It was with great sadness that I learned on Thanksgiving Day the passing of my dear friend,numismatist Clem Schettino. With so many great memories of our adventures together, Istruggled, wondering how I could even begin to explain the impact Clem had on my, and somany others', lives. And as it sometimes happens, and only with the truly great friends, yourmourning is interrupted by laughter when you find yourself reliving the friendship from the verybeginning...

We were at the Cincinnati EAC Convention and those who attended will remember the"interesting" hotel in Kentucky (not Ohio) designed like a castle. The party didn't end after theThursday night EAC reception, and Clem was on a mission to drain every last drop of leftoverbeer from the kegs. Clem scoured the near-empty room for anything, and anyone, to save thebeer. He filled five pitchers to the absolute brim and handed me, a 15-year-old kid, two. Wetiptoed through the hotel halls trying not to draw attention but laughing way too hard andcertainly too loud as Clem tried to balance three full pitchers of beer. Then, a security guardwisely informed us that I, a minor, probably shouldn't be helping appropriate alcohol.Undeterred, Clem continued onward, now sloppily carrying all five pitchers, sloshing beer allover himself as he pushed forward. Lesser men would have made two trips, but Clem beganbelting 'Sunday Bloody Sunday' at the top of his lungs in defiance, arriving at his hotel room ahero to the small, but thirsty, after-convention party he'd invited. That was the beginning of ourgreat friendship, but the end of kegs at EAC Conventions.

Clem was a founding member of C4, at that time specializing in New Jersey Coppers, Fugios,and several other colonial series. Many people may not know that during the first C4Convention auction, the Fugio collection (auctioned after John Griffee's NJ coppers) was Clem's.

In the years to follow, Clem became a pioneer in the study of British and Irish counterfeithalfpennies and farthings, undertaking early serious work on creating a collecting system forthese understudied pieces. Anyone who understood Clem as a collector realized that when hestarted researching a new series, he went ALL the way. Clem's larger-than-life personalitybelied a highly organized collector with endless enthusiasm for research. During his study, Clemamassed one of the finest collections ever assembled, discovering and obtaining many new andunique varieties, and acquired thousands of pieces.

Clem had three standout priorities in his life, coins coming in a distant third. First and foremost,he was a dedicated family man. He absolutely adored his loving wife Lynn and his sons Alex andAngelo, and they were often by his side at coin shows across the country. Second to that, hisfriends and the coin community.

Clem truly loved coin conventions and was always excited and happy before a show, knowinghe would soon be right in his element. If you needed him afterward, you knew to check thehotel lounge, where he would be celebrating the day, taking upon himself the responsibility toensure everyone around him was having the best time they could possibly have. Clem loved lifeand had a way of bringing a smile to everyone's face, telling jokes (some even at his ownexpense), stories, or reassuring someone for the second time in twenty minutes that he lovedthe new coin they just bought. Nobody cared more about his fellow collectors than Clem, andhe is responsible for happily mentoring and inspiring many C4 members active today. He wasgenerous and delighted to share his knowledge and welcomed anyone that shared the passion -even me as a lost teenager that night at the Cincinnati EAC Convention when he readilyadopted me into a community that has since defined my life. Clem was my loyal and passionatefriend who never had a bad thing to say about anyone he cared about which is one of the bestqualities I learned from him.

Clem left us with many stories I would love to include here, which would take up hundreds ofpages, and all of them are worthy of print. But, almost all C4 and EAC members have a story, ora dozen, to tell because everyone who spent time with Clem emerged a better collector and abetter person. His name and memory will never be forgotten in the collecting circles, and I lookforward to future nights at the lounge after a long day on the bourse, going around the room,sharing stories and memories of Clem for many years to come. Rest in peace my friend, you areremembered dearly for taking coins and your dedication to your family seriously, but wisely nottaking life too seriously, enjoying all it had to offer and thus, shaping all of us for the better.

Hello, I am a collector and part time dealer of Early American Coins. I live in Massachusetts, just north of Boston in what's called "the north shore". I deal primarily with Colonial and Early US coins. Especially the state issues from 1785 to 1788. I collect the coins of New Jersey, dated 1786 to 1788. I have been collecting this series for well over a decade and still maintain my collection. Because of the fact that these have become rather scarce and quite expensive and I'm now finding it very difficult to add new varieties or even make upgrades, I have therefore been gravitating toward collecting and researching Contemporary Counterfeit British Halfpence and Farthings, and to some degree counterfeit Irish as well. These coins circulated extensively here during our colonial period.

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Clement V. Schettino DBA CVS Rare Coins(http://www.geocities.ws/copperclem/)