Collection open to all researchers.
John S. Davenport papers, 1954-1996, Archives, American Numismatic Society.
Copyright restrictions may apply. Permission to publish or reproduce must be secured from the American Numismatic Society.
John S. Davenport (1907-2001) of Galesburg, Illinois, was a numismatist with an expertise in crown-sized coins of Europe and a particular interest in German talers. He was born in Buffalo, New York, and received a B.A. from Cornell (1928), an M.A. from Harvard (1929), and a Ph.D. from the University of North Carolina (1934). He taught English literature at the Carnegie Institute of Technology in Pittsburgh from 1929 to 1931, and then at Knox College in Galesburg beginning in 1945. He retired in 1972, eventually relocating to Coral Gables, Florida. He began collecting coins in 1921 and his first book, European Crowns Since 1800, was published in 1947.
Notebooks and files of research for Davenport’s work on European coins; annotated and extra-illustrated editions of his books; page proofs, typescripts, and mockups of published works; maps; negative and positive print photographs of coins; plaster coin casts of crowns and talers; coin rubbings; invoices; and correspondence (1954-1996), much of which has to do with the publishing and printing of his books and discussions of individual coins, including possible errors in publications. Correspondents include, B. Max Mehl, Enno van Gelder, Günther Probszt, Mark Salton, Wayte Raymond, Bernhard Koch, Richard S. Yeoman, Friedrich Wilandt, Wilhelm Jesse, Gert Hatz, Franco Panvini Rosati, Otto Morkholm, and Randolph Zander. Includes the original page proofs of Davenport’s European Crowns, 1600-1700 (1974) and The Coinage of the Ernestine and Minor Albertine Saxon Dutchies (1988). A personal file contains numerous clippings on Davenport, three photograph portraits of him, and a telegram notifying him of his appointment to the U.S. Assay Commission (1962). A file labeled “University of Tennessee” contains notes and other materials relating English literature and drama.