In a very rare opportunity, vintage coin board collector and dealer David W. Lange has negotiated thepurchase of more than 400 antique coin boards from the 1930s and '40s. Far from a random hoard, thiscollection represents many years of careful selection by a discriminating individual in the Midwest. It isfrom this source that Lange has dubbed the assemblage the "Midwest Collection."

Included are pieces from all seven publishers of the original 11" x 14" coin boards that predated thefolders widely used today. Even the very rare 1940 coin boards of New York City's Gramercy StampCompany are present. In a truly remarkable opportunity, the collection also features a single board fromthe exceedingly rare publisher Earl & Koehler of Portland, Oregon. To date, just over a dozen boards havesurfaced of this obscure brand that was in production for just the single year of 1939.

Although many of the boards will be familiar to veteran collectors as among the more commonly seenbrands and titles, the collection is particularly rich in "vendor stamped" boards that are highly prized fortheir historic associations. It was the practice of many retailers to rubber stamp or sticker coin boards withtheir name and address. Most such vendors were in the Upper Midwest, which was the home turf of theearliest coin boards after this product's invention by Joseph K. Post in 1934. It was these inexpensive andwidely distributed coin boards that put coin collecting on the map and made it an "everyman" hobbybetween 1935 and 1940. When the current coin series became too long to fit on a single-panel board, themore adaptable coin folders began to replace boards starting in 1939.

"I'm still going through these hundreds of pieces to determine which items are new varieties orupgrades to my own collection," Lange observed. "I'm an eager collector of vendor stamps myself, as theyhave the local appeal that has attracted so many collectors of tokens and national bank notes." The otherboards will be placed first with those having want lists with Lange, while the remaining pieces will beincluded in future price lists. Lange has produced 40 such lists since 2008, and he sends these out alongwith his quarterly publication Coin Board News, which recently celebrated its 50th issue. In addition, hemaintains a website devoted to vintage board collecting: coincollectingboards.com.

The Midwest Collection is the second largest assemblage of coin boards that Lange has acquired inhis nearly 40 years of searching for vintage pieces. Still the record holder is the Karl Manthei Collectionthat Lange purchased in 2006 on the eve of publishing his book, Coin Collecting Boards of the 1930s &1940s: A Complete History, Catalog & Value Guide, which is available for purchase at his website.

To view the Midwest Coin Board Collection photo album, see:
Midwest Coin Board Collection(https://www.flickr.com/photos/coinbooks/albums/72157704951581002)