Kolbe & Fanning
Auction 164 27 Aug 2022
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Mason Nears the End
Mason & Company. MASON'S COIN COLLECTORS' MAGAZINE AND PRICE CURRENT. NEW SERIES. Title varies somewhat. Volume XIII, Nos. 1-3 (Boston & Philadelphia, June-December 1890), complete. Tall 8vo, original printed paper covers. 20 + 12 + 12 pages; a few lithographic illustrations in the first issue. Very good to near fine. Bourne 1890-3. The complete volume, followed only by a single issue of Volume XIV not here present. The first two numbers were published in Boston, the last two in Philadelphia. After the second issue, "New Series" on the front wrapper is dropped from the masthead; with the third issue "Collectors'" becomes "Collector's" and "Price Current" is moved to the lower half of the cover, revised to read "Coin Price Current." The drop-title remains "Mason's Coin Collectors' Magazine" throughout. Though he lived for another decade, Mason's final coin auction sale was held in Boston in June 1890. The move to Philadelphia late in the same year apparently presaged his departure from commercial numismatics. In Mason's obituary appearing in the January, 1902 issue of the American Journal of Numismatics, his colleague Lyman Low wrote in closing: "He was a man of energy and upright in all his dealings, and though the latter years of his life were not crowned with the success which human judgment thought he had deserved, he left a large circle of friends who will ever cherish his memory." John Adams's paean to the man also bears repeating: "Ebenezer Mason did a great deal to promote numismatics and to push back the borders of its ignorance. His enthusiasm was, commercially speaking, poorly compensated. However, one often senses in his writings that he was speaking to posterity. Perhaps, he realized that many of his contributions would survive and the immortality so envisioned served to soften the hardships of financial failure." Ex M. Bourne Library.
(Estimate: $100)
Mason & Company. MASON'S COIN COLLECTORS' MAGAZINE AND PRICE CURRENT. NEW SERIES. Title varies somewhat. Volume XIII, Nos. 1-3 (Boston & Philadelphia, June-December 1890), complete. Tall 8vo, original printed paper covers. 20 + 12 + 12 pages; a few lithographic illustrations in the first issue. Very good to near fine. Bourne 1890-3. The complete volume, followed only by a single issue of Volume XIV not here present. The first two numbers were published in Boston, the last two in Philadelphia. After the second issue, "New Series" on the front wrapper is dropped from the masthead; with the third issue "Collectors'" becomes "Collector's" and "Price Current" is moved to the lower half of the cover, revised to read "Coin Price Current." The drop-title remains "Mason's Coin Collectors' Magazine" throughout. Though he lived for another decade, Mason's final coin auction sale was held in Boston in June 1890. The move to Philadelphia late in the same year apparently presaged his departure from commercial numismatics. In Mason's obituary appearing in the January, 1902 issue of the American Journal of Numismatics, his colleague Lyman Low wrote in closing: "He was a man of energy and upright in all his dealings, and though the latter years of his life were not crowned with the success which human judgment thought he had deserved, he left a large circle of friends who will ever cherish his memory." John Adams's paean to the man also bears repeating: "Ebenezer Mason did a great deal to promote numismatics and to push back the borders of its ignorance. His enthusiasm was, commercially speaking, poorly compensated. However, one often senses in his writings that he was speaking to posterity. Perhaps, he realized that many of his contributions would survive and the immortality so envisioned served to soften the hardships of financial failure." Ex M. Bourne Library.
(Estimate: $100)