If you were in bookstores searching for the most common, collectible publications on coin collecting, the first most popular would be the Redbook of coins, which started in 1947 and is published annually. The second most common, though, and highly collectible is the Star Rare Coin Encyclopedia, by B. Max Mehl, who was from Ft. Worth.
Who was Benjamin Max Mehl, and why are his publications so sought after when it has been over 50 years since any were published?
In 1903, when Max began collecting coins, the most successful dealers were on the East Coast. Max, a Jewish high school dropout, realized that the only way he could compete was to promote the heck out of his business! Established dealers promoted their businesses in publications devoted to collectors. Max bought big ads in mainstream publications like the Saturday Evening Post to appeal to non-collectors.
One of his biggest promotions was to offer $50 for a 1913 Liberty “V” nickel that anyone would find and sell to him. This was about two weeks’ pay for the average working man of the day. (These trade for $4,000,000 each now!) Max knew there were only five of these minted, and he knew where all of them were, but that didn’t stop him from starting a nationwide hunt for these ultra rarities. There were stories of street car conductors tying up traffic as they searched the fares for one of these! Of course, none were ever found, but this wild-goose chase was the “gateway drug” for coin collecting for many Americans!Max’s Star Rare Coin Encyclopedia is his best known product. Not really an encyclopedia, instead it listed what he’d pay for coins and a retail price list. It also contained pitches to buy coins and books from him. For just a dollar, you could get on Max’s “Mehling” list and receive his auction catalogs and magazines. Over the years, he published three different periodicals dedicated to moving his inventory.
The Encyclopedia was phenomenally successful. By the mid-1920s, he was making almost as much from selling his books as from selling his coins. And, by that time, he was America’s largest coin dealer.
He produced 61 editions of his encyclopedia, 116 auction catalogs, more than 130 individual issues of his periodicals, and dozens of price lists. Who would have predicted that America’s first “rock star” coin collector and dealer would be a high school dropout from Ft. Worth, Texas?
I encourage you to come visit our club meetings. Bring your copy of the Star Rare Coin Encyclopedia; we do have one brought in from time to time. The Brown County Coin Club will meet on Tuesday, January 8, at 6:30 at the Austin Avenue Church of Christ. Come in the side door through the children’s play area, on the west side of the building. For more information, contact Bill Cooper at 325-642-2128 or Bob Turner at 325-217-4129. I can also be contacted through my website, PrincipallyCoins.com.
