PNG award goes to Chet Krause

The Professional Numismatists Guild held its annual dinner last night. The organization really knows how to put on the ritz, and I always come away feeling under dressed amid such elegant surroundings.

Oh well, I tell myself, they know that I was there and my intent is to report on the event, not overshadow it.

Last night was more special than usual. It wasn’t due to the sartorial splendor, either. The list of honorees included Chet Krause, the founder of my firm and the creator of Numismatic News.

Without Chet Krause, I wouldn’t have my job. Heck, I probably wouldn’t even still be a coin collector. It was to his firm I turned when I was 12 years old and casting about to find explanations for the many coins that were filling up my Whitman albums.

Sure, I might have found someone else. I already had a Red Book. But I and many others like me found Chet. To paraphrase Humphrey Bogart in Casablanca: that was the beginning of a beautiful hobby friendship that has lasted 40 years for me.

Because it wasn’t just me that he has helped since Numismatic News was founded Oct. 13, 1952, but tens of thousands of others like me, the PNG gave Chet Krause its PNG Lifetime Achievement Award.

Fifty-five years is quite a record of achievement. But PNG ought to know, the organization has existed since 1955 and it has grown and prospered in a symbiotic relationship with the numismatic hobby.

Well done, Chet Krause.

Well done, PNG.