 |
Whitman Publishing Company - Racine, Wisconsin
First Edition Boards
When Whitman purchased the rights to Post's coin board invention in 1935, it initially just replaced the Kent Company name with its own. These first edition boards all featured black face paper with backing papers of various colors, tan or red being the most common.
Boards of this edition were produced 1935-36. Their backs are unprinted, and they retain the face text devised by Post, including his instruction to "Clean your specimens with a soft eraser or a little vinegar..." This dubious advice was dropped in later editions.
|
 |
Whitman - Second & Third Edition Boards
Under the guidance of Richard Yeo, later better known as Red Book author R. S. Yeoman, Whitman redesigned all of its boards late in 1936. This Second Edition featured blue face paper with silver printing on a flocked, "suede" surface. All backings were tan.
It soon became evident, however, that the flocking rubbed off easily, taking all printing with it. Similar boards were reissued in a Third Edition 1938-41 with leatherette or clothlike paper in place of the flocking. Second and Third Edition boards feature on their backs a brief history of the coin series and a list of other offered titles.
|
 |
Whitman - Fourth Edition
At the end of 1940 Whitman picked up the popular trend toward folding, book-like coin boards with its own line of coin folders. Since these featured the same color scheme of silver printing on blue paper of its Third Edition boards, the company replaced its board line with a new edition of boards having silver printing on black paper with red backings.
The line of titles was limited to just the most popular coin series still to be found in circulation at the time. These included Indian and Lincoln Pennies, Liberty and Buffalo Nickels and Morgan (Barber) and Mercury Dimes. These boards were printed 1940-42, when Whitman discontinued one-panel boards altogether due to wartime paper shortages. |
 |
J. Oberwise & Company - Los Angeles, California
Joseph Oberwise was a building contractor who opened a coin shop. In 1938 he introduced his Premium Card to cash in on the fad for coin boards, and he pioneered the idea of listing on the back of each board the prices he'd pay for completed sets. Oberwise then extracted the scarce coins he could sell in his shop, while all other coins were simply cashed at the bank! He issued both boards and folders until 1948, and these are highly collectable.
Learn more about Joseph Oberwise from Numismatic News
See more coin boards in Gallery 2. |
|
|
