Numismatics Archives List

Born and died in Tariffville, Connecticut. Attended Eastman Business College in Poughkeepsie, New York. Married Emma Wilson. They had no children.

His father was a tobacco grower and dealer. Mitchelson became a dealer in leaf tobacco, with stores in Kansas City and San Francisco. He returned to Tariffville about 1900 and served one term as president of the Connecticut Tobacco Corporation.

Mitchelson served twice on the U.S. Assay Commission. He was a member of the ANA and the American Numismatic Society. He was the first American elected to membership in the British Numismatic Society.

He assembled an extensive collection of American coins and willed it to the State of Connecticut. At the time of his death, the collection was valued at approximately $70,000. A secure exhibition area was constructed in Memorial Hall at the State Library Building in Hartford in 1911. One of the pallbearers at his funeral was Thomas Louis Comparette, who also served as a consultant on the installation of the collection at the Connecticut museum.

(Breen identified the collector as John C. Mitchelson.)

obit: AJN 45 (October 1911), pp. 208-209; NUM 24 (October 1911), pp. 364-366 (photo on p. 364); ANAHist 244 [Pete Smith, American Numismatic Biographies]