I’ll have more for you on the Hispanic coins story, coming soon.
But for now, I’m rubbing my eyes and saying, “Thanks, Felicia.!”
Scroll down to the ninth paragraph in NY Times reporter Felicia Lee‘s story, Coin Collection Is Partly Saved by a Loan. They buried the credit and the link, but at least CultureGrrl (if not her alter ego, Lee Rosenbaum) is cited. It was Felicia who wrote this story back in November that discussed the Hispanic Society of America’s financial difficulties and briefly mentioned the possibility of the coins sale.
There’s one thing that Felicia can do that I can’t—get a comment from Mitchell Codding, the Hispanic Society of America’s executive director, who presided over he disposal of HSA’s incomparable coin collection. He has steadfastly declined to respond to my queries.
He told the other Lee this:
The greatest concern about any dispersal of the collection focused largely on the coins now back at the [American] Numismatic Society [to which they had been previously on long-term loan from the HSA]. They have been heavily researched, and there is constant utilization by scholars. It’s good they’ll be available to scholars.
It would have been even better, Mitchell, if all 38,000 of the coins were still “available to scholars,” and if the 10,000 that have now returned (on loan to the American Numismatic Society, for possible future donation) had never left.
Question from Lee to Lee: What about the donor-intent part of this story? Coming soon?