In my eBay searches for old coin boards, albums and related ephemera I sometimes come across postal covers that have a peripheral relation to my hobby. A recent purchase was this illustrated envelope addressed to Frank E. Johnson of Morganton (actually Morgantown), North Carolina from The Coin News in East Orange, New Jersey. This publication was evidently a periodical that took classified ads from buyers and sellers of coins, much like Numismatic News was in its early days.

I did a search on this title and came up with no matching results, and it looked like the trail would go cold right then and there. Fortunately, I noticed that someone (Mr. Johnson?) had written the name A. C. Roessler faintly in pencil on the back, and this proved more fruitful in my searching.

I first checked Volume III of Remy Bourne's book series on Fixed Price Lists & Prices Paid for Lists of United States CoinDealers, this covering the years 1930-1939. He did include Roessler's Bankers Coin Book, but there was no mention of The CoinNews.

I found several ads in The Numismatist archive for A. C. Roessler that dated from 1927 to 1932. This fits in well with the cancellation date of June 27, 1933. His application for ANA membership was published in the September/October 1909 issue, and he was admitted effective November 1. He was then living in New York City. Moving on to Ancestry.com I further identified him as Albert Charles Roessler, born April 7, 1883. The 1930 federal census listed him as an "order clerk" in the field of "stamps and coins." I suspect that this was an entry error, as he was clearly self-employed by then and the owner of his business. The 1940 census lists Albert Roessler, age 30, and this was evidently the son of Albert, Sr. The latter's mother, Emma Mulcahey, appears in both editions. Did the elder Albert pass away during the intervening decade?

I also did searches on customer Frank E. Johnson in both archives, and I found that he was admitted to the ANA effective November 1, 1927 as member number 3228. His interests were listed as "United States and Colonial." He then lived in St. Marys, Pennsylvania, but he moved to Morgantown four years later. Johnson was born in 1890 and the censuses of 1920 and 1930 both list him as a bookkeeper for a tannery. I couldn't find any later documents that definitively apply to him, as Frank Johnson was, and probably still is, an extremely common name.

I'm attaching images of the envelope and Roessler's ads from The Numismatist. Perhaps a reader can provide more information and an illustration of The Coin News.