Essays in Appreciation of His Life and Legacy


Leslie A. Elam is Executive Director of the American Numismatic Society in New York.


Part Six

Harry W. Bass Jr. - Life and Legacy

Leslie A. Elam

THE Harry Bass Foundation

Reactions to Harry's exhibition of a major portion of his gold collection at the 1989 ANS conference provided ample confirmation of his own view that his collection comprises an important resource for research in American gold coinage. By 1991, he had concluded that the best vehicle to assure the care and maintenance of this, and his other specialized collections, for future research, was through the creation of a private foundation. In December 1991, the Harry Bass Foundation came into being. The purpose of the foundation is to keep intact in perpetuity his rare and significant collections of U.S. numismatic items and to make them available for purposes of education and research. At his death, his entire numismatic holdings became the property of the foundation.

From the inception of the foundation, Harry made gifts to it from his personal collection. Early foundation acquisitions included his collection of U.S. large-size currency, numbering 255 notes, making available to researchers important examples of nineteenth century engraving techniques and artists' vignettes of social and historical significance, among other lines of investigation. Another significant gift comprised his collection of over 500 U.S. pattern, experimental, and trial pieces, providing important evidence for the evolution of design decisions leading to changes in the nation's coinage. From its beginning, the HBRF has widely advertised these continuing research opportunities.

It would have been difficult, in the first days of 1992, to predict the different directions and the impact of the HBRF in terms of its purpose to "foster" numismatic research. The medium is the Internet; the message is "tools". Harry grasped the impact and significance of the emerging World Wide Web for numismatic research almost from its inception as a public domain opportunity. Happily he openly discussed his new vision with ANS Executive Director Elam - an enlarged mission of the HBRF to develop and maintain web sites for the ANS and the HBRF, sharing resources toward the common goal of making information readily available to the ever-widening universe of Internet patrons. He had an uncanny knack for being right.

The Project Manager of the HBRF is Edmund Deane, an ordained Minister who was Minister of Communications at the Highland Park United Methodist Church prior to joining the foundation. They became acquainted during the late 1980s when Harry Bass bought and installed a computer system at the church to track a congregation of over 12,000 parishioners. Based on the R:Base system, the database was developed by Harry over a period of many months. Changes in the church administration brought with it a replacement database and that which Harry created, closely similar to the highly successful ANS membership database, was abandoned. The saving grace is that Harry got Ed.

Deane is the person principally responsible for mounting and maintaining the content of the two websites managed by the HBRF. The Large-Size Currency Collection, comprising 255 notes donated to the HBRF by Bass, has been mounted at the HBRF site, http://www.hbrf.org, including obverse/reverse photos of a number of the scarce or unique examples. Also at the HBRF site are the large information databases, accessed by powerful search engines, that have been developed by the HBRF in cooperation with the ANS and other institutions. It is difficult for beneficiaries of these tools to appreciate the time and effort involved in their creation.

The first research aid to come on-line was NIP, the Numismatic Indexes Project, announced and publicized widely by the foundation in early 1995. These electronic indexes to an array of numismatic books and journals make possible real time searches of the principal literature in the discipline and hobby over the past century and more. Each NIP entry is a complete citation - author, title, subject, publication, date, and pagination. Searches can be broad or narrowly defined. An explanatory preface guides the user to operation of the search engine. Reports are generated in simple ASCII text format, allowing access over the range of computer operating systems.

Through the generosity of a number of publishers, permission to mount bibliographical information has been granted to the HBRF for a wide range of numismatic scholarship, combined in the one searchable database. Included are all ANS publications: American Journal of Numismatics, First Series, 18661924; ANS Proceedings, 1878- 1914; ANS Museum Notes, 1945-88; American Journal of Numismatics, Second Series, 1989-Current; Proceedings of the Coinage of the Americas Conference, 1984-Current; Numismatic Notes and Monographs, 1921-Current; Numismatic Studies, 1938-Current; Colonial Newsletter, 1977-Current (published 1960-1976 by The Colonial Newsletter Foundation; and Numismatic Literature, 1947-Current.

In addition to ANS publications, NIP also includes the following works: The Numismatist, 1888-Current, from the American Numismatic Association; Numismatic Scrapbook Magazine, 1935-1975, from Amos Press; Numismatic Review, 1943-1947, produced by Stack's; Coin Collector's Journal, 18751888, by Scott Stamp and Coin Co.; Coin Collector's Journal, New Series, 1934-1954, Wayte Raymond; The Celator, 1987-Current, Celator, Inc.; and The Asylum, 1980-Current, published by the Numismatic Bibliomania Society.

Greatly enhancing the value of this project is the commitment of the HDRF to make the entire run of Numismatic Literature available on-line. This bibliography, published by the ANS since 1947, provides timely citations to the publication of all numismatic literature of value and interest, worldwide, in whatever language, and, in most cases, with an English language abstract of the contents. For the past several years, an editor has been engaged by the HBRF specifically to scan and edit these often complex entries, representing the multiplicity of languages in which titles are published in NL, toward providing complete and accurate bibliographical information. Issues are added to the on-line database as completed; the retrospective portion of the project is estimated to be completed by the year 2001. Current issues, as produced, are forwarded to the HBRF in electronic format and are made available at the website coincident with publication of the print edition.

In 1996, the HBRF cooperated with the ANS to establish http;//www.amnumsoc2.org, the Society's own website. Physically located at the HBRF, the ANS site, has since its inception, been maintained by the HBRF as a service to the Society and its constituency. The site's home page is hyperlinked to a number of levels of information, from historical data, to descriptions of the work of the various departments, to news of forthcoming events. A complete listing of ANS Publications in Print is mounted, together with color illustrations of the cards and medals offered for sale by the ANS. Current and prior ANSNewsletters, as well as text portions of recent Annual Reports are also available for browsing. A recent innovation, conceived by Harry Bass, is an on-line listing of ANS members and their e-mail addresses (where permission has been granted for the purpose), facilitating direct and convenient communication between members. From the outset, both the HBRF and the ANS websites have been linked transparently. Thus users can access the NIP browser, or any feature of either site, with equal ease from one or the other website.

In 1997, Bass brought a proposal to the ANS, the result of which has had a profoundly beneficial effect on the world of numismatic scholarship. Working with Dallas-based consultant Skip Hill, Bass devised a means of converting the Society's database of over 500,000 coin records to searchable text available on the Internet. The conversion includes dividing the ANS single file database into 12 "departments," each with its own search menu and introductory information. The powerful keyword search engine used at the website permits rapid retrieval of records based on the search parameters. Search results are delivered so quickly that researchers can freely refine or change queries as reports are delivered to the computer screen. The searchable website database is refreshed periodically to reflect the ongoing work being done at the ANS on the master COINS database. This conver-slon method will also be used to make available the ANS Library holdings when the computerized cata-logue is completed.

The Harry Bass Foundation, with its important numismatic collections and its ongoing efforts to serve the world community of numismatists, is Harry's great legacy. Through this vehicle, his com-mitment to make resources for the study and appreci-ation of numismatics freely and universally available will continue unabated and the finest body of evidence for the study of U.S. gold coinage will be preserved.

Complications from lung disease claimed the life of Harry Wesley Bass Jr. on April 4, 1998.


< Previous || His Life Menu

Part One - Coming of Age

Part Two - Bass Buys A Mountain

Part Three - The Lore of Numismatics

Part Four - The 1989 ANS COAC Exhibition

Part Five - The Harry Bass Era at ANS