Abe Kosoff: Dean of Numismatics
Q. David Bowers
Following the Saturday afternoon meeting, Abe Kosoff and Lou Werner, who were sharing a room, and Charley Ryan had a few hours rest in the Statler Hotel, prior to an 8 o'clock dinner arranged by Charley.
Abe's lack of indulgence in alcoholic beverages was well known and was often the subject of jokes. In this particular instance, Charley Ryan apparently made an arrangement with the waiter to serve the others at the dinner table with "obvious" alcoholic drinks but to serve Abe Kosoff with a special beverage. "Well, I saw a couple of cherries and a slice of orange, so I tasted it-like a soft drink. Not bad-what is it?-an old-fashioned? seems okay."
No further drinks were ordered, but the waiter kept on bringing them, including the innocuous version delivered to Abe Kosoff. By the end of the evening he had downed seven of them. Sometime after 11 in the evening the others suggested a stroll, but Abe was drowsy and wanted to go to bed. Before long he was asleep. Lou Werner and Charley Ryan, believing that Abe was thoroughly soused, decided to play a trick on him. In the middle of the night they shook him vigorously, awakened him, and asked if he would like to buy some beautiful coins. Not one to sleep when a coin deal was in the offing, Abe arose to see what was going on. By pre-planning, Charley Ryan arranged 30 or 40 coins on the bed, each identified with a price. The fun part was that some prices were ridiculously high and others were ridiculously low. They wanted to see if Abe would notice and what his reaction would be.
Picking them up one by one, he confirmed the prices, verified that they were for sale, and then he jotted the figures down on a large mailing envelope. After going through all of the quotations, some far too high, and others far too low, Abe, who wasn't quite in the condition that his friends were, picked out all of the cheap coins, put them in an envelope, added up the figures and made deal!
The following morning, Charley Ryan remarked that the next time he did business with Kosoff he would make sure that he was cold sober!
On Sunday, May 25th, 1947 the Numismatic Gallery conducted an auction sale in conjunction with the Iowa Numismatic Association convention held at the Fontenelle Hotel, Omaha Nebraska. It is probable that the modest sale which consisted of only a few hundred lots, was held as a favor to Dr. J. Hewitt Judd, C. David Pierce, and other Iowa numismatists who were close to Abe Kosoff and Abner Kreisberg, and in respect to the ANA convention conducted in low the preceding year.
The 56th annual convention of the American Numismatic Association was held at the Hotel Statler, Buffalo, New York, August 23-27, 1947 Despite the rough edges in the pre-convention negotiations many months earlier, the event itself was a great success. "All records for numismatic convention attendance were shattered by the Buffalo event, which attracted 500 persons," wrote editor Lee Hewitt in The Numismatic Scrapbook Magazine's report of the show. Lewis M. Reagan general secretary of the ANA, reported that 7,010 members belonged to the organization, a sharp in crease from 4,102 as recently as 1944. During the preceding year 1,693 new members were admitted. The convention auction was likewise successful, and subsequently Abe Kosoff and Abne: Kreisberg ran advertisements thanking collector: for their bidding participation.
The 1947 year closed with Auction Sale No. 42 a modest offering of 982 lots sold on December 6th. Most pieces fetched from a few dollars upward. Not a single item crossed the $200 mark.