Who was the most prolific author in numismatics? That may depend on how you count.One possibility was Fred Reinfeld. He is credited with writing more than 260 books withmost of those about chess. I do not have an example in my library.

My father played chess, read chess books and owned a few chess books. I never paidattention to the author of those books. My father may have had a larger collection ofReinfeld books than I do.

Reinfeld was born in New York City on January 27, 1910, and lived within the boroughsfor the rest of his life. His father was a carpenter, Barnett Reinfeld (1883-1959). Hismother was the former Rose Pograzelsky (1886-1949). At one time, the family owned acandy store. Barnett remarried in 1950 after the death of Rose.

Fred Reinfeld learned to play chess at age 9 and played on his high school team. With nochess books available, he studied at the library and copied the moves for more than athousand past games. In 1926, he became active with the Marshall Chess Club.

He studied accounting at New York University and City College of New York. While atNYU, he won the National Chess Federation intercollegiate championship in 1929. Hewon the New York State chess championship in 1931 and 1933. He was highly rankedwithin the United States but never played out of the country.

He married Beatrice Levine in the Bronx on December 10, 1932. They had a son and adaughter. The couple operated Black Knight Press, publishing books on chess and aseries called Modern Chess Library. Reinfeld stopped playing in competition when hisson was born in 1942.

He began work as copy editor for Dial Press. His income was supplemented by hiswriting of chess books. Reinfeld began writing for Chess Review in 1933 and by 1947 hewas their senior editor.

He wrote his first chess book in 1932. Commentary offered a 'play-by-play' account ofimportant past games. His books helped to popularize chess for beginners. He foundthat books intended for advanced players did not sell as well as those targeted fornovices.

Reinfeld taught chess through community education classes at NYU and Columbia.Later in life he was on staff in the School of General Education at New York University.

His first non-chess book was an abridged version of Oliver Twist in 1948. When he diedin 1964, he was credited with 260 books in 32 years or an average of more that eight peryear. His peak production was 13 books in one year.

Chess was not a professional sport. He wrote,

Reinfeld had a great memory for anything he read and could make himself an expert onany topic. He wrote additional books on the topics of astronomy, checkers, geology,history, jurisprudence, medicine, philately, physics and political science.

His first numismatic book was published in 1952 by Sterling Books, then owned byDavid Boehm. Boehm contributed under the pen name of Robert V. Masters. Reinfeldwas secretary-treasurer for Sterling with Burton Hobson as sales manager.

He wrote nineteen books on numismatics between 1952 and his death in 1964. Theywere lavishly illustrated with photos. Some titles were published after his death. A listcompiled by Len Augsburger was published in Rare Coin Review in December 2000.

Reinfeld joined the American Numismatic Association in 1953 as member 20858. Hisnumismatic books were promoted and marketed through ads in The Numismatist. Theextent of his numismatic collection, if any, is unknown.

He died at Meadowbrook Hospital in East Meadow, New York, on May 29, 1964. Hislibrary of more than a thousand volumes was donated to NYU in 1965. In 1996 he wasinducted into the U. S. Chess Hall of Fame.

A 2019 biography by Alex Dunne is titled Fred Reinfeld: The Man who Taught AmericaChess. It relies heavily on quotes from Reinfeld books and Reinfeld annotations of chessmatches.

This is the Augsburger list of his numismatic titles.

Smarty Pants challenge of the week: What novel uses Reinfeld quotes to introduceseveral chapters?