LITTLETON – Littleton Coin Company employees and officials recently celebrated the 59th anniversary of the company’s founding. Shown (L. to R.) at the cake cutting in the firm’s cafeteria are Jeffrey Marsh, vice president of Marketing, Ed Hennessey, chief financial officer, and company president David Sundman.
“Fifty-nine years later,” Sundman, son of the founder, told those gathered, “I can say thanks to my mom and dad and to you for being here today, and for all your efforts. You are doing a good job carrying on my father and mother’s vision. It is not easy to start a business, and it is a real challenge to stay renewed for nearly 60 years.”
December 3, 1945, WWII veteran Maynard Sundman, newly released from 5th Army duty in Italy, and his wife Fannie started out in Littleton selling stamps to collectors. In the decades since, the company has emerged as one of the world’s largest coin and paper money mail order operations.
Reflecting about his parents’ humble beginnings in the North Country, David Sundman noted that they launched their business on a card table in a two-room office in the Tilton Opera Block. “Dad used to carry the mail back and forth from the post office in a shoebox,” he said. The observation drew appreciative laughter from employees now handling approximately 1.5 million pieces of mail each year.
Now 89, Maynard Sundman still comes in to the company’s headquarters on Mt. Eustis Road virtually every working day. Visitors who tour the facility are likely to see the personable, down-to-earth founder making his rounds of various departments or emptying his own wastebasket at one of the firm’s recycling bins.
