Ed Stoebenau recently purchased some numismatic books from John Huffman's estate, and was curious to learn what he looked like. With Charlie Davis' assistance, we identified John in The Money Tree's booklet of the Invasion of Louisville, the 1988 excursion to the library of Armand Champa.

Ed writes:

Sorry for the off-kilter images - Flickr's photo editor was acting up today.In the page of photos, that looks like Jack Collins (upper left), Bob Wester (upper right), Charlie Davis (bottom left), and Vince Alones and Del Bland (bottom right).I reached out to Charlie, and he forwarded a couple more images, and identified John Huffman for us. Thanks!

Above left is a scene in front of Armand's house, as everyone was getting off the bus that brought us to Louisville. That's John Ford in the white slacks, Eric Newman in the suit jacket, and Armand Champa in short sleeves. At right is a complete roster of attendees. John Huffman is listed as "Mr. Hoffman". (As always, you can click on the image to see a larger version in our Flickr archive).

In this photo, that's John Huffman at the end of the receiving line carrying a box. At the front is Jack Collins getting a hug from Armand's wife Kay.

This sure brought back a lot of memories for me. It was John Burns who told me about the event and put me in touch with Armand. I talked my way into the gathering, even though I was only a fledgling numismatic literature collector. It was there for the first time I met hobby legends like John Ford, George Fuld, and Jules Reiver, not to mention every numismatic literature dealer in the country.

I think I'd met Eric Newman earlier. Regardless, it was the bombastic John Ford who held court and stole the show. His baritone voice could be heard all day long. Many of the great folks I met that day have since gone to meet their maker. But what a legendary gathering!