Mark Wieclaw Biography
I’ve been a collector since the age of six. I remember trading baseball cards with a friend shortly before moving from Pennsylvania to the Chicago area in 1958. Searching for baseball cards, coins and beer cans filled my time for nearly twenty years. After getting married in 1974 my collecting habits didn’t stop, but took a different direction. Coins became my main focus, and in 1981 I discovered the wonderful world of ancient coins. Harlan Berk placed his Buy or Bid Sale in an issue of “Coin World”. The thought of being able to purchase a coin that was nearly two thousand years old for less than a hundred dollars was pretty amazing. At the Chicago International Coin Fare in 1983, a dealer of ancient coins also had several antiquities at his booth. His selection of oil lamps was quite varied. I chose one with just enough detail to make it interesting. For $35, I purchased a piece of history, something that was used to light the way of perhaps another collector many centuries ago.
