Sydney F. Martin’s Remarkable Colonial Collection

Sydney F. Martin’s collection of colonial American tokens, coinage and medals was so vast that after his passing in January 2021, Stack’s Bowers Galleries has required several years of cataloging to present everything at auction. Three major live auctions and a few online sales have taken place already, and there will be another auction closing later in June. Martin had over 30,000 individual items in his collection and every one of them served a purpose, particularly in writing his four major reference works.

From the excellent biography presented on Stack’s Bowers Galleries website, we learn that Martin, “was best known in the numismatic community as an advanced collector, president of the American Numismatic Society (ANS) from 2012 to 2020, and the author of four standard references on early American numismatics. All four of his books were published by C4 (the Colonial Coin Collectors Club) and he served as the editor of the C4 Newsletter from 2004 to 2015. The Hibernia Coinage of William Wood was published in 2007, followed by The Rosa Americana Coinage of William Wood in 2011, French Coinages Specifically for Colonial America in 2015, and Saint Patrick Coinage [for Ireland and New Jersey] in 2018. His Numismatic Commemorations of the 200th Birthday of George Washington in 1932 was published posthumously by the ANS in 2021.”

Respect for Martin in the numismatic field was solid, and he was well known, active and admired as noted by Stack’s Bowers in their tribute. “The American Numismatic Society awarded Syd their highest honor, the Archer M. Huntington Medal, in 2020; he was also an ANS Fellow and a founding member of the Augustus B. Sage Society. He was honored with election to the Rittenhouse Society in 2017. Syd was a life member of the American Numismatic Association and Numismatic Bibliomania Society (the latter of which he also served as a board member) and held membership for many years in Early American Coppers, the Medal Collectors of America, and the Token and Medal Society.”

For the introduction to The Sydney F. Martin Collection, Part I auction in August 2022, John Kraljevich offered us this insight to Martin’s approach to collecting. “Syd valued relationships. He dealt with the same people over and over again. But Syd valued the treasure hunt of finding a new piece for his expansive collections too. From trades with friends to high-stakes adventures on the wilds of eBay to major auctions or European dealers, Syd found coins everywhere. But when you collect as many things as Syd did and have such a universal ability to find something interesting about every coin you encounter, a broad net is necessary.”

As mentioned, Martin wrote four fine studies in distinct areas of Colonial Americana. That alone is an incredible achievement. Martin was able to do this by building his massive collection partially from acquiring other expertly compiled specialized collections. The fact that he then took the time to study and write about these series is a tribute to Martin’s character.

The tradition of buying smaller or more significant collections as the nucleus of your own is long-standing in coin collecting. We’ve seen classic examples of this through the 19th and 20th centuries in all disciplines of numismatics in just about every country where you find a coin club. But it is this next step of sharing what you have learned through the creation of standard references that made Syd Martin such a special collector.

Roger Siboni defined it very clearly in his introduction to the first Martin auction when he wrote, “In the span of just a few decades, he purchased multiple collections to assemble an extraordinarily in-depth series of colonial issues that collectors and scholars will visually and intellectually enjoy in these catalog pages and internet archives for years to come. As I indicated in my January 2021 obituary for Syd Martin, every book effort he undertook started with the opportunity to buy an extensive collection in one area or another. The more extensive the collection, the more obscure the area, the more confusing the literature explaining the topic, the more appealing he found the acquisition. He purchased Bob Vlack’s collection of Wood’s Hibernia and Rosa Americana coinages that gave him over 1,000 coins to study and make sense of as a prelude to his first two foundational books. Vlack’s collection came, in part, from the Estate of William Wood. He purchased James LaSarre’s exhaustive collection of Saint Patrick coinage as the cornerstone for his third book. He purchased collections of French American coinage from Jeff Rock and Anthony Terranova for his book on French Colonies.”

As for the auction catalogs themselves, The Sydney F. Martin Collection volumes will stand as an excellent reference library for any collector or student of American Colonial-era numismatics. If you do not already own them but are interested in this early American numismatic history, Stack’s Bowers Galleries website kindly offers PDF downloads for your reference. Do take the time to investigate them and download a set for your own library, while viewing the last offerings remaining in the series.

Sometimes it may seem that all we report on in the numismatic press is high end material and shattered records for the greatest of rarities, but in the case of this article and of Sydney F. Martin’s collection, the average person with an interest in Colonial coins, tokens and medals will find that these final auctions may offer some great opportunities to acquire a few pieces with a legendary pedigree. For instance, during the sales of St. Patrick Farthings in April, many sold between $500 to $1,000, which was true also for the New Jersey coppers. The Sou Marque French colonial types sold primarily between $250 to $750, and a slew of Contemporary Counterfeit and Imitation George III Halfpennies sold from $150 to $450 with notable exceptions like the Unique “Banana Nose,” which went for $9,000.

At the time of my writing this article, the Sydney F. Martin Collection June 2023 auction is just warming up and most lots are just sitting at $1 waiting for some love. Check these amazing Colonial coins, tokens and medals out at Stack’s Bowers Galleries website and add a double slice of history to your budding collection of Early Americana.