Numismatic News Editor David C. Harper has been awarded the Burnett Anderson Memorial Award for Excellence in Numismatic Writing.
The award was bestowed by the American Numismatic Association during its annual awards banquet Aug. 11 at the World?s Fair of Money in Milwaukee.
The award holds special significance to Harper because he worked with Burnett Anderson for almost 18 years when Anderson served as the Numismatic News Washington, D.C., correspondent and Harper was on the NN staff.
?I am a better Numismatic News editor for having known and worked with Burnett,? Harper said.
Harper has been a coin collector since 1963, when he began filling a Whitman album with Lincoln cents. He caught the tail end of the circulation finds era and he augmented his sets with purchases paid for from paper route earnings.
Inspired to write in part by Q. David Bowers? book, ?Coins and Collectors,? he entered and won the monthly Coins magazine ?What?s the Story? contest when he was 15 years old. His first bylined numismatic article appeared in the June 1971 issue as a result. He entered the contest so often and won often enough that the rules were changed to prohibit new submissions for a two-year period after winning.
?My free subscriptions were still running when Krause hired me,? he joked.
?Perhaps they wanted to save money.?
He joined the Krause Publications editorial staff in 1978 and is currently editor of Numismatic News and World Coin News and executive editor of Bank Note Reporter. He also edits two books annually, North American Coins & Prices and U.S. Coin Digest. He is the author of the ?Class of ?63? column that runs each week in Numismatic News.
His various Krause Publications assignments included a stint as editor of Coins magazine 1980-1983.
Harper received a bachelor of science degree from the University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh in 1977. He had a double major of journalism and economics.
?I first met Burnett Anderson when Krause hired him to be the firm?s Washington correspondent in 1981. I learned a lot from him. I enjoyed working with him. He was a great storyteller and a stickler for accuracy. That is the heart of journalism. It is a special honor to receive the numismatic writing award that carries his name,? Harper said.
