The Essex Institute in Numismatics

The Essex Institute, located in Salem Massachusetts from 1848 to 1992, was, per Wikipedia,

Recently scanned at the American Numismatic Society is the correspondence file between ANS Curator Howland Wood and the Essex Institute. The correspondence speaks to the eternal dilemma of institutional collections: access vs. security. On October 12, 1925, Henry W. Belknap, Essex Institute Secretary, wrote to Howland Wood

In the mid-1970s, Essex determined to deaccession its coin collection. Harvey Stack, in Harvey Stack Remembers, Part 66, wrote of the Essex sale The sale included a New England shilling, an AU Chain cent, a 1792 half disme, a 1796 quarter, and runs of later 19th century proof coinage (not including gold), with 1,282 lots total. The NE shilling took top honors at $12,500. This piece more recently appeared in the Heritage August 2022 sale of the Chris Salmon collection, lot 3240, where it realized $69,000.

The Essex followed up in 1981 with a consignment to Geroge F. Kolbe's sale no. 9 (there represented as ). This June sale represented an inflection point in the numismatic literature market. Jack Collins reported in the Summer 1981 Asylum Along with the formation of the Numismatic Bibliomania Society in 1979 and the publication of Adams' United States Numismatic Literature in 1982, the recognition of numismatic literature achieved significant advances in the early 1980s.

The Essex continues to bear numismatic fruit, with the recent discovery of the Matthew Stickney (1805-1894) correspondence in the Phillips Library at the Peabody Essex Museum. Stickney famously traded, in 1843, an Immune Columbia gold piece to the Mint Cabinet in exchange for an 1804 dollar. Stickney's collection was ultimately sold in a now famous sale by Henry Chapman in 1907. David Stone, Roger Burdette, and others have worked with this important archive of Stickney material.

Image: New England Shilling, Salmon 3-B, NGC XF Details, the Essex Institute example, images courtesy of Heritage Auctions (Chris Salmon sale, August 22, 2022), lot 3240.

Link to Howland Wood / Essex Institute correspondence:
https://archive.org/details/essexinstitute1900amer_0

Link to (part 66):
https://stacksbowers.com/Harvey-Stack-Remembers-Part-66/

Link to Stack's sale of the Essex Collection:
https://nnp.wustl.edu/library/auctionlots?AucCoId=3&AuctionId=516503

Link to George F. Kolbe's sale of the Essex Collection:
https://nnp.wustl.edu/library/auctionlots?AucCoId=513111&AuctionId=528717