Nicolas Marie Alexandre Vattemare (1796 in Paris – 1864), also known under the stage name Monsieur Alexandre, was a French ventriloquist and philanthropist who created the first international system for the exchange of items among libraries and museums. [Wikipedia]

Author of Collection de Monnaies et Médailles de L'Amérique du Nord de 1652 a 1858 (1861), an important early attempt to catalog the corpus of American numismatics.

The definitive numismatic biography is Alexandre Vattemare and the Numismatic Scene by Q. David Bowers (Stack's Bowers Galleries, 2018).

See also Vattemare's article in Revue Numismatique (1864, pp. 59-68 + plates) which expands upon the hard times tokens presentation in Collection de Monnaies et Médailles.

See also the exhibit catalog The Extravagant Ambassador. The True Story of Alexandre Vattemare, the French Ventriloquist Who Changed the World (Boston Public Library, 2007), which includes a paper by Alan Stahl, "Vattemare and Numismatics."