Spend a morning with Eric Newman, age 102, and be prepared to be blown away.

He's been a lawyer, a businessman, an inventor, an author, a world traveler, a philanthropist and an internationally renowned numismatist who recently sold 1,800 rare American coins for $23 million. He paid about $7,500 for them, and he has several hundred thousand other coins and pieces of paper money left in his collection and at the Newman Money Museum at Washington University.

He and Evelyn, his wife of almost 75 years, went on an eventful honeymoon in 1940. It was at the start of World War II, but before the U.S. got involved. We didn't have room for the story in our print edition Q&A with Newman, so here it is, in his words:

"We took a seven-week cruise on the S.S. Argentina to Buenos Aires and back in 1940 after our marriage in 1939, at a time when German pocket battle ships had been sinking British merchant ships.

"When we were on the cruise ship between San Paolo, Brazil, and Montevideo, the ship next to us at the harbor was a British decoy ship. A German ship, the Graf Spee, went after the decoy, and the battle began. We sat on the top of the mountain of Montevideo and took moving pictures of the Graf Spee, which was scuttled by its captain.

"We sent a telegram to our family, and the news spread all over St. Louis. When we got back to St. Louis there were several hundred people waiting to see us - our family, of course, but the others came to see the pictures of the scuttling."

To read the complete articles (subscription required), see:
St. Louis Character: Eric P. Newman, a century of collected memories(www.bizjournals.com/stlouis/print-edition/2014/02/14/
st-louis-character-eric-p-newman-a.html?page=all)
It's not just coins: another story from Eric Newman(www.bizjournals.com/stlouis/blog/2014/02/
its-not-just-coins-another-story.html)