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NAFTZGER V. ANS CORRESPONDENCE

Currency:USD Category:Coins & Paper Money Start Price:175.00 USD Estimated At:350.00 USD
NAFTZGER V. ANS CORRESPONDENCE
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Naftzger, Roy E., Jr. v. The American Numismatic Society. LEGAL DOCUMENTS AND RELATED CORRESPONDENCE. Superior Court of the State of California for the County of Los Angeles et al., 1990–99 [mostly 1993]. A considerable body of material of official photocopies and original correspondence, comprising a two-inch stack of mostly 8.5 by 11 inch sheets of paper, along with a number of original mailing envelopes. An extensive body of material received by Phil Ralls and Jeffrey Oliphant concerning this important legal battle, mostly chronicling its early years. Present are many materials relating to the origins of the lawsuit and to its various permutations along the way. While the story of the apparent theft of large cents from the collection of the American Numismatic Society is well-known, the documentation present here contains much of interest. The affair traces its origins to when George H. Clapp donated his remarkable collection of over 1000 United States large cents to the American Numismatic Society in 1937, and the ANS took possession in 1947. Enter Dr. William H. Sheldon; exit certain Clapp coins; enter certain substitutions; ergo chaos. The documents present here include Del Bland’s 1990 listing of the missing Clapp cents, extensively annotated with provenance information; a June 20, 1991 two-page handwritten letter from Bland to Phil Ralls concerning the research status of a number of the cents in question; a handwritten letter from Roy E. (Ted) Naftzger, Jr. to Ralls dated 4/3/92 stating in part that “This mess should never have appeared. Forty or more of our [EAC] members are affected, and I want you to know that REN will never surrender. Let’s just say that I have not (to my best knowledge) disposed of any ‘switch’ coin[s]; I do expect to resign my membership in ANS, but will wait till the dust settles”; hundreds of pages of 1993 court records including procedural requests, depositions by John Kleeberg, Ted Naftzger, Del Bland and others, and discovery documents; also occasional miscellaneous correspondence. A most interesting assemblage of materials relating to this unfortunate episode.