We are finally able to welcome our members back to the ANS Library!

We are excited to finally welcome our members and other visitors back in person as we once again open our library collections for onsite research. Not that we've been closed for the past year. We've been here the whole time, connecting with members, helping people remotely, acquiring and cataloging the latest books, filling holes in our collection with carefully selected older works, processing archival records and rare items given to us by generous donors, and much more. We also have our donors to thank for financial support, with funding coming from individuals like Mark Tomasko, David Tripp, William Burd, Michael Bates, and Paul Harris, as well as from the Eric P. Newman Numismatic Education Society.

Image: ANS Fellow Constantin Marinescu visiting the library

Scanning for the Newman Numismatic Portal

In 2015, the ANS entered into a partnership with the Newman Numismatic Portal (NNP) to digitize items from the Society's archival and library collections. These materials are available through the NNP's website and also at Internet Archive, a non-profit online library offering millions of free books, movies, software, music, websites, and more.

With this partnership, nearly all of the Library's collection of early American auction catalogs are now online, along with some foreign catalogs, including those published by Sotheby's and Glendining. In addition, records and personal papers relating to two of the most important American coin collections ever assembled, by Virgil Brand and the Garretts of Baltimore, have also been scanned and made available online. The business correspondence of the late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century coin dealership firm of S. H. & H. Chapman, a collection that fills 22 large boxes and includes letters from over 2,500 correspondents, is just another example of the many important ANS items and collections that have been scanned and can now be accessed remotely.

The Newman Numismatic Portal's project coordinator, ANS Fellow Len Augsburger, has been vital to the success of this partnership, which provides benefits to the ANS beyond digitization, including improvements to the Library's catalog records and the physical rehousing of archival materials. This daily work is being done by the NNP scanning technician, Lara Jacobs.

Recent Acquisitions to the Library & Archives

LEFT: This childhood notebook of renowned numismatic dealer Henry Chapman from 1876 was donated by Patricia Peterson Stroud, his granddaughter.

RIGHT: ANS Trustee Jonathan Kagan donated the 1692 manuscript Spicilegium antiquitatis sive variarum ex antiquitate elegantiarum vel novis luminibus illustratarum vel recens etiam editarum fasciculi by Laurentius Beger.

PURCHASE
Thanks to the assistance of Life Fellow Hadrien Rambach, the ANS was able to purchase a group of early nineteenth century certificates and letters of the French numismatist Théodore-Edme Mionnet (1770-1842). Mionnet was a deputy curator in what became the numismatic department of the Bibliothèque nationale.

The Mark Salton papers-17 cubic feet of archival materials-include coin photographs and tickets, research materials, correspondence, and extensive records of coin purchases dating back to the 1940s. The generous donations of Mark and Lottie Salton to various colleges and other organizations is amply documented in the papers, as are the exhibitions to which they lent their coins and medals, sharing their vast knowledgeof numismatics. We thank the Trustees and executors of Lottie Salton's will, especially Ira Rezak, Alan Stahl, and Katharine Conroy, as well as Normand Pépin for this acquisition.

In September, the ANS expanded the Salton collection by purchasing six rare 18th-century German coin auction catalogs, along with 14 bidbooks of Leo Hamburger, and several other sales catalogs the library lacked.

LEFT: James E. McClellan III gave two engravings by Nicolas Godonnesche from his 1736 de Louis XV. He also donated papers to the ANS this year documenting his collection of French jetons.

RIGHT: PURCHASE
The Society acquired a collection of important pamphlets on the revolutionary monetary reform in 18th century France.

ANS Fellow Tony Terranova donated an 1804 print of Alexander Hamilton by Archibald Robertson, engraved by William Rollinson. He also gave several lots of manuscripts and annotated material from the sale of Richard Margolis's library relating to his research on the medallions of Jean-Bapiste Nini.

LEFT: David Fanning donated a fine example of Edgar Adams's fixed price list #1, U.S. Patterns, Hard Times Tokens, Store Cards, Numismatic Books, Catalogues, Etc., 1913.

RIGHT: Valentin Dzhaparidze donated 43 Russian numismatic books and auction catalogs.

For more information about the American Numismatic Society, see:
http://numismatics.org/