Collecting the Auction Catalogs of Numismatic Fine Arts By Kerry K. Wetterstrom
(A previous version of this article appeared in The Asylum, the official journal of The Numismatic Bibliomania Society, Vol. XVI/1:4-7)
Most of us in the ancient coin collecting fraternity are familiar with the rise and fall of Bruce McNall, the former owner of Numismatic Fine Arts, International as well as the Los Angeles Kings professional ice hockey team, Gladden Entertainment (a movie production company), and a part-ownership in Superior Stamp & Coin, Company. Much has been written about Mr. McNall and his business dealings, and it is not my intention to debate the pros and cons of his ethics and business practices in this article, but rather to discuss my own personal “bibliomaniac” quest to obtain each and every auction catalog issued by NFA, especially the hardbound or “Special Edition” issues as they are sometimes labeled. I have always admired the catalogs issued by Numismatic Fine Arts, not only for their superb production values, but for the scholarly and highly readable cataloging by such eminent classical numismatists as Joel Malter (see endnote on Malter, the original founder of the new “NFA”), David R. Sear, Catharine C. Lorber, Rob Freeman, Eric McFadden, Simon Bendall, et al. If Bruce McNall left one legacy to numismatics, it would certainly be these auction catalogs where seemingly no expense was spared! In May of 1984, I was fortunate enough to be able to attend the sale of the first part of the John W. Garrett collection of ancient and foreign coinage sold jointly by NFA and Bank Leu, the Zürich, Switzerland firm. (The catalogs issued by Bank Leu, now also defunct, are also highly sought after and would merit an article of their own). The sale of the Garrett collection was conducted at the Beverly Wilshire Hotel, not far from the offices of NFA, at that time located at 342 North Rodeo Drive. I made a point of visiting NFA’s office, as I wanted to meet in person both David Sear and Shirley McNall, Bruce’s mother and the manager of the NFA book department. I had corresponded many times with Shirley, and she had provided me with many of my early book purchases in the area of ancient numismatics. (I must admit that as I had only graduated from college the year before, books had been about the only items that I could afford to collect prior to that visit). While chatting with Shirley, she showed me a few hardbound editions of prior NFA auction catalogs. I was immediately hooked so I purchased a few copies that were in stock at the time, and I also reserved a hardbound set of the Garrett catalogs that Shirley told me were to be produced (more about these later). After I returned home, at that time in Denver, I admired my coin purchases from the Garrett sale, but I was even more enamored with the catalogs. I spent countless hours perusing the pages of these catalogs and gleaning wonderful tidbits of information from the descriptions and stories contained within. Over the course of the next decade, I started to attempt a complete collection of NFA auction catalogs with a special emphasis on the hardbound editions. I was fortunate enough to become friends with Rob Freeman, one of the numismatists at NFA at that time, and he often provided me with hardbound copies of NFA catalogs as they were produced. But it was not until the demise of McNall’s business empire, and with it NFA, that I started to seriously pursue NFA’s hardbound catalogs. After all, they were now a finite set instead of an ongoing project. The first problem that I encountered, though, was to determine what exactly comprised a complete set of NFA auction catalogs and which ones were issued in a hardbound edition. 4