COIN COLUMNIST DANIEL WEBSTER (1932-2018)

My article this week is an example of doing research when the subject shares a name with someone much more famous. Such is the case with coin columnist Daniel Webster.

The original Daniel Webster (1782-1852) was an attorney, congressman, U.S. Senator and Secretary of State. He was the subject of a rare medal (Julian PE-37). He also appears on a token issued by coin dealer Ezra Hill in 1860. There are hundreds of references to him in numismatic literature that crowd out any reference to the columnist.

Adding to the confusion, Webster was the music critic for the Philadelphia Inquirer. He wrote much more about music than he did about coins. His coin columns were published under the pen name of Henri Sault, his father-in-law.

Harvey Daniel Webster was born in Grand Junction, Colorado, on February 5, 1932, the son of Harvey L. Webster (1893-1962), a postal clerk, and Harriet Northrop Webster (1904-1989).

Daniel graduated from Dartmouth College and received a master's degree in journalism from Boston University.

Daniel was trained as a French Horn player. He worked at the New England Music camp in Oakland, Maine. It was there that he met Helen Theresa Sault (1920-1989). They were married in 1953 and had two sons and a daughter. Following her death in 1989, he married Karen Gripp in 1993.

He spent two years with the U. S. Army Band in Salzburg during the Korean War.

His first job was with the Newburyport (MA) Daily News followed by the Quincy Patriot Ledger. He was the classical music critic for the Philadelphia Inquirer from 1962 to 1999. In 1963 he travelled with the Philadelphia Orchestra to China in an early cultural exchange program.

His "Coins" column appeared in the January 22, 1978, issue of the Philadelphia Inquirer under the nom de plume of Henri Sault. The column ran through March 11, 2005, spanning about 27 years and two months.

The column was syndicated through Knight-Ridder. In June of 1978, the column ran in three newspapers. In 1985, the same column ran over about a month in a dozen papers around the country. When the column was discontinued in March, 2005, it was carried in five papers.

The Webster columns included stories typically seen in newspaper columns. He reported on new coin issues, auction offerings and results. He mentioned new book issues and new videos. He promoted The Counterfeit Coin Bulletin first published in 2000. When the ANA convention came to Philadelphia and to Pittsburgh, he promoted these through his column. He also promoted regional and local coin shows.

It wasn't just about coins. He frequently wrote about new medal issues and changes in paper money. And it wasn't just about American cons. He mentioned new issues of world coins.

With his base in Philadelphia, he reported news from the U. S. Mint in Philadelphia. When Augustine A. Albino was promoted to Mint Superintendent in 1997, Henri Sault wrote an article about him. When there was an exhibition about Philadelphia sculptor and medalist Gilroy Roberts opening at the American Numismatic Society, he was mentioned.

Webster generally wrote about current events. There were occasional columns on historical coins, but they were few. His readers could learn much of what they would get by subscribing to a coin paper, but without the ads.

Webster died at home in Wilmington, Delaware, on May 13, 2018.

To read the earlier E-Sylum article, see:
ROGER BOYE (https://www.coinbooks.org/v27/esylum_v27n36a17.html)

	NBS (coinbooks.org) Web