Token collectors honor Campbell

H. Robert (Bob) Campbell of Salt Lake City, Utah, received the 2014 James J. Curto Award this past Labor Day weekend at the National Token Collectors Association Annual Token Show in Omaha, Nebraska.

Bob Campbell (right) receives the 2014 James J. Curto Award from Tony Chibbaro on at the National Token Collectors Association Annual Token Show in Omaha.

The Curto Award, presented annually by the National Token Collectors Association, is named in honor of James J. Curto, pioneering exonumic author and cataloger.

The purpose of the award is to encourage excellence in the research and cataloging of trade tokens and is presented each year for the best book on tokens published during the previous calendar year.

Campbell won the award for his book entitled Utah Trade Tokens, Second Edition, which was published in 2013 and printed by the author. The 8½- by 11-inch soft-cover, spiral-bound volume catalogs thousands of Utah merchant tokens. The book is 480 pages in length and features color photographs of many Utah tokens struck from the late-1800s to the mid-1900s. The book is priced at $95, with an additional $10 for shipping. It can be ordered from the author at: All About Coins, 1123 East 2100 South, Salt Lake City, UT 84106. Email: allaboutcoins@qwestoffice.net.

Campbell’s book also won the Numismatic Literary Guild’s award for the Best Book of the Year in the Token & Medals Category.

James J. Curto (1903-1993) was one of the first numismatic authors to focus on United States trade tokens. He was a charter member of the Token & Medal Society and served as its second president (1962-63). Curto was a prolific researcher and author in the field of exonumia, and wrote one of the first monographs on U.S. trade tokens, “Sutlers and Their Tokens,” in 1946. He followed this with “Indian & Post Trader Tokens” (1951), “Post Exchange, Canteen and Other Military Tokens” (1954), “Military Tokens of the United States” (1970), and “Military Tokens of the United States II” (1978). Curto was a resident of Grosse Pointe, Mich., for most of his life.

Also receiving recognition from the Curto Award Committee were three other books published in 2013. They are: Catalog of Nevada Trade Tokens, 2013 Update by Jack Haddock, Tokens of Western New York by Pat Barnard, and The Ingle System Scrip of the Mid-Atlantic Region by Eric Schena.

For more information on NTCA, visit the organization’s website: http://tokencollectors.org/.