[ad_1]
In 2021, Kerry Wetterstrom will receive the American Numismatic Association’s highest honor: the Farran Zerbe Memorial Award for Distinguished Service.
Wetterstrom not only had a strong influence on numismatics, according to the ANA quote, the collector has also had a strong influence on his hobby, which is why the ANA awarded him its highest honor.
The ANA quote states that Wetterstrom has been steeped in numismatics for almost as long as he can remember after his great-aunt Bertha gave him a Whitman folder for cents from 1941 to 1961.
Today numismatics is Wetterstrom’s profession and calling. Living in California, Canada and then Denver gave him access to a wide variety of coins. When he was just 14 years old, Wetterstrom bought his first antique coin from former dealer Tom McKenna and decided to join the ANA in the same year.
“ANA has had the greatest influence on my numismatic life,†says Wetterstrom. “As soon as I could drive, I went to the ANA headquarters.” There he met Glenn Smedley, Ken Hallenbeck and (then) ANA librarian Geneva Karlson, who answered his questions and helped him guide him. In 1978 he attended his first ANA conference in Houston.
During his senior year of high school, he founded a student club for coin and stamp collecting at John F. Kennedy High School. That summer, Wetterstrom received a Denver Area World Numismatists Fellowship to attend the 1979 ANA Summer Seminar where he met numismatist Q. David Bowers. It was Bower’s All About Coins course that convinced Wetterstrom that he wanted to be in the coin business one day.
A few months after graduating from high school, Bob Rhue, owner of Aurora Gold & Silver Exchange in Colorado, hired Wetterstrom as a part-time sales clerk while he received his bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering from the Colorado School of Mines. Rhue taught him how to value coins.
He worked at Rhue until 1987 when he accepted a position as auction director of Classical Numismatic Group, Inc. (CNG, then Classical Numismatic Auctions), a position that took him to the east coast and abroad. In 1991 he lived in London and on his return to the United States published a book on Parthian coinage.
Robert W. Hoge, then curator of the ANA Museum, contacted Wetterstrom and his collector colleague David Vagi to teach Hoge’s antiquity class at the summer seminar. They accepted and made 1993 their first year as an associate teacher. To this day, Wetterstrom disseminates his encyclopedic knowledge domestically and nationwide.
He has traveled from the Atlantic to the Pacific and has held numismatic talks in 12 countries; he has lectured everywhere from school classes to civic association meetings.
Wetterstrom bought by the end of the millennium The Celator, a monthly magazine devoted to ancient and medieval coinage, by its founder Wayne G. Sayles in 1999. Over the next 13 years, he published 156 consecutive issues of the printed publication. Under his leadership, it has received multiple awards from the Numismatic Literary Guild. In 2012 he said goodbye to his love work and returned to CNG the following year as senior numismatist, a position he still holds today.
The active collector is a fellow of the American Numismatic Society and the Royal Numismatic Society. He is also a member of the Pennsylvania Association of Numismatists, the Red Rose Coin Club of Lancaster, Pennsylvania, and 16 other organizations, several of which he served as president.
Some of his awards include the James Wagner Award from the Central Pennsylvania Numismatic Association (1994), the Numismatic Ambassador from Krause Publication (1998), and the Paul Haleman Award from the Red Rose Coin Club (2000). Earlier this year, the New York International Numismatic Convention honored Wetterstrom with the Richard Margolis Medal of Merit for 20 years of service as Chairman of the Organization for Education. He has also garnered several awards from the ANA.
As a representative of the ANA club, he moderates educational programs in central Pennsylvania each year and is known in congressional circles for having served as the ANA show judge since 1996. In addition to numerous magazine articles, he has written scripts for ANA’s Money Talks and is a contributing editor for the radio program The numismatist. As a guru of world and local history, Wetterstrom works weekly for the Lancaster County Historical Society. His numismatic expertise has been recognized nationally for testifying twice before the State Department’s Advisory Committee on Cultural Assets about import restrictions on numismatic materials.
“One of the things I like best about the antique coin market is that it really is an international market,†says Wetterstrom. “Over the years I have traveled to different countries where I have met many collectors and dealers, some of whom have become good friends. All of these experiences have contributed to broadening my worldview, and I realize that a hobby like collecting coins brings people from different cultures, countries and backgrounds together. ”
Wetterstrom will be recognized for its achievements at the ANA Membership and Awards Ceremony on August 12th at the Chicago World’s Fair of Money.
Connect with Coin World:
Sign up for our free eNewsletter
Access our dealer directory
Like us on Facebook
Follow us on Twitter
[ad_2]
