ANA DOCTOR OF NUMISMATICS ROSTER

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V27 2024 INDEX E-SYLUM ARCHIVE

The E-Sylum: Volume 27, Number 31, August 4, 2024, Article 12

Last week Kerry Wetterstrom asked a question I'd been wondering about myself - who are all of the American Numismatic Association honorary Doctor of Numismatics awardees? E-Sylum Feature Writer and American Numismatic Biographies author Pete Smith went one step further, submitting this article on both the awardees and the award's history. Thank you! -Editor

The Cincinnati Numismatic Association presented a Certificate of Award to Waldo C. Moore (1874-1953) on March 23, 1945, which carried the degree of Doctor of Numismatics. Moore had served as the president of the ANA during 1919-1920. His obituary in The Numismatist stated that, "He had made more contributions to our magazine than any other person, living or dead." His title of Doctor of Numismatics carried all the prestige that goes with a certificate from a local club.

Cincinnati continued to be the place to get a doctorate in numismatics. Donald Kagin received that degree in 1979 from the Union Graduate School in Cincinnati. This was an experimental school for non-traditional education. Kagin created the curriculum to be the first student in America to receive that degree. At the time, this was a legitimate academic degree. The Union Institute & University (UI&U) had financial difficulties and permanently closed on June 30, 2024.

In 2008, the ANA presented J. P. Martin and Bill Fivaz with "Doctor of Numismatic" degrees. When two more were presented the following year, they were noted as honorary degrees. The honor came, "with all the rights, privileges and responsibilities which here and everywhere pertain to this degree." Those rights, privileges and responsibilities were not stated.

This is a Summer Seminar thing. Awards are presented at Summer Seminar to Summer Seminar instructors. Announcements of the awards do not mention who selects the people to be honored.

Many people working in numismatics have a Ph,D in some related field. There have been proposals for the ANA to create an academic program to grant degrees in numismatics. Currently there is no way for a student to acquire a Doctor of Numismatic degree through the ANA.

2008 J. P. Martin
2008 Bill Fivaz
2009 Ken Bressett
2009 Mary Sauvain
2010 Don Bonser
2011 Brian Fanton
2011 Tom Mulvaney
2012 Joe Boling
2012 Peter Huntoon
2013 Charles O. Browne

2013 William Shamhart
2015 John Kraljevich, Jr.
2015 Erik Goldstein
2015 Stephen Carr
2015 Douglas Bird
2016 Bob Campbell
2016 Brian Silman
2017 Kerry Wetterstrom
2017 Fred Schwan
2018 Jerry Bobbe

2018 Thomas Hallenbeck
2019 Joe Paonessa
2019 Jim Stoutjesdyk
2022 David McCarthy
2022 Steven Feltner
2022 Ricardo de leon Tallavas
2023 Jim Robinson
2023 Mike Ellis
2023 Rod Gillis
2024 Kyle Knapp

Pete's always quite thorough with his research, but this required looking through a lot of publications across many years. Information can be missed, or perhaps not published in the first place due to a mistake or oversight.

So - can anyone provide updates to this tentative roster? Was an award announced in 2014? Since there were four awards announced in 2015, perhaps this was just an announcement-timing issue.

Many thanks to Pete for pulling this together, and congratulations to all honorees! -Editor