TIMES SQUARE IN NUMISMATICS

Times Square in Numismatics

The annual ball drop in Times Square on New Year's Eve is an all-day event, with gates open to revelers beginning at 3pm. What they do for the next nine hours I have no idea, but perhaps the time could be spent in contemplation of numismatic connections to the so-called "Crossroads of the World." Fortunately, Newman Portal is a just a few clicks away via cell phone, and we can only acknowledge the patience of those who stood await in the pre-mobile phone era.

In 2013, Odyssey Marine mounted an exhibit of shipwreck coins at Discovery Times Square. Odyssey is perhaps best known for the thousands of 1861-O half dollars pulled from the SS Republic in 2003. Odyssey further recovered Bombay Mint silver bars from the SS Gairsoppa, a World War II shipwreck in the north Atlantic, with 99 tons of silver pulled from the deep in 2012-2013.

Dick Johnson, in 2012, made note of the "Art Takes Times Square" event, which featured artwork by Joel Iskowitz that depicted Victor David Brenner discussing the Lincoln Cent design with Theodore Roosevelt. Finally, the September 1941 Numismatic Scrapbook included an article about coin counting machines that noted in part "an estimated 30,000 persons a month are served by the coin telephones in a single Times Square cigar store." Amounting to a thousand calls per day, one can only assume the store hosted a large bank of pay phones.

 

Link to E-Sylum, May 5, 2013, "Odyessey Marine Shipwreck Exhibit Comes to Times Square":
https://nnp.wustl.edu/library/periodical/15845

Link to E-Sylum, June 24, 2012, "Art and Victor David Brenner Take on Times Square":
https://nnp.wustl.edu/library/periodical/14607

Link to NNP search results for "Times Square":
https://nnp.wustl.edu/library/searchwithterms?searchterm=times%20square

	NBS (coinbooks.org) Web