Three famous numismatists have been inducted as the second class to enter the PCGS CoinFacts™ Coin Dealer Hall of Fame : David W. Akers, John Love and Harvey G. Stack.
“The Hall of Fame was established in 2010 to recognize outstanding dealers, past and present, who have handled the greatest coins and collections, and who have made the most significant contributions to numismatics,” said David Hall, PCGS Co-Founder and President of Collectors Universe, Inc..
Akers, Love and Stack join the six inaugural PCGS CoinFacts Coin Dealers Hall of Fame members announced last year: Q. David Bowers, brothers Henry and Samuel Hudson Chapman, B. Max Mehl, Wayte Raymond and W. Elliot Woodward.
The induction of the three newest members was made at the PCGS Set Registry(SM) awards luncheon held in conjunction with the American Numismatic Association‘s Chicago World’s Fair of Money on August 18, 2011. Hall, Bowers and John “J.D.” Dannreuther announced and introduced the three new members.
“David Akers is considered one of the top rare gold experts of all-time,” said Hall.
Akers started collecting coins in 1949. After graduating from Notre Dame, obtaining a Masters degree in mathematics from Oregon State and serving as a U.S. Army combat artillery officer in Vietnam, David became a full-time coin dealer in 1971. He was President of Paramount International Coin Corp., one of the largest and most influential dealerships of the 1970s and 1980s. In 1973, Akers was instrumental in Paramount’s purchase and sale of the Dr. John E. Wilkinson collection of gold U.S. patterns and produced the definitive book on those legendary rarities.
Between 1975 and 1982, Akers published a six-volume analysis of U.S. gold coins that is considered one of the key references for the market. He conducted numerous important auctions, including the three-part 1997 – 1999 sale of the legendary John J. Pittman collection. He is one of only two dealers to ever receive all three of the Professional Numismatists Guild’s three top honors: the Robert Friedberg Literary award, the Abe Kosoff Founders award, and the PNG Lifetime Achievement award.
“John Love has literally had a 50-year run of being the ‘go-to guy’ for uncirculated Morgan and Peace dollars,” stated Hall. “He has handled more Morgan and Peace dollars than anyone in the world. He is quite simply, ‘Mr. Silver Dollar.'”
Love began selling silver dollars from his shop in Cut Bank, Montana in 1962. By 1964, he was attending national coin shows and soon became one of the biggest buyers and sellers of silver dollars. He was one of the country’s major silver dollar mail order dealers through the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s. In his career, he was involved in nearly all of the most famous silver dollar deals, including the two largest ever, the LaVere Redfield estate (484,000 coins) and the Continental Illinois Bank hoard (about 1.5 million coins).
Love is well-known for dealing in extremely high-quality silver dollars including some of the most famous individual coins in the series, and for over five decades he has been one of the market’s most prominent silver dollar market-makers.
“Harvey Stack, whose family has been famous in the numismatic scene since the 1930s, is an industry leader whose contributions to the hobby and profession have been profound,” stated Hall.
Many of the great “name” sales of the past 75 years were handled by Stack and his family, including the Anderson-Dupont, H.R. Lee (duplicates from the Louis Eliasberg collection), Floyd Starr, Harold Bareford, Jimmy Hayes, John Ford, and hundreds of other collections.
Stack has been an indefatigable supporter of numismatics, serving as an expert witness for governmental agencies, world banks, and law enforcement agencies around the world. He assisted in the development of the first American Numismatic Association Grading Guide, has been a member of the ANA for over 50 years and is a past recipient of the association’s Medal of Merit. Beneficiaries of his generosity over the years include the National Numismatic Collection at the Smithsonian Institution, the American Numismatic Association, and the American Numismatic Society. He served as President of the Professional Numismatists Guild from 1990 – 1991, and was awarded their Founders Award — not once, but twice. In 2011, he came out of retirement to join Stack’s Bowers Galleries.
