Is it each and all of those things, or is it one in particular or a few in particular?

ERIC SCHENA: I would have to say it is probably store tokens, general store tokens and coal scrip, mining scrip. That is my primary area of expertise, with a side expertise in pre-Civil War paper money as well. And when it comes to pre-Civil War paper money, that is almost exclusively in relation to the state of Virginia, including the counties that now comprise the state of West Virginia.

ERIC SCHENA: I did indeed, the second edition. I helped him with the cataloging there as well as doing the layout and arranging it and going around out in the field trying to find some new tokens to list and also photographs of some of the stores and other related artifacts. One of the things that I find particularly fascinating with store tokens is, unlike, say, a 1909 VDB penny, store tokens, you can pretty much tell exactly where it was used and, in some cases, who used the token. Like, you could put names to these people.

And I like to go and try and get some of that history because a lot of it is what an architecture person would call vernacular. It wasn't meant to last. It was purely utilitarian. And a lot of that history has disappeared, in particular with general stores and coal mining camps. You will find with coal mining camps, especially, they're ghost towns. Now the famous ghost towns are all out west because of the gold and silver rushes and things like that. But there are ghost towns in the east, too. And they vanish and no one will have any kind of notion that it was even there, except, in many cases, the tokens.

ERIC SCHENA: Yeah, it's really kind of interesting. If you don't mind me doing a little bit of show and tell here.

GREG BENNICK: Please do and if you can add a slight bit of light to you, as you do, we might be able to see things better.

GREG BENNICK: There you go. Now, I noticed that Mischief walked away as soon as we started talking about coins. Is that representative of Mischief not enjoying coins or"

ERIC SCHENA: Yeah, she's probably bored stiff. It's all right. Yeah, she's got a cat bed up on my desk. I actually have several cat beds. My wife and I both have a bunch of rescue cats. So, we've taken care of them. But, yeah, one of the things I wanted to show was about general stores out here is, like, for instance, this is a town called Henry. And Henry is in Mineral County, West Virginia. I should say was in Mineral County, West Virginia. There is quite literally nothing there now. It was a coal camp that lasted maybe about 15, 20 years or so. And there are no tokens from Henry, but this is a book of coupons that were used at the company store, just like the coal scrip. And no one would even know where Henry, West Virginia was if it wasn't for something like this and people trying to preserve that history.

And so, part of what I did for Dave was go around and look for some of the store buildings and identify them and photograph them before they were gone. And in one case in particular, the store did in fact, disappear not long after I took photos of it, and it was in the, and it's in the book now, it was a store in a place called Rileyville, Virginia, which is in Page County. It butts up against what is now Shenandoah National Park or Skyline Drive, and it was a store building that was not long after I took photos of it, it got paved over for a church parking lot.

So, that's the type of thing that's important to go around and document and that's one of the reasons why I specialize in this type of thing with tokens and scrip, is many of these buildings they disappear and the history just disappears with them.

About the Interviewer
Greg Bennick (www.gregbennick.com) is a keynote speaker and long time coin collector with a focus on major mint error coins. Have ideas for other interviewees? Contact him anytime on the web or via instagram @minterrors.