Confessions of a Crossover Collector
Why collect just one thing? William Leslie talks on his crossover collecting tendencies.
I’m a crossover collector. I never knew such a thing existed until I read Caleb Noel’s Editor’s Note in Numismatist magazine recently, but his description suited me to a tee. I first began collecting coins when I was 6. I spotted a strange coin when my father dropped his change on the dresser at the end of the day. It was a Canadian penny. Even back in 1963, Canadian cents were used in U.S. commerce. At the time, the Canadian dollar traded at a substantial discount to the U.S. dollar, just like today. In a moment, the penny was mine, and was the beginning of my coin collection. I soon purchased a Whitman cent folder, and the rest is history. In the 60 years since then, I’ve never stopped collecting.
I grew up in the 1960s and 1970s, when TV shows like “The Rat Patrol”, “MASH” and “Hogan’s Heroes”, and movies like “Kelly’s Heroes”, “Combat!” and “The Dirty Dozen” were popular. I was always interested in WWII. In my thirties, when I could afford it, I began collect WWII memorabilia, including war bonds and stamps, patriotic posters, military knives, and home front ephemera. I eventually found and restored a 1943 Ford GPW — a jeep. It took me seven years to find one worth restoring, and seven years to restore it, although when is such a project ever finished?
My two hobbies, WWII history and numismatics, began to merge. I stopped adding most U.S. coins to my collection, instead focusing on coins and currencies associated with the war. I already had a nice collection of silver war nickels and 1943 steel Lincoln cents. My collection already contained one Hawaii overprint banknote. I added several more. Then I began to collect WWII occupation currencies — both Allied and Axis. Many of them can be purchased for just a dollar or two at antique shops. Gold seal currencies, which were issued to American troops in Africa, were a natural extension of my collection. I haven’t yet begun to collect POW camp script, although I see such a collection on the horizon.
I found many ways to connect WWII history and numismatics. During the war, servicemen would collect currencies from the countries they visited and tape them together. These were called “short snorters.” Other servicemen would add their autograph to the bank notes. In time, a short snorter became a record of where the serviceman had traveled and who he met. If a short snorter could not be produced upon request, the offending party had to buy a drink for the person who had offered an autograph. Some short snorters stretched to ten or more pieces of currency. Currency with the names of famous military men such as Dwight Eisenhower, George Patton, or Claire Chennault, can command big prices. I’ve added several short snorters to my numismatic collection.
Trench art often combines numismatics with WWII history. I’ve stumbled over several silver rings made from silver coins of Great Britain. A bored soldier or sailor would tap the outside of a silver coin, such as a 1930s vintage 2 shilling coin, with a hammer. With time — and there was usually plenty of time to fill — the rim would begin to fold over. When it was the correct size, the interior of the coin would be drilled out. A number of these rings became wedding rings between U.S. GIs and British girls.
These collecting interests are united when I take the jeep to a car show. I often bring along occupation currencies and other assorted items. This introduces both WWII history and WWII numismatics to car enthusiasts. A steel penny make a fine, inexpensive introduction to WWII numismatics to an interested young person.
It is stamped on July 27, 1943, the first date of issue for a stamp commemorating Norway as one of the countries occupied by the Axis. William Leslie
My writing also crosses over between numismatics. In August, 2012, I wrote an article for World at War Magazine titled “How WWII Changed American Money.” What’s next? The options seem endless. I recently began to collect WWII patriotic “covers.”
Crossing over between two areas of interest can be a lot of fun.