Dad and I in front of a plaque on Littleton's Opera Block commemorating the site where our company began

Celebrating the life of Maynard Sundman

 

My father, Maynard Sundman, who founded Littleton Coin Company with my mother, Fannie, more than 60 years ago, passed away on October 31, 2007, at the age of 92. First dealing in stamps, and later in coins, Dad leaves an enduring legacy in the collecting community for introducing many thousands of new coin and stamp enthusiasts to the hobby. On a personal basis, he is lovingly remembered by his family, friends and employees for his kindness, consideration and generosity.

 

A memorial service in celebration of his life was held on November 10, 2007, at Littleton's First Congregational Church, led by Pastor Edward E. Lopeman and attended by a large gathering of my father's friends, neighbors and family - including Dad's second wife Dorothy and her children. I was honored, along with my brothers Rick and Don, as well as other family members and friends, to say a few words about this man who set a wonderful example as a father, neighbor and employer.

 

The importance of trust in my father's life was noted in remembrances. Dad earned immediate and complete trust from his first stamp supplier and backer, the late H. E. Harris of Boston, and was given carte blanche access to the Harris inventory with an unlimited line of credit. Mr. Harris's trust was soon rewarded, and before long he saluted my father's enterprise for "the greatest rate of growth in the history of the stamp business." Dad also believed in surrounding himself with capable people and trusting them to do the right things for the company. Of course, he also trusted his customers, sending out hundreds of millions of dollars worth of stamps and coins "on approval" to collectors nationwide, so they could select the items they wanted to purchase in the comfort of their homes.

 

A mid-1950s photo of my father at his desk in the Opera Block office

My father was always reading and learning, and he loved passing on to others what he recently had learned or discovered. Innovation was a major key to his success, and he was never reluctant to try new approaches and new ways to serve collectors. His dedication to personalized service was legendary. Our good friend Q. David Bowers, co-chairman of the prominent New York coin dealer Stack's, commended Dad's dedication to his customers - noting that it's one thing to be successful in business, but quite another to be successful in the competitive collecting trade.

 

My father was successful, but he lived modestly, and he viewed "success" as simply having the means to care for family and to help others. His quiet generosity to a great many community projects and charitable causes has been mentioned frequently in recent accounts of his life.

 

Dad loved the collecting hobby and the business, and never considered coming to the office to be a day of work. It was simply doing what he loved to do, and he never stopped working at the office and from his home. My family and staff will miss my father greatly, but his life and accomplishments will always be an inspiration to us.

 

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The historic Berlin NH National Bank on Post Office Square in 1892

This very scarce $5 Brown Back note from the Berlin National Bank is one of only three known to exist

I recently found this interesting photo from 1892 showing the new building of the Berlin (NH) National Bank that opened in 1892 on Post Office Square. By the gathered crowd in the photo, I am guessing this was opening day. The Post Office was located in the office to the right, leasing space from the bank. On the 2nd floor, offices were rented out, and a clubroom for the Maynesboro Club was located on the top floor. Fellow New Hampshire numismatist Q. David Bowers and I have been working for a number of years on a history of paper currency in New Hampshire, and I purchased the photo of the bank to use in that book. The $5 Brown Back note shown is from a private collection and is very scarce. Only 3 Brown Backs from this bank have been reported to exist, with all 14 other known large-size

notes from this bank being the later 1902 Date Back and Plain Back series.

 

In 1892, the population of Berlin was around 3,000 people and the dominant business was the Berlin Mills, a paper company. The mill changed its name to Brown Company during World War I, when German names like Berlin were not popular. Interestingly, the city never changed its name. The signers of the illustrated $5 note were the founding cashier Albert H. Eastman, and founding president Alfred R. Evans. Berlin remained a paper mill town until quite recently. With the sale of the mills by the Brown Company several years ago, it is a town in transition. Berlin's population is now less than 10,000 - down from a high of more than 30,000 when the paper mills were at their peak. It's located about 42 miles east of Littleton.

 

Collecting National Bank Notes is great fun, and they can be collected many different ways. Some people collect notes from their own town, county or state. Others collect notes from towns they like the sound of, such as David City, Nebraska, which I happen to like! If your name is Peter, you might like to collect notes from every town that contains "Peter" in its name, such as Petersburg, Virginia, and Peterborough, New Hampshire. Still others collect one of every type of national issued, regardless of geographic location. An interesting state and territory collection can be built, given the time and budget. Many National Bank Notes are quite scarce, with more than 100 notes in existence representing a fairly common national bank issue. Contact our friendly Customer Service reps if you have a hankering to collect nationals.

 

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My friends at Whitman Publishing in Atlanta are working on a new book on collecting the various editions of A Guide Book of United States Coins (referred to in this article as the Guide Book), and which you may know as the "Red Book." The Guide Book is popularly called the "Red Book" due to the color of the cover, although the earliest books were actually more of a burgundy. In any case, the nickname "Red Book" has stuck. This new volume about the Guide Book will be authored by Frank J. Colletti, with a forward by Ken Bressett, editor of the book for many years. I'm a current contributor to the Guide Book, and Mr. Colletti contacted contributors both past and present for our recollections. I picked my earliest recollection, dating from the mid-1950s, a portion of which I'll share with you.

 

In the 1950s, my father Maynard Sundman was frequently visited by dealers from New York City and Boston, who would drive to New Hampshire to visit and hopefully to sell coins. My father liked mixtures, and Littleton often sold mixtures of tokens and medals in cigar box assortments to our customers. We had some regular suppliers of these, as well as U.S. and world coins. Usually mixtures were sold unsorted, but sometimes we'd break them down by categories, and retail the better individual coins. They would range from low-denomination base metal foreign coins, to tokens of the world, with some U.S. tossed in as well, principally Hard Times tokens and Civil War cents, often damaged or well worn. Sometime around 1956 or so, accompanying my dad one weekend to work at our then small family stamp and coin business, I came to really appreciate the Guide Book and the importance of reading it - or at least recalling images of its contents, if not actual values. Being curious, I liked to rummage through the mixtures my father had just purchased as it was really a treasure hunt. You never knew what you would discover. Even if the values were low, the coins and tokens were really interesting, and it was educational to see which ones I could identify. It also was a source of pride to an eight year old when I made a "discovery."

 

My treasured (1792) Undated Washington Born Virginia token, and listing in 1956 Guide Book

One particular Saturday morning while I was plowing through a pile of coins from one of these mixtures, I recognized a U.S. token I thought was better - as it was listed in the Guide Book. It was a (1792) Undated WASHINGTON BORN VIRGINIA cent in Fine condition (currently listed on page 78 of the Guide Book.) At the time it cataloged for $75 but in actuality would have sold for more. This was my first good coin "find." In hindsight, this really got me excited about coins and doubtless instilled a desire to follow in my father's profession someday. As an eight year old, the idea of finding valuable coins was quite exciting (and still is)! Partly as encouragement to ensure we went to work with him, and partly so we stayed out of our mother's hair on Saturdays, my father would pay my brother Rick and later Don (born 1954) and I ten percent of the Guide Book value for any better coins that we found in our searches. So the WASHINGTON BORN VIRGINIA cent coin represented a $7.50 "finder's fee" to me, which was then a small fortune - representing more than a year's supply of comic books!

 

Throughout the 1950s and early 1960s when silver coins still circulated, Rick and I would support our comic book habit by finding good coins searching bag upon bag of dimes, quarters, halves, and even silver dollars. Dad would go to the bank and bring home the coins. After the dishes and our homework were done, we would clear off the dining room table and go to work. In particular, I can remember going through Mercury Head and Roosevelt dimes. Our business always had a ready supply of dimes at hand, because my father's advertisements featured 10 cent offers. In those days you could really find almost all the dates of Mercury dimes in change or in bags available at the bank. Although I never found a 1916-D, I do remember finding quite a few 1921 and 21-D Mercs. In 1958 the 12th edition of the Guide Book listed the 1921 at $3.00 in Good and the 1921-D at $4.50 in Good, which we valued at 3 1/2 or 4 1/2 comic books, which cost 10 cents each back then! This meant a "finder's fee" of 30 to 45 cents for each of us if we found those better dates - which might happen once or twice in an evening's search of many thousands of coins, so we could buy quite a few comic books. Not only were we happy, but Dad was happy too as we provided him with another source of coins he could offer our Littleton Coin mail order customers.

 

Over the years, as I watched the value of the WASHINGTON BORN VIRGINIA cent increase from $75.00 to $90.00 to $120.00 etc., I always regretted selling that coin. Many years later I decided I would buy an example for my own small collection. Whenever I look at it today, I recall the one I found so many years ago and its listing in the Guide Book. It brings back many pleasant memories of working with my father "when I was just a kid," and is a good reminder of

Littleton Coin Co. now employs over 350 area residents

how big dreams often have small beginnings. Today our firm has hundreds of thousands of customers, and employs a full-time staff of over 350 people. We are a respected, major employer in our town of six thousand inhabitants. Mention Littleton, New Hampshire, to coin collectors, and they immediately will say: "Isn't that the home of Littleton Coin Company?" The most pleasurable thing is that my father lived to see the growth in the business he started. I am sure he knew he was smart to pay his three sons for their "finds," as it made both the hobby and the business appealing and rewarding on many levels.

 

Today, Littleton Coin has an outstanding numismatic library which we make use of in both publishing our various catalogs and evaluating collections. My early coin "finds," using knowledge gained from the Guide Book and other sources, reinforced in me the value of having a good coin and bank note reference library - which I have carefully built over the years. It also has encouraged me to support those who do research, which we're pleased to do through sponsorship of the Maynard Sundman/Littleton Coin Co. Lecture Series - as part of the Numismatic Theatre at the ANA's annual World's Fair of Money held each August. In a small way, this assists in providing a platform for those who produce top quality numismatic research for the benefit of all collectors.

 

As a result of building my numismatic library, I also found that I enjoyed collecting old and new books and catalogs about coins, bank notes, medals and tokens, etc. And this led to my joining the Numismatic Bibliomania Society (NBS) many years ago. For those of you who like numismatic books, dealer catalogs, auction catalogs, etc. and reading all manner of stories about them, I highly recommend the NBS. Membership is open to all who value numismatic books, and enjoy collecting the same. Many top numismatists are members and it is a bargain, one of most affordable things in numismatics. The Numismatic Bibliomania Society is a non-profit organization promoting numismatic literature. Membership includes a year's subscription to the publication The Asylum (these book collectors have a sense of humor!), and is only $15 per year for standard mail delivery of The Asylum to addresses in the U.S., $20 for First Class delivery to addresses in the U.S., and $25 elsewhere. For those without web access, you can send your membership check to me at the address below. Include your e-mail address if you have one, and please tell me if you are a Littleton Coin Company customer.

David M. Sundman, Secretary/Treasurer
Numismatic Bibliomania Society
P. O. Box 82

Littleton, NH 03561

If you have Internet access, please see the NBS website at www.coinbooks.org for more information. A membership application is available on the website at this address: http://www.coinbooks.org/club_nbs_member_app.html. To join, print the application and return it with your check to the address on the application, which is the same as above.

 

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Bob Gilson, collector of automatic musical instruments, shows Dave Bowers and Ken Goldman a stunning piece

I recently wrote about the American Numismatic Association's 2007 World's Fair of Money held August 6-12 in Milwaukee. This ANA summer convention, which moves around the country, is always the high point of the year for me and for our numismatic staff. This year I took an extra day prior to the show and joined dealer and friend Q. David Bowers of Stack's and fellow dealer Ken Goldman on a road trip. Dave had invited me to join him on a visit to see Bob Gilson, a top collector in an entirely different field...

 

Over the years, Dave and I have taken several day trips to various New England museums, historical societies, and bank vaults. This trip did not involve coins or bank notes. Bob is the owner of one of the finest collections of automatic musical instruments in the world. And for me, it was a collecting adventure like no other. The objects Bob collects once populated theatres and dance halls around the world from the 1850s to the early 1920s. But over time, most of them have disappeared, and only collectors like Bob are preserving them and restoring them for future generations to enjoy.

 

Unbeknown to most coin collectors, who may be well aware of his multitudinous coin and bank note books, Q. David Bowers also happens to be one of the top published experts in the field of mechanical and coin operated musical instruments. In fact, in 1972 Dave wrote and published the definitive work on the subject, Encyclopedia of Automatic Musical Instruments. This has been reprinted several times, and covers music boxes, player pianos, calliopes, organs, photoplayers, and other self-playing instruments of 1750-1940, many of them coin-operated. Over the years I had seen several of these, thanks to our close proximity to Clark's Trading Post in nearby North Woodstock, New Hampshire. (See http://www.clarkstradingpost.com/attractionsMuseum.php) The Clark family has quite a collection in daily operation during the summer as part of their various attractions. All are great fun to see when you come to New Hampshire to visit Littleton Coin Company!

 

This field trip was a really memorable experience, spending hours visiting one of the top collectors in the field. In addition to spending time with fine fellow travelers, it was great fun to see a collector, albeit in a totally different field, enjoying the objects he collects. At the end of our visit, Bob gave me an autographed copy of The Golden Age of Automatic Musical Instruments. This is a new 436-page hardcover book featuring hundreds of awe-inspiring automatic musical instruments from Bob's collection, as well as from the collections of James Krughoff and Jasper Sanfilippo. The resulting book is a masterpiece. I really enjoyed meeting Bob, visiting with Dave and Ken along the route, and seeing and hearing Bob's musical marvels. Now, if only I had a large enough space to house one of these …