Basics and Beyond: A Review of “Safeguarding History” by Kenneth W. Rendell

Although not strictly about coins, the book I’m reviewing this month has coins and coin collecting in it, particularly at the beginning. It is the memoir of Kenneth Rendell, who was a coin collector and dealer early in his life before branching out into buying and selling historical documents. Along the way, Rendell put together the world’s most comprehensive collection of World War II artifacts.

Safeguarding History, presidential historian Doris Kearns Goodwin tells us in the book’s foreword, is written by a “. . . master storyteller, with keen insight into the motivations of people. . .” Along the way, “Rendell brings the reader into the drama of uncovering the biggest hoaxes in modern literary times. . .”

According to Goodwin, “Rendell’s role in debunking these multi-million-dollar hoaxes landed him in the front pages of newspapers and magazines. In print and on television, he was dubbed the Indiana Jones of the collecting world.”

In the 1950s, Rendell’s mother received in payment at the family drugstore an 1806 half dollar, which the youth shopped to a few coin dealers before one offered him $3.50, which he took. This showed him that money could be made from old coins. Rendell later bought the coin back, stating, “It has set on my desk ever since that day in 1954.”

Rendell went into the coin business at the age of 12 and soon encountered another young dealer who was a few years older, David Bowers. He and Bowers attended the 1958 ANA convention in Los Angeles together and then traveled to Mexico and beyond. Bowers drove, as he had a driver’s license, which Rendell was still too young to get.

All this is fascinating, of course, particularly if you’re of a certain age, which I am. But I noted at the outset that this is not strictly a coin book. In the 1970s, Rendell purchased a large number of railroad stock certificates, which he eventually sold for a handsome profit. As he notes, “By being able to wait until the market developed, I realized more than 100 times my original cost.”

Rendell entered the world of historical documents in the 1960s. According to him, “The world of historical letters and documents is a virtual time machine that takes us into the lives of individuals in culture and history whose genius has touched us, whose accomplishments have inspired us, and whose efforts have influenced our present-day lives.”

After becoming a known expert in historical documents, Rendell got a call from Newsweek that led to him being hired by the magazine as a special consultant to authenticate some early 20th-century European handwriting. The handwriting was purportedly that of Adolf Hitler, specifically his handwritten diary, which Newsweek believed was authentic and wanted to publish. After a great deal of investigation, Rendell concluded that the writings were all by the same person. “The problem is that that person was not Adolf Hitler.”

There’s a great deal more to the Hitler hoax, and Rendell sets it out in great detail. The chapter in which all this is explained includes a picture of the cover of Selling Hitler, a book by Robert Harris that was turned into a TV mini-series.

After the Hitler diaries’ debunking, Rendell found himself at the top of his world. The publicity he received “opened up the world of collecting historical letters.” One of the denizens of this world was Admiral Richard Byrd, and Rendell talks at length about assisting in the disposal of Byrd’s papers. It developed that there was nothing about Byrd, the person, in the papers given to the Polar Archives of The Ohio State University.

Publicity about this donation of papers was covered by Boston media, and Rendell was contacted by a man who said he had a large number of Byrd’s papers in his storage locker. These papers fleshed out the image of Admiral Byrd, the person.

Why had they been withheld? When Rendell made inquiries about this, he learned that one of Byrd's sons had early dementia and had probably stored the papers and forgotten about them.

Do you have a document with Ronald Reagan’s signature? Chances are good that it’s not really the Gipper’s handwriting. “Reagan’s habit of not signing his letters was established early in his career when Warner Bros. hired his mother to sign letters with his name. The most extraordinary letter in this context is one that he personally wrote to an old friend in Illinois. According to Rendell, it closes with “Best Regards” with the signature “Dutch” on the next line. Below the signature is Reagan’s note to his secretary, in parentheses, “Sign it Dutch.”

Chapter 11 examines Rendell’s involvement in a case involving forgeries of early Mormon documents and murder. In a plot straight out of Agatha Christie’s writings, the murderer turned out to be Mark Hofmann, a document buyer who was always looking for Mormon documents. Two people were killed by exploding bombs, and Hofmann himself appeared to be an intended third victim. Unfortunately for Hofmann, according to Rendell, “The Salt Lake City police had rapidly begun to suspect that Hofmann was both the bomber and possibly involved in fraudulent documents.”

In other words, Hofmann had tried to throw suspicion off himself by staging another bombing in which he appeared to be the victim rather than the perpetrator. Amazingly, Rendell himself might have been one of Hofmann’s victims if Hofmann had gotten Rendell’s home address.

There’s much more in Rendell’s memoir than I’ve told you about. There’s the Jack the Ripper diary hoax, Rendell’s appraisal of Richard Nixon’s White House papers, his work on assembling the Bill Gates library, and more.

Everything about Safeguarding History screams “Read Me,” and I can recommend the book without reservation. Published by Whitman (whitman.com) with a list price of $24.95, the book is available from the publisher as well as from online booksellers such as Amazon and Barnes and Noble. If you want a pre-owned copy, you can find one on eBay. Make this a belated Christmas present to yourself.

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