Gene Hessler is on a roll. Last year he won top award given by the Numismatic Literary Guild. This year he is to receive the American Numismatic Association?s highest honor, the Farran Zerbe Memorial Award for Distinguished Service.
The award will be given during ANA?s Aug. 2 banquet at the World?s Fair of Money in Baltimore, Md.
Hessler, of Cincinnati, Ohio, is best known as a paper money expert. He coined ?syngraphics? as the term for collecting paper money.
Among the books he has authored is The Comprehensive Catalog of United States Paper Money, which garnered the Nathan Gold Memorial Award and the Robert Friedberg Award. He is a former editor of Paper Money, the Society of Paper Money Collectors? journal.
Hessler has been an expert source of numismatic information for Time, Newsweek and Encyclopedia Britannica. He has appeared on radio and television shows such as ?The Today Show,? ?Wonderama,? ?What?s My Line?? and ?Voice of America.? His scripts for ?Money Talks,? a daily National Public Radio broadcast, earned him a Peabody Broadcasting Award nomination in 1993.
From 1967-1977, Hessler served as curator of the Chase Manhattan Bank Money Museum in New York?s Rockefeller Center. He became the first full-time curator of the Mercantile Money Museum in St. Louis, Mo., where he worked from 1986-1988.
Hessler won the ANA?s Glenn Smedley Award in 1993, the Medal of Merit in 1995 and a Presidential award in 1998. He received the Numismatic Ambassador Award from Numismatic News in 1993 and the Numismatic Literary Guild?s Clemy Award in 2007.
