ARNO SAFRAN INTERVIEW, PART ONE

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V27 2024 INDEX E-SYLUM ARCHIVE

The E-Sylum: Volume 27, Number 36, September 8, 2024, Article 19

Greg Bennick's latest interview for the Newman Numismatic Portal is with collector and author Arno Safran. Here's the first part, where Arno talks about his background in music, including as a University professor, as well as the state of his collection. -Garrett

Thanks for tuning in. This is Greg Bennick with the Newman Numismatic Portal. In this interview, I interview Arno Safran.

The interview was conducted over the phone, so the quality isn't…perfect, but it's great, because you get to listen to Arno Safran. So, if you're willing to forgive just the slight variances between absolutely perfect recording and just a great conversation that was recorded between two people interested in coins, then I think you'll really appreciate this interview. So, sit back for the next half hour and enjoy this conversation with Arno Safran.

GREG BENNICK: I am here with Arno Safran and I wanted to ask some questions today, and just get to the bottom of who you are as a collector and as a researcher and a presenter and as a coin club enthusiast. And I guess Arno, what I'll start with is this: I've reviewed a whole bunch of your PowerPoint presentations and there are so many presentations that you have given over the years to your coin club and I am just going to ask, where did the inspiration come from to present so much and so often?

ARNO SAFRAN: I was a professor of music when I was called into Trenton, New Jersey College, at the time it was called something else, not what it's called today. But I was a professor from 1965 all the way to 1992, and I resigned at that time. I was not quite 60. My wife, Wilma Christian, was a professor at a high school, actually. She taught the gifted and talented up at a northern New Jersey school. A beautiful woman, very, very charming, very intelligent. Not a musician but appreciated my musical work. And I also was a composer.

I had a few pieces performed. But it's very hard as a musician to get people to do your music, especially when some of your own colleagues are very much in their own world. They don't want to help you out at all. So that's where I was at that time, between 1965 and 1992. And then I went off. I started collecting during the bicentennial. That's how far back I go. And I remember, like everyone else in numismatics, bought you know, rolls of Ben Franklin halves. I didn't know a damn thing about bell lines or anything of that nature back then.

And I gradually got into it more seriously when I met some of the guys in the EAC, Early American Coppers. And these were wonderful gentlemen. They really helped me get into it. I started collecting large cents and half cents. And that was my favorites back then. And I also got early…I started collecting early stuff…which was only a thousand bucks then, the early dollars. The early, 1795, not the ‘4's, as they were too expensive, but you know, the various coins of that period.

And, you know, I got them when they were still cheap compared to what they are today. I mean, a thousand dollars then, is five thousand dollars now. So, you know, after I got to be a certain age - my wife died five years ago - I started to do something; I kept more collections online. And I also did some things with the Heritage Auctions online. But I've seemed to stop. The last two or three years, I have really not gotten anything new because I don't know how long I have to live. And I don't want to make it more difficult for my kids. So, I haven't bought anything really.

But what I have is mostly finishing what they call sets, date sets. Most of them are without the gold because the gold is, you know, adds a lot more expense to it. But that's what I write articles on a lot. A lot of them, on date sets.

GREG BENNICK: Yeah, I noticed quite a few articles on transitional dates, meaning a coin or a date where a coin in a series ends that series and another starts. 1938 Buffalo Nickels versus 1938 Jefferson Nickels.

ARNO SAFRAN: Exactly. And of course, I gave a program, both in New Jersey, but even more of them are here in Georgia. And I also attended a lot of what I did that, you know, when my wife and I came down here back in 2000, I think in 2002, we went to our first FUN show. And that is incredible. It's a seven-hour drive from where I live in Evans, Georgia, which is part of Atlanta. It's about 200 miles east of Atlanta in South Carolina.

It was a wonderful show. I mean, I picked up a lot of good stuff back then. Like 1950s stuff, that kind of thing. Rare stuff. But now, you know, it's very different. I started buying online. But as I said, lately, I haven't really gotten more because I've got to think about my kids and they know about the hobby and they know all about it. They don't know really enough about numismatics.

So eventually I picked up a fellow named Vicken, who was a young man at 14 when I lived in New Jersey. And he lived in Ocean County at a show at a meeting we had. And he now works for Stack's Bowers.

ARNO SAFRAN: He's a wonderful guy. So, I'm going to send all my stuff to Vicken and maybe another six months. If I'm still healthy, I'll send it out to him.

GREG BENNICK: Wonderful. I'm sure he'll take great care of you. And I know that John Kraljevich also speaks very highly of you and enjoyed meeting you as well years ago.

ARNO SAFRAN: Two young guys, absolute princes of numismatics. Brilliant young men. And now of course, mature people. I think he's just changed his job again. He's going to work for another company.

GREG BENNICK: Yeah, that's right. That's right. He'll be working for Stack's Bowers. Yeah.

ARNO SAFRAN: Right. Well, Stack's Bowers….Dave Bowers is probably one of the greatest numismatists of all time. He's a tremendously charming man. He's also like me. He's getting up in age. But he doesn't show it. And his articles have always been great. I have a lot of his books. I really think that guy, I worship him. He's a wonderful man.

GREG BENNICK: That's wonderful. Well, I have a question. So, let's take maybe one step back in terms of your music and teaching music and whatnot. I'm curious about that, too. I mean, of course: I'm curious about coins and your connection to coins. But I love the idea that you're a music teacher and I'm just curious about your approach to music and what approach you took with your students and where your focus was and composing and all that sort of thing.

ARNO SAFRAN: I was lucky. Because the music of the 1970s and 80s, the rock was the best ever, better than the stuff that came before it in the 60s. In other words, the end of the Beatles, going straight through to many of the rock composers and into the early 90s. And so I could use that music as a kind of a base for the students and then play Stravinsky's "Petrushka", for example, which has certain melodical and rhythmic things that are similar to the rock of the 20, 40 years later, which is…they loved it.

I even had the little kids in the second grade when I showed some of the teachers to be what it's like. They were marching around to one of these musical marches in "Petrushka" by Stravinsky. I don't know how much you know this stuff, but I would combine the two. And I do the same thing with music, with coins, I try to make it more than just what the value is, but also, you know, what the fun is of trying to see what's going on in the country at the time, especially U.S.

I used to collect Latin American, but I sold all that in 2013. I had some wonderful Chilean works and beautiful coins. I got a lot from David Amey. I don't know if you know that name. I think he's getting pretty old right now himself. He used to sell that stuff to me.

GREG BENNICK: So when you say, did you combine rock and classical at the same time or that you used the rock music to..?

ARNO SAFRAN: You know, when I heard Stravinsky, he had certain rhythms that sounded like some of the same qualities of some of the rock music, I would play back and forth. And I also would give what they call rhythm band instruments to second graders in this particular situation, because I also taught elementary school music before I did college. And they would march around playing things to Stravinsky's music. Well, that kind of thing. And then also the Beatles at the at other tines.

So, there was, I was trying to show that the music is good, no matter who writes it, if it's good to begin with. And even if it's popular or whether it's a classical, you know, you can enjoy it from both ends. My wife knew a lot of popular music, all the words and everything going back to, you know, the 1930s. And even though she was born in ‘32 like I was. I mean she had a wonderful knowledge of her popular music. And so you know we had; I mean she didn't like Hindemith for example too much. Or even Schumann's quartets, they're too esoteric for her. But she loves you know Prokofiev, she loves Stravinsky as well as Mozart and Beethoven.

GREG BENNICK: This is fantastic and it's fantastic because I love hearing about people's depth, beyond just coins and learning where their passions lie. It sounds like you certainly have and have experienced a lifetime that's filled with a passion for music.

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.