Your Treasures are in Specialists in high quality ancient, medieval, and early Good Hands with us modern coins and medals. First established as a numismatic trading Auctions in Switzerland, company in 1971, today we have achieved a yearly price list, appraisals, solid reputation among the leading coin and medal auction houses of Europe. More than purchases and sales by 10,000 clients worldwide place their trust private treaty. zürich, switzerland Baltic States, City of Riga. Auction 135 in us. Our company’s fi rst auction was held Under Sweden. Charles X. Gustav, 1654-1660. 5 ducats “1645” (1654). in 1985, and we can look back on a positive Estimate: € 15,000. Price realized: € 70,000. track record of over 180 auctions since that time. Four times a year, the Künker auction gallery becomes a major rendezvous for numismatic afi cionados. This is where several thousand bidders regularly participate in our auctions. • We buy your gold assets at a fair, daily market price • International customer care Auction III • Yearly over 20,000 objects in Ancient Greek, Roman, our auctions Byzantine & Early European coins and medals of the • Large selection of gold coins highest quality. • Top quality color printed catalogues May 10th 2011 Russian Empire. Auction 135 Alexander I., 1801-1825. Gold medal of 48 ducats, 1814, by tsarina in the morning M. Feodorovna for Alexander I. in Zürich Estimate: € 30,000. Price realized: € 220,000. Auction IV The BCD Collection Profi t from our experience of more than 180 successful auctions – of Thessaly. scaled consign your coins and medals! down May 10th 2011 Tel.: +49 541 96 20 20 in the afternoon Roman Empire. Auction 158 Email: [email protected] Valens, 364-378. Medaillon 375/378, Rome. Probably unique. Visit us online at: www.kuenker.com in Zürich Estimate: € 200,000. Price realized: € 360,000. Meet us at our Summer Auction, Fritz Rudolf Künker GmbH & Co. KG nomos ag, numismatists Gutenbergstr. 23 · 49076 Osnabrück · Germany zähringerstrasse 27, postfach 2664, ch-8022 zürich, switzerland June 20 – 24, 2011 in Osnabrück www.kuenker.com · [email protected] telephone +41 44 250 51 80, fax +41 44 250 51 89 Osnabrück · Berlin · Munich · Zurich · Moscow [email protected], www.nomosag.com DEPARTMENTS FEATURES 28 7 From the Executive Director The Numismatic Collection Ute Wartenberg Kagan of the Yale University Art Gallery Goes Online 34 From the Collections Manager Nathan T. Elkins Recent Aquisitions Elena Stolyarik On the cover: 40 Library News 8 Interior of ‘Oldwalls’, the home Elizabeth Hahn of Chester Beach Frozen in Time: The Studio of Chester Beach 42 Current Cabinet Activites David Hill Robert Hoge 47 Book Reviews 1 Development Megan Fenselau 4 Obituaries 29 Googling Your Coin: 8 News A Collaboration Between the ANS and the Kittredge Numismatic Foundation 64 ANS Bookshelf Matthew F. Erskine, JD Andrew Meadows 20 Petra on the Hudson The Nabateans and their Coins at the American Numismatic Society Oliver D. Hoover Contents 4 Contents ANS MAGAZINE Volume 10, Issue 1 From the Executive Director 2011 Ute Wartenberg Kagan Editor The American Numismatic Society Magazine is published Dear Members and Friends, want to preserve some of the historic character of the Ute Wartenberg Kagan four times a year by the American Numismatic Society. place. The ANS will continue to conserve the plasters Annual subscription rate is $72. Copies are mailed to all We are very pleased to announce that the ANS Maga- and other artifacts acquired from the Beach estate and Managing Editor members of the ANS. Single copy is $18. Overseas airmail zine will be issued quarterly from now on. For some thus make them available for future research. Megan Fenselau is an additional cost. A membership in the ANS includes a time, we have been considering this move, as we are subscription to the magazine. To inquire about a subscrip- fortunate to have enough interesting articles and I am also very happy to report that the cabinets have Advertising Editor tion please contact: ANS Magazine Subscription Dept. columns to cover four issues. But magazines have to been enriched by some extraordinary donations. The Joanne D. Isaac (212) 571-4470 ext 117, [email protected]. All rights be printed, and it is our advertisers who support the ANS has now one of the best and largest collections of reserved. No part of this magazine or its cover may be repro- ANS Magazine and thus help our members. Without the rather obscure Nabataeans, an ancient Arab tribe, Art Director duced without written consent of the copyright proprietor. the considerable support of the dealer community, the which controlled the trade with Saudi Arabia from the Lynn Cole Opinions expressed by contributors are not necessarily those ANS and its members would be much less well off, and capital Petra. The ANS owes this addition to its Adjunct of the ANS. Printed in Mexico. I want to extend my thanks here. Special thanks are due Curator and friend David Hendin, and I express my Design Rocco Piscatello The American Numismatic Society, organized in 1858 to Charles Anderson, who urged me to undertake this most sincere thanks to him for making this important Piscatello Design Centre and incorporated in 1865 in New York State, operates as a change, which he has underwritten very generously. donation. It is worth reading Oliver Hoover’s succinct research museum under Section 501(c)(3) of the Code and introductory article, from which I learned a lot about Photographer is recognized as a publicly supported organization under In this issue, we feature a fascinating story about one this fascinating kingdom. The next issue of the ANS Alan Roche section 170(b)(1)(A)(vi) as confirmed on November 1, 1970. of America’s most famous sculptors, Chester Beach, Magazine will report on another, even more spectacular The original objectives of the ANS, “the collection and and his studio in Brewster in upstate New York. It is donation by ANS Fellow Judge Abraham D. Sofaer and Contributing Staff preservation of coins and medals, the investigation of a wonderful story about the right person being in the his wife Marian Scheuer Sofaer. They donated to the Gilles Bransbourg matters connected therewith, and the popularization of right place at the right time. In 2009, ANS Member cabinets their Jewish revolt and Samarian coins Barry Bridgewater the science of Numismatics,” have evolved into the mission Donald Mituzas, a realtor in Brewster, looked at a prop- in memory of our ANS Huntington Medalist Ya’akov Anna Chang approved by the Society’s governing Council in 1993. erty and realized quickly that this was the untouched Meshorer. David Hendin and I are preparing an exhibi- Peter Donovan studio of Chester Beach, who had died in 1956. Thanks tion of the entire Sofaer collection, which will be pub- Megan Fenselau to his efforts, the numismatic and sculptural contents lished as an ANS publication later this year. Elizabeth Hahn were sold at Stack’s and at Stair’s auctions. The ANS was Anouska Hamlin very fortunate to be able to buy a significant part of the It is a pleasure to report to our members that the Society Sebastian Heath American Numismatic Society materials and ANS Archivist David Hill has written a and its collections are thriving. Many of you visit from David Hendin 75 Varick Street Floor 11 wonderful piece on Beach. time to time, but for those of you who are unable to David Hill New York, NY 10013 come to the Society, we are offering this issue of the Robert Hoge It is sad to see how little attention is being paid to the ANS Magazine, which chronicles many other details Oliver D. Hoover Telephone great American sculptors of the 20th century, whose of our daily activities. Joanne D. Isaac 212 571 4470 work adorn many squares and public buildings to the Sylvia Karges current day. A recent article in the Wall Street Journal Yours truly, Rhonda Yen Kauffman Telefax drew attention to the home and studio of Daniel Andrew Meadows 212 571 4479 Chester French, another sculptor well known to Elena Stolyarik Peter van Alfen Internet numismatists but otherwise virtually unknown. Rick Witschonke www.numismatics.org In Stockbridge, MA 130,000 visitors flood to the Norman Rockwell Museum, whereas barely 10,000 people come to the nearby French Museum. Even worse, Ute Wartenberg Kagan studios are uncovered years after the death of an artist, Executive Director, ANS and their contents are thrown away or sold without any adequate attribution in small estate sales. Unfortunately, the preservation of such studios as individual non- profits or as part of a larger entity often does not help much, as sponsors for such organizations are hard to secure. I was therefore very pleased to learn from Don Mituzas that the new owners of the Beach property Indicia 7 From the Executive Director Facing page: Studio of Chester Beach, as discovered in 2009 FROZEN IN TIME: THE STUDIO OF CHESTER BEACH DAVID HILL “Chester who?” That’s what Ted Schwarz asked in a haps the most surprising and exciting find, was a set of Coins magazine article some thirty years ago. “When previously unknown plaster models for an obverse and a man designs four different United States coins,” he two reverses submitted by Beach in the competition for wrote, “it would seem that his name should be a house- the 1921 Peace Dollar (fig. )1 . In 1921, the U.S. govern- hold word among numismatists.”1 ment began reissuing silver dollars for the first time since 1904. Many in the numismatic community, and Decades later, in 2009, at a country estate in Putnam primarily Farran Zerbe, had called for a coin to com- County, New York, real estate agent Donald A.