Essays In Appreciation


John M. Kleeberg was Curator of Modem Coins and Currency at the American Numismatic Society. He served as Chairman of the Coinage of the Americas Conference program, annually confirming the value of Harry Bass's idea.


Harry W. Bass, Jr.

John M. Kleeberg

I joined the Society staff in February 1990, so I only met Harry Bass in person once; but the occasion on which we met had great influence on my career. In 1990 Del Bland finished his examination of the ANS collection and determined that over one hundred early date large cents had been removed by a switching scheme. The Society began an extensive campaign to recover its coins, including litigation. This is nothing one begins lightly, and the prospect was regarded with much trepidation. The one time I met Harry Bass was when he came for a Council meeting in July 1991 and I attended a discussion of the large cent matter in Leslie Elam's office, at which Leslie, Bill Metcalf, and Eric Newman were present as well. Harry was emphatic that the Society must proceed very forcefully to recover its coins. Bill Metcalf observed that although he and Harry had often disagreed in the past, this was something on which they were in full agreement. After that meeting it was clear that many of the most important people on Council felt that the large cent matter had full priority. The large cent matter has taken up most of my energy and attention for the past eight years. After five years of litigation and extensive discovery, research in large cents will never be the same again. William Herbert Sheldon, Jr., M.D., Ph.D., a man who was practically worshipped, now stands exposed as a charlatan, a liar, and a compulsive thief - a man who did not only steal from the American Numismatic Society, but also from the T. James Clarke collection, from Stack's, and from the Gaskill collection. By urging emphatically that we follow the large cent trail wherever it led, Harry Bass helped set in motion the measures which would change the world of early American coppers utterly.

My other contacts with Harry Bass were of necessity via the telephone, and, since 1996, electronic mail. In January 1998, a few months before his death, Harry and I worked very intensively on re-cataloguing the ANS large cents so that our computer catalogue would indicate which coins had been switched in by Sheldon; which coins had been switched out by Sheldon, and of those coins, which had been 1) recovered, 2) ANS awarded possession under the court decision of November 18, 1997, 3) ANS awarded market value under the court decision of November 18, 1997, and 4) still missing. I re-catalogued the coins, creating double computer records: one record for the switched in coin, and one for the switched out coin, and as I completed the records Harry would run various computer counts on the coins and see if something did not add up. After several weeks of back and forth emails we got it straightened out. He was practically an invalid by this time, but his mind was as sharp as ever.

We did have one strong bond: we have the same names as a much richer Texas family (the Fort Worth Basses in Harry's case, the King Ranch Klebergs in mine), so we both had the experience of going through life saying, "No, we are the poor cousins."

Harry could be very generous. In 1990 he gave us the funds to purchase the Americas collection of Paraguayan coinage from Howdie Herz. Thanks to his donation, the ANS has the best Paraguayan collection in the world, and the collection became even finer after R. Henry Norweb, jr., when he stepped down as president of the Society, gave us three judiciously chosen rarities. After we acquired the Paraguayan collection, Krause publications wrote to me and asked for a listing of the Paraguayan patterns. I discovered that Paraguayan patterns were a rat's nest of complications, and many coins were listed in the Krause catalogue which should not have been. The entire pattern section in Krause had to be re-written. The Americas collection included for study purposes forgeries made for collectors, properly identified as such. The coin used to illustrate the pattern 2 reales of 1868 in the Krause deluxe catalogue (1986 edition) turned out to be a forgery. Once I finished recataloguing the patterns, the photograph was changed and the photograph used since 1991 is of a genuine piece. This shows how Harry Bass could have influence in fields where his name was little known. The Paraguayan specialist who consults the Krause catalogue for patterns may not know that he has Howdie Herz and Harry Bass to thank for the reliability of the listings, but it is so.

Harry was also generous with information. In 1997 a discussion of grading began on an email list to which we both belonged, and Harry provided a listing from his database of his gold coins according to grade. My eye was immediately caught by the coins with the grade of "saltwater." I have been interested in coins from shipwrecks for several years, and the saltwater coins are a great numismatic mystery. In the 1960s and 1970s, a large number of US gold coins came on the numismatic market with etching from saltwater. Many rare date and mintmark combinations of United States gold coins can only be obtained as "saltwater uncs.," coins which saw no actual circulation but were etched from the saltwater. They must have been recovered from shipwrecks, but which ones? Walter Breen was one of the first to tackle this problem, and he conflated all saltwater coins into a "Confederate blockade runner," the Yankee Blade. Yankee Blade would make an excellent name for a Confederate blockade runner, but on consulting contemporary newspapers it becomes clear that the Yankee Blade was actually a steamer which sank off Santa Barbara in 1854. A study of the date and mintmark combinations indicates that some of the coins clearly cannot come from this shipwreck in the Pacific, because saltwater coins are known from the Charlotte and Dahlonega mints, and it makes no sense to ship gold coins to California - it is like carrying owls to Athens. The 1854-S double eagles with saltwater are almost certainly from the Yankee Blade; the other saltwater coins come from at least two other, possibly three, shipwrecks.

The only way to solve the mystery is to find as many saltwater examples as possible, note the dates (to determine a terminus post quem) and the mint-marks (to fix a possible place of deposit), see what arrangement makes most sense, and try to fit these coins in with reported shipwrecks. Provenance might also help: if the shipwreck was in the Gulf of Mexico, New Orleans or Florida dealers might handle these coins before others.

When Harry mentioned that he had saltwater coins, I emailed him and said I was willing to bet that one of his coins was an 1854-S double eagle. Fortunately, he did not take me up on my bet, because I was wrong; Harry collected coins in the finest possible condition, and in the case of 1854-S double eagles he did not have to settle for a saltwater coin. Harry came right back with a full listing of all his saltwater coins, with date, mintmark, date of acquisition and from whom he had purchased it. I was overwhelmed by his openness and readiness to share this information.