R. Henry Norweb and Emery May Norweb ledgers and auction catalogs, 1867 - 1984

Biographical Note

Numismatists R. Henry Norweb (1895-1983) and his wife Emery May Norweb (1895-1984) pursued their interest in coin collecting as a team, serving together as members of the American Numismatic Society’s governing council. Henry began his first term in 1960 and Emery became the first woman member of the council when she took office in 1969. They both served until 1978. Henry was born in Nottingham, England, and eventually moved to Elyria, Ohio, in 1907. He graduated from Harvard in 1916, and he and Emory married in 1917. He was a career diplomat, starting in 1917 as second secretary to Ambassador William G. Sharp in Paris and eventually serving as U.S. ambassador to Lima, Panama, and Cuba. His wife, Emery, graduated from Westover school in Connecticut and later drove an ambulance in France during World War I. She developed an early interest in coin collecting from her father, Albert Holden, and she joined the American Numismatic Association (ANA) in 1914, continuing her membership for over seventy years. Through the years they made numerous gifts of rare coins to American numismatic institutions, including a 52-piece collection of U.S. colonial coins and the Proof 1913 Liberty Head nickel to the Smithsonian Institution (1982), and the Brasher doubloon to the American Numismatic Society (1969). They retired together to Bratenahl, Ohio, where Henry was city councilman from 1950 to 1969. Their son, R. Henry Norweb Jr. (1918-1995), carried on the family tradition and served as ANS president from 1990 to 1994.