Collection open to all researchers.
Mark Salton papers, Archives, 1931-2020, American Numismatic Society.
Copyright restrictions may apply. Permission to publish or reproduce must be secured from the American Numismatic Society.
Mark Salton was a coin dealer and collector (1914-2005). He was born as Max Schlessinger in 1914 in Frankfurt in an established Jewish coin dealer family. His father, Felix Schlessinger had his own coin dealership. The family and business moved to Berlin in 1928 to improve their business opportunities, Max/Mark attended gymnasium in Berlin, and then the Berlin School of Economics. He also completed an internship in a private bank, E.G. Kaufman. As a teenager he started attending his father’s auctions and became familiar with the numismatic world. In the early 1936 antisemitism from the rising Nazi party made Felix move his company and family to the Netherlands. Upon arriving in Amsterdam at age, Mark/Max soon set up his own coin dealership and was issuing fixed price lists. The Germans invaded the Netherlands in May 1940. In February 1941, the Nazis seized all the assets of Felix Schlessinger. Sometime in the summer of 1942, Mark/Max and a friend went into hiding with the aid of a Calvinist acquaintance in Amsterdam. A few months later Mark and his friend crossed into Belgium, then occupied France, then unoccupied France, then across the Pyrenees into Spain where he was held in a concentration camp set up by Franco. His release was engineered by the Dutch consul and he was sent on to Portugal. He worked at the Dutch embassy in Lisbon until the end of the war. Hearing of his parents’ death and his brother’s move to Palestine he decided to immigrate to the US in 1946. He moved to New York and began working at Manufacturers Hanover. He enrolled in NYU business school and got a masters in international banking. In 1948 he married Lottie Aronstein. While working at Manufacturers Hanover, Mark began publishing fixed price lists under the name Mark M. Salton/Schlessinger, but was more of a collector than a dealer. He also made efforts to recover his father’s possessions stolen by the Nazis. He did receive money from a Swiss bank settlement in 2002, but he had to buy back many of his father’s possessions. As a collector, Mark became increasingly interested in Renaissance medals, and his and Lottie’s collection was displayed at Bowdoin Museum of Art in 1965. In 1981 Mark retired from Manufacturers Hanover and for the next 25 years he focused mostly on numismatics, collecting, and researching, and was an active member of the American Numismatic Society. He died in 2005.
The earliest of the materials are annotated bid books of Felix Schlessinger’s auction firm. Other early items include documents of the Omnia Treuhandgesellschaft, the “trust company” the Nazis established to control or liquidate Jewish companies. In addition, the collection includes: research papers, such as Mark Salton’s notes on diverse topics, including Italian, French and German Renaissance medals, medallions, and coins; business papers relating to purchases and other personal and business financial documents relating to taxes, joint ventures, expenses, commissions, and sales; and materials documenting the Saltons’ donations of coins and money to Bowdoin College, Princeton, Harvard, Wooster, Mount Holyoke, Cornell and the American Numismatic Society. Also included is documentation relating to the buying, selling, and collecting of coins and medals.
Early papers related to the confiscation of the business and inventory of Felix Schlessinger by the Nazis and Salton’s efforts to get them back.
Documents related to the purchase of coins and medals made by Mark Salton.
Documents related to purchases and other personal and business financial documents, including taxes, joint ventures, expenses, commissions and sales.
Writings and research materials
Papers relating to research and Salton’s donations of coins and money to various institutions.
Papers relating to Salton’s donations of coins and money to Bowdoin College and the American Numismatic Society
Photographs, slides, pictures, and plates of coins and medals.
Four card file boxes
Card file box 1: “Books, catalogues, medals” |
Card file box 2: Salton’s rolodex of business cards, addresses and phone numbers |
Card file box “N”: coin notes by country |
Card file box “AR”: coin notes by country. |
Catalogs, bid books, and fixed price lists of Felix Schlessinger, Max Schlessinger, Mark Salton-Schlessinger, and Shulman companies. Some are annotated and some are not.
Books on Lottie Salton's hometown in Germany: Wir waren Nachbarn: Spuren jüdischen Lebens in der Stadt Wünnenberg (2 copies); We Were Neighbors: Traces of Jewish Life in the City of Wünnenberg (1 copy), 2014, Editor Gertrud Tolle.
Origins of the German coin trade: the Hamburger and Schlessinger families, published by Stacks & Bowers, 2022
Felix Schlessinger’s FPLs (Berlin and Amsterdam) duplicates and unannotated, 1928-1939, includes Nummer 1: July 1928, Nummer 2 : December 1928, Nummer 3: August 1929,Nummer 4: August 1929, Nummer 5: December 1929, Nummer 6: July 1930, Nummer 7: December 1930, Nummer 8: April 1931, Nummer 10: September 1931, Nummer 12: May 1932 (2 copies), Nummer 14: 1933, Nummer 16: 1934, Liste 4: 1936 (Amsterdam), Liste 5: 1937, Liste 6: 1937, Liste 8: 1938, Liste 11: 1938, Liste 13:1939.
Max Schlessinger’s FPLS (Amsterdam, New York) duplicates and unannotated, Liste 1: 1936, Bulletin 30: 1960.
Mark Salton-Schlessinger Auction Catalogs (New York) duplicates and unannotated, No. 18: October 18, 1952, No. 19: February 17, 1953, No. 20: February 2nd 1954, No. 21: October 5th, 1954, No. XXII: February 28th, 1955, No. XXIII: November 22, 1955.
Felix Schlessinger catalog March 31, 1930, duplicate and unannotated
3 Hans Schulman catalogs: May 20-21, 1966: in two volumes, March 19-21, 1968: with letters regarding sale of lot 89, a Regensburg coin from Mark Salton, February 6-8, 1969, duplicates and unannotated.
Mark Salton -Schlessinger FPLS (small booklets approximately 20 pages, annotated): list 15 (2 copies), list 16, list 17, list 24: winter 1956, list 25: winter 1957/58 (2 copies), list 27: fall 1958, list 28: spring 1959, list 29: winter 1959, list 30: winter 1960/61, 4 page pamphlet with handwritten note “31, 1961”, list 33: winter 1961/62,.
FPLS “Coins of Bible Days” undated with note 4/9/57, annotated, 2 copies and no mention of Salton/ Schlesinger.
Mark Salton -Schlessinger FPLS for South American, Hispanic and Spanish coins (1 page, double sided, in Spanish, annotated) undated “from the Potosi mint”/De la ceca de Potosi, undated including gold Hispanic and South American coins, roman gold coins and medals of Charles V., undated including South American gold and silver coins, August 1954, June 1955, March 1956 (2 copies), No. 46: 1957 (2 copies), No. 47: 1957 (2 copies), No. 48/1958 (2 copies).
Mark Salton -Schlessinger FPLS for Numismatic literature, annotated, undated 1 page/ 2 sided, 1958 list (3 copies).
7 Hans Schulman catalogs, annotated: King Farouk sale -February 4, 1950, March 23-24, 1956, MANA 7th convention sale - October 23-24, 1959, February 4-6, 1960, Acosta y Lara universal sale - March 18-19, 1960, February 16-18, 1961, Atomic collection _ June 20-23, 1961.
Mark Salton- Schlessinger auction catalogs, annotated: Empire State Numismatic Association sale - October 18, 1952, Mail bid sale -February 17, 1953, Mail auction sale -October 5, 1954 (2 copies), Mail auction sale XXII- February 28, 1955 (3 copies), Mail auction sale XXIII- November 22, 1955 (2 copies).
Various catalogs with annotations by Mark Salton including Glendinging, 1930s, Sotheby’s 2000s, Munzen & Medaillen 1990s, Classical Numismatic Group, 1990s-2000s, Mario Matto, 1960s
Various catalogs with annotations by Mark Salton including Leu Numismatics, 1980s-2000
Various catalogs with annotations by Mark Salton including Hess-Divo, 1990s-2000s, Credit de la Bourse, 2000s, Stacks, 1960s-1980s. Christies, 2000s
Various catalogs with annotations by Mark Salton including Sotheby’s 1970s-1990s, Spink, 1980s-1990s. Leu Numismatics, 1980s-1990s
Various catalogs with annotations by Mark Salton including Stacks, 1990-2010, Hess-Divo 1990-2000, Parke-Bernet, 1980s