Two weeks ago, I knew very little about Alan Kessler. Now with contributions from Julia Casey,Rod Widok and others, I can provide a reasonable biography.

Alan Harvey Kessler was born in New York on August 12, 1938.

The 1940 Census finds him living in Manhattan with his father Samuel (1898-1977), motherRose (1897-1969) and brothers Charles, 14 and Howard, 12. His name is indexed as Allan andthe handwriting shows the name Allan with a line through the second 'l'.

For the 1950 Census, the family is at 215 Broadway in Norwich, Connecticut. His father was theowner and manager of an IGA store.

Kessler attended Norwich Free Academy. In his freshman year, he was president of the school'snewly formed Coin Club. His 1956 senior yearbook photo mentions his other interests. Hewanted to be a rocket scientist even then, a year before the 1957 launch of Sputnik I.

In 1959, Alan was at the University of Connecticut. A newspaper article reported that he wouldbe included in "Who's Who at American Colleges and Universities." He was listed at 14Williams Street, Norwich, president of the American Rocket Society and vice president of EtaKappa Nu, the electrical engineering society.

He was married to Judith Rose Carlin (1938-2005) on August 28, 1960, in Wethersfield,Connecticut. They had a daughter Deborah (Parker) and sons Steven and Jonathan.

In the period of 1966 to 1968, Kessler ran ads in Coin World. In 1968 he was looking to buycolonial coppers and George III British halfpence. Another ad offered to sell duplicates of hiscolonial coppers. His address in 1966 was 1105 Lexington Street in Waltham. Massachusetts. In1967 it was 111 Concord Road in Acton, Massachusetts. Both were near Lexington and Concordin Massachusetts.

During the 1960s, Kessler worked as an engineer at MIT Lincoln Laboratories in Lexington,Massachusetts. During this time, he contributed technical articles to Microwave Journal. Hisaddress during 1970-1976 was an APO Box in San Francisco. He was working as a defensecontractor at Kwajalein in the Marshall Islands. He is linked to articles on radar and missiledetection systems.

In the April 1969 issue of The Numismatist, Alan H. Kessler is listed as new member R-62213and address as Box 2012, APO San Francisco, Ca. 96555.

The April 1973 issue of The Colonial Newsletter had an article, "A FLOW GRAPHIDENTIFICATION CHART FOR THE FUGIO CENTS" by Alan H. Kessler. The authorreported that the chart had been successfully tested by an eleven-year-old girl.

Kessler's book, The Fugio Cents was published by Colony Coin Co. of Newtonville,Massachusetts in 1976. The inside title was The Fugio Coppers A simple Method for Identifyingthe Varieties With Rarity Listing and Price Guide.

Kessler had already begun to break up his collection before publication of his book. Heconsigned his Connecticut Coppers to Pine Tree for their February 15, 1975, sale for the EarlyAmerican Coppers Society Convention. With cataloguing by Walter Breen, the catalog becamean important reference work for collectors of the series.

This was followed by the 1976 Pine Tree sale with a section for the Early American CoppersSociety March 5, 1976. Kessler's New Jersey Coppers were included in the sale and his lots wereidentified as coming from his collection.

Kessler's Fugio Cents, Vermont coppers and remainders from his collection were consigned toNASCA for their Kessler-Spangenberger sale of April 28-29, 1981. His Voce Populi and NovaConstellatio collections were sold privately to Colony Coin Company.

After separation from MIT Lincoln Laboratories, Kessler worked for McDonell-Douglas 1977 to1985, XonTech 1985 to 2003 and Northrop Grumman 2003 to 2007 after their acquisition ofXonTech in 2003.

Alan's father Samuel died in 1977. His obituary listed Alan as a survivor living in FountainValley, California. When his brother Charles died in 1997, Alan was also living in FountainValley.

He was also reported as a resident of Huntington Beach, California, during 1990-1997.Huntington Beach is adjacent to Fountain Valley.

In 2003-2007 he was living in Kapaa, Hawaii.

Judith Rose Carlin Kessler died on December 2, 2005, and is buried at Kalapaki Bay MemorialPark in Hawaii. There is a photo of Judith and Alan on the headstone. As far as we know, Alan isstill living.

Franklin Noel writes:

Stephen Searle added:

APO 96555 is Kwajalein Missile Range in the Pacific. I was living there in 1970 as well (though only 8 years old). Alan could have been a civilian working for any number of military contractors on the island (Raytheon or Bell Labs, for example). All mail correspondence went through that ZIP code and telephone communication with the mainland was very limited.

Someone conveniently posted a 1972 school yearbook from Kwajalein (encompassing all grades, elementary through high school) on the internet. Both my sister and I are in it.

Anyway, just for grins, I checked if there were any Kesslers and found three. Debbie, Steven, & Jonathan.

It is a fairly common name, but any or all of them might be his children. Families often accompanied civilians if they were working on Kwajalein. My father worked for Bell Labs, and our entire family was there for the two year term of his assignment."

Later Stephen added:

To read the earlier E-Sylum article, see:
THE ALAN KESSLER MYSTERY(https://www.coinbooks.org/v28/esylum_v28n05a17.html)