The Norman Jacobs Collection

of Chinese Silver Coins, Copper Coins & Paper Money

Hong Kong Auction : 27 August 2008

Norman Jacobs, Numismatist and Asian Scholar (1924-2004)

Norman Jacobs first began collecting coins as a child in New York City in the 1930’s, culling items from change and convincing cashiers to exchange good dates for common ones. It was then that he also developed his interest in Asia. Curious about the Chinese writing he saw at a local laundry, he befriended the lady who worked there and used every visit as a chance to talk to her about China. Then, beginning as a pre-teenager, he began buying material on Asia in the second-hand bookstores in lower Manhattan. Norman was graduated by Townsend Harris High School in 1939 and by City College in 1942 (at the young age of 18). Upon graduation, he joined the U.S. military and was assigned to the Japanese language program in Army Intelligence.

After training, he served in the Philippines, translating captured documents and maps, including early versions of the Japanese surrender document. Once the war ended, he was stationed in Japan with the occupation forces working on agricultural reform. In Tokyo, he once again began his search for numismatic items including Chinese coins.

Upon returning to the US, Norman attended Harvard University. He focused on East Asia, studied Chinese language, and was granted a PhD in Sociology in 1951. Unable to find a faculty position right away in his specialised area, Dr. Jacobs returned to New York in 1951 and began work at Capitol Coins. These were exciting times in the numismatic world, with many coins, especially Asian ones, coming on the market for the first time in many years. Eduard Kann wrote his classic catalogue of Chinese silver, and the AM Tracey Woodward collection of ten cash copper pieces arrived in New York for sale.

In 1953 Dr Jacobs wrote (along with fellow collector, Cornelius Vermeule) Japanese Coinage – the first English language study of both modern and ancient Japanese coins, and the first complete catalogue of Japanese Coinage in either language. Dr Jacobs also contributed to other books – Bob Friedberg’s Gold Coins of the World and Alan Craig’s Korean Coinage, as well as serving as a contributing editor to a number of other publications. During these years, Dr Jacobs assembled much of the core of his China collection. But his desire was still cademics. In 1955, he moved to Taiwan as a visiting lecturer at Taiwan Normal University. Shortly before leaving the US, he met the woman who would become his wife. A year later, she travelled to Taipei, where they were married, first in a Chinese civil ceremony, then in a western service presided over by Madame Chiang Kai Shek’s personal pastor. Being in Asia once more, he was able to add to his collection.

The couple moved back to the United States in 1957, and Dr Jacobs worked for the US Government, first in Washington DC at the American University, then in Iran as a member of the Association for International Development. He left Iran and joined the faculty at the University of Kansas in 1961. Four years later, he moved on to the University of Illinois as a tenured full professor. He ultimately retired from teaching in 1990.

Over the years, Norman Jacobs made many trips to Asia, including a trip in 1994 with his wife that followed the old Silk Road from Beijing, through Xinjiang, and ultimately into Pakistan.

In 1998, he donated his vast library on Asia to Dickinson College. The collection consisted of approximately 22,000 volumes, including many rare, pre-WWII Chinese texts and studies. Norman Jacobs continued to collect Chinese coins and banknotes right up till his death in 2004. He did so with the kind of deep understanding and appreciation of China that comes only from spending years of study and travel there. Along the way, he served as a source of knowledge for other collectors and writers, and helped to edit the Krause and Mischler Standard Catalog of World Coins’ section on China.

The collection being sold represents his life’s work – almost seventy years as a collector, scholar and devotee of Chinese (and more broadly, Asian) culture, history and numismatics.