A bit of nostalgia

[longnine009]

The current issue of CoinWorld has some stories on famous Baltimore coin collectors such as Louis Eliasberg--the only collector to assemble one of every (known in his day) U.S coin by date and mintmark.

One of the really early stories I remember reading when I was just dabbling in coins was about Bowers & Ruddy getting ready to auction off the collection and how the papers and magazine (essentially my "library")  marveled so much about the collection being complete.  It never occur to me what a daunting task that had to be.  It was sort like: "Dudes, isn't that what we're suppose to do?"

LIFE magazine did a story on Louis in 1953 after he had completed the collection. After that, apparently, even the post office new who he was. They delivered a letter to him addressed to: The King of Coins U.S.A

"...as I suspected, you're a rank sentimentalist..."

Louie--Casablanca

[KurtS]

...the only collector to assemble one of every (known in his day) U.S coin by date and mintmark.

I'll assume that included the 1804 Dollar and 1913 Liberty nickel? Wow. 

[longnine009]

Yes, it even included the 1933 $20 Saint but he had to turn it over to the secret service.

[longnine009]

On second though, he would not have needed a 1913 nickel since it wasn't an officially released issue. I guess the same would hold true for the 64D Peace dollar.