The birth of the modern era of national bank notecollecting can be definitively fixed at 1968 when LouisVan Belkum's landmark was published.

This book, which summarized a thumbnailhistory of every note-issuing national bank, also listedthe final circulations for the banks. Lou abstracted theinformation from endless tables found in the 68 annualreports of the Comptroller of the Currency spanning 1863through 1935.

It became an instant buyer's guide for those of uschasing nationals, and was so successful it was reprintedin 1973. For the first time, we had some idea of what wasout there and how much it totaled.

But that was only the beginning of this man'smonumental contribution to national bank note research.Over the next 11 years, from 1968 to 1979, he and hiswife Barbara compiled the bank-by-bank issuance datafor every note-issuing bank in the country.

This Herculean task at last count involvedtracking 12,631 different banks that issued 81,259different sheet combinations over a period of 67 years.To compile this enormous trove of data, they had to siftthrough 410 huge ledgers housed at the National Archives, which were then located in Washington, DC,but now in College Park, Maryland.

This benchmark achievementquantified national bank notes. Wenow had at our fingertips exactly whatwas issued and how many by everybank in the country. The modern eraof national bank note collecting restedon a bedrock solid foundation. All elsethat has followed is window dressing.

At the time, Louis was a high schoolmath teacher in Grand Rapids,Michigan. He and Barbara embarkedon marathon driving trips to DC thattypically lasted 3 or 4 days. Theirtypical pattern was to leave on aFriday and drive straight through for11 hours with the two of themswitching off on the driving.

Once there, they hit the ground running at theNational Archives, which involved frantically anddoggedly writing by hand the information they gleaned from the ledgers.

Upon returning home-another straight 11-hour drive-they then typed the information on 5 by7-inch cards. This was no small task, especially for Lou because he was a two-finger typist. Ultimately,they assembled cards for all 12,631 issuing banks, many of which ran on for more than one card.

They found it expedient to have microfilm made of certain crucial ledgers, which allowed Lou topour over critical pages at home. He did not have to examine every ledger page for every bank. Rather hefocused on the pages that captured series totals and the pages that spanned the Series of 1882 and 1902date-back to post-date back changeovers. Most of this work was done in the National Archives readingroom where they could work on ledgers that they checked out. The National Currency and Bond Ledgersstill yield Lou's pull slips.

A July 25, 1974 Louis Van Belkum National Archives pull slip for some National Currency andBond Ledgers complete with his signature.

This work was carried out for individual state collectors who would contract with him to compileinformation on a state or county basis at a fixed charge per bank. As the program gained momentum, thedata was traded around and accumulated by both John Hickman and Lyn Knight.

In time, Hickman convinced William Higgins of the Higgins National Bank Note Museum inOkoboji, Iowa, of the merits of these data, so after all other avenues were tapped out, Higgins sprang forthe orphan states so Louis could complete the job.

The data became widely available in 1981 with publication of Don Kelly's followed by the Hickman-Oakes in1982.

Along the way, in 1970, Louis collaborated with M. Owen Warns and Peter Huntoon to producethe blue book of 1929 nationals,

Van Belkum is known by us as Louis or Lou; however, within his family he went by Bill. He wasborn October 8, 1942 in Grand Rapids, Michigan, and named Louis William Van Belkum III.

His odyssey into national bank notes started when he began collecting Michigan nationals in1964. He sold most of his collection in 1976 through a Donlon auctionbut the last of his Michigan holdings came out in a June 3-5, 2009 Lyn Knight sale.

Van Belkum assembled a state collection of $5 1929 nationals that was complete or virtually complete. This was his Arizona note

He and Barbara moved to Las Vegas, Nevada, in February 1989 when he took a position withClark County, where he served as a software programmer for their large IBM system. He retired in 2003.

He became heavily involved in collecting casino chips while in Las Vegas.

Lou succumbed July 31, 2013, to Alzheimer's disease at age 70, in Grand Rapids, to which heand Barbara returned in February 2010. He was survived by Barbara, his wife of 50 years, and hischildren Sandra, Paula and Louis William IV.

Van Belkum's compilation of national bank note issuance data probably ranks as the largest single blockof numismatic research ever undertaken by an individual and will forever loft him to the highestranks of numismatic researchers. Every national bank note collector is in his debt.

For more information on the two organizations, see:
http://www.nationalcurrencyfoundation.com/
https://www.spmc.org/