Arthur H. Cooper-Prichard catalog of the Warren Demman Gookin collection, 1903 - 1906

Descriptive Summary

Repository
American Numismatic Society
Extent
4 notebooks (1 box)
Dimensions
7 in. x 8.25 in., 391 pages
Language
English
Abstract
Four notebooks containing a catalog by Arthur Henry Cooper-Richard of 1,837 ancient Roman coins collected by Warren Demman Gookin in Italy in 1868.

Part of the title page from one of the notebooks


Creator

Name
Cooper-Prichard, Arthur Henry, 1874-1947
Abstract
The cataloger, Arthur H. Cooper-Prichard (1874-1947), was born in Kingston, Jamaica.

Administrative Information

Access

Collection open to all researchers.

Preferred Citation

Arthur H. Cooper-Prichard catalog of the Warren Demman Gookin collection, 1903-1906, Archives, American Numismatic Society.

Restrictions

Copyright restrictions may apply. Permission to publish or reproduce must be secured from the American Numismatic Society.

Biographical Note

The cataloger, Arthur H. Cooper-Prichard (1874-1947), was born in Kingston, Jamaica. He was the Society’s first paid librarian, serving in this capacity from February 1911 until March 1912, when it appears he left over a controversial cataloging article he had written for the American Journal of Numismatics. He attended Kings College, Windsor, Nova Scotia (1905-1906), and, according to his own biographical description in a 1907 letter ANS president Archer M. Huntington, “occupied the position of Assistant Curator” of that institution during his time as a student. Cooper-Prichard had also worked previously at the University of Pennsylvania Museum (1897-1898), the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (1899-ca. 1900), the Provincial Museum, Nova Scotia (ca. 1900-1901), and the Brooklyn Museum (1902-1903). He was a corresponding member of the Nova Scotia Institute of Science in the early decades of the twentieth century. Cooper-Prichard stated that he invented a unique system of cataloging in which every characteristic of any type of coin “may be classified upon a single page.” However, owing to the “compactness of the Gookin Collection,” he says he did not apply this system to the notebooks, though a testimonial, presumably from Warren G. Waterman, Gookin’s nephew, reproduced for Huntington in Cooper-Prichard’s own hand, attests that the cataloger “has identified and cataloged [the coins] (according to his own invented system of minute description and full information).” Cooper-Prichard states that he advised Waterman not to donate the Gookin coin collection to the Brooklyn Museum because he felt that that institution “would not have had that attention and prominence which [he] felt the scientific value of its specimens merited.” The collection and other coins were subsequently donated to the ANS in 1906.

Warren Demman Gookin (1810-1874), the son of Richard and Rebecca (Demman) Gookin, was born in Haverhill, New Hampshire. He was educated at Haverhill Academy and Dartmouth College, graduating from the latter institution in 1830. He was a private tutor in Florida from 1830 to 1831. In 1835 he went to Cuba where he remained for ten years as a sugar planter. Later, he was engaged in a mercantile business in Oregon, finally settling in Brooklyn and working as a shipping merchant in New York City until his death on January 17, 1874.

Scope and Content

Four notebooks (7 in. x 8.25 in., 391 pages) containing a catalog by Arthur Henry Cooper-Prichard of 1,837 ancient Roman coins collected by Warren Demman Gookin in Italy in 1868. The fourth volume, signed by Cooper-Prichard, states that he completed the notebooks in September 1903. A “supplement” was later added in 1906 to the back cover of volume four by Warren Gookin Waterman, the coin collector’s nephew. That same year, he and Martica Gookin Waterman, Warren’s daughter, donated the notebooks to the Society. Each volume contains meticulous descriptions as to denomination, origin, date, value, condition, and visual description of the various coins. At the back of volume one is a listing explaining the abbreviations used by the cataloger throughout. The Waterman family donated some of the coins to the Society in 1906.

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