Are these your people?

January 27th, 2026
Last updated: January 27th, 2026

Sonny and Cher. Pierre and Marie Curie. Steve Wozniak and Steve Jobs. History has given us famous opposites who achieved success together. How about a former food chain manager and a TV actor? In 1979, they helped launch a unique collector’s club that’s still going strong.

Called the Numismatic Bibliomania Society, Littleton Coin’s chairman David M. Sundman described his fellow members this way: “Collectors of numismatic books and literature are a fun group with a very dry sense of humor…”

David Sundman stands before a bookcase full of bound volumes when Littleton’s reference library was fully realized in 1999.

You only have to look at the name of the society’s hard-copy journal – The Asylum – to appreciate humor’s leavening effect on this centuries’ old hobby. As pursuits broaden and titles diversify (and multiply!), a once-tidy shelf of coin collecting books swells easily into a full-scale reference library.

Auction catalogs. Bound volumes of The Numismatist. Hyper-local history books because many hold little-known facts or never-before-seen images relating to mines, mints, maps, memoirs…you get the picture. Littleton’s merchandisers and marketing teams regularly use the company’s reference library built on David’s initial collection.

Given the light-hearted nature of the Numismatic Bibliomania Society’s start, it’s tempting to allude to its two leading founders as a vaudeville act – Kolbe and Collins. Both were from modest New York families. Both wound up in Southern California. Both brought enthusiasm and different skills together to solidify the society’s formative years. Combing the Littleton Coin library shelves and doing some online sleuthing, lets me give you a brief intro to these two self-acknowledged numismatic bibliomaniacs.

George Frederick Kolbe Tribute

Born in 1941, George grew up in Yonkers, NY where he started collecting coins around the age of nine. As a young adult in the late 1960s, he recalled he “was buying…reference works on various numismatic topics…I also began to receive…auction catalogues and fixed price lists of rare and out of print numismatic literature. This opened a new world for me. A love of books…combined with a love of coins…metamorphosed over several months into a fledgling career as a numismatic bookseller.”

Image courtesy Kolbe & Fanning Numismatic Booksellers LLC, via David Fanning

That year was 1967. In 1976, George issued his first mail-bid catalog. In 2010, George partnered with David F. Fanning, PhD, and his wife, Maria, for a business succession known as Kolbe & Fanning Numismatic Booksellers. In 2017, the couple published Fifty Years of Numismatic Bookselling: A Tribute to George Frederick Kolbe.

Dr. Fanning pointed out that “One of the revolutionary aspects of George’s catalogues was his introduction of formal bibliographic descriptions to an area of the hobby that was used to seeing simple lists of authors and titles. Part of this was salesmanship…but part of this was also an effort on his part to educate others, to share his knowledge.”

In 2023, George officially retired. On July 12, 2025, he passed away at his home in the San Bernardino Mountains of California. He was 83.

Jack Collins Tribute

If you’re new to numismatics, collectors use auction catalogs and coin collecting books to research the history, mintage, and condition of their coins in order to determine their value. Think of this as a coin’s genealogy.

From our reference library’s section on auction catalogs.

As one example from my research, I discovered Jack Collins, George’s partner in founding the Numismatic Bibliomania Society, put his Washingtonia collection up for auction in 1996 with Stack’s, then based in New York.

Born in 1918 in Brooklyn as John Richard Collins, Jack had a knack for theatrics and started a stage career on Broadway when he was still a youngster. He was discovered by fellow New Yorker and vaudeville comic Milton Berle. Both made the entertainment migration to Hollywood when television, along with film, was creating more opportunities for performers.

Described as having the face of “every man”, Jack’s longest running TV gig was in The Brady Bunch where he played Mike Brady’s boss. But what really had legs was his interest in coins, combined with his convivial friendship with George Kolbe. It was Jack’s insistence that the society’s journal be named The Asylum.

As the next generation of book-loving coin collectors joined the society, the journal went digital as the E-Sylum, expanding its role as a more timely portal for research requests. Writing “An Intriguing Collector’s Niche: Historic Coin Postcards”, David Sundman credited various society members, including E-Sylum editor Wayne Homren, for publishing their own findings on the switch-hitting genre of collecting coins and postcards.

If these ARE your people…

Thanks to the Eric P. Newman Numismatic Portal, here’s another clue regarding Jack. This one came from the online Colonial Coins Yahoo Group about another member: “…what a pleasure to finally ‘see’ you… — you have certainly been the hidden hand (and face) in colonials for far too long…Incidentally, you look a great deal like the late Jack Collins…!”

Jack died on January 31, 2005 at 86. While his marker in the Hollywood Hills’ famous Forest Lawn Memorial Park is very modest, note the added bio at this link. Absent, though, was his role as co-founder of the Numismatic Bibliomania Society. In the bon vivant spirt of Jack and George – and if you recognize that you are, like them, starting to amass coin collecting books – do consider membership in the society. And like them and David Sundman, have fun collecting!

This article was written by Helen P.

A member of the American Numismatic Association, Helen P. is an author of numerous regional history books.

SOURCES

Collectors Universe Message Boards: U.S. Coins. “Is Jack Collins as prominent a numismatist as Walter Breen? Does he get the same level of credit?” May 14, 2007. Accessed December 2, 2025. https://forums.collectors.com/discussion/586005/is-jack-collins-as-prominent-a-numismatist-as-walter-breen-does-he-get-the-same-level-of-credit

Gilkes, Paul. “Numismatic bookseller George Kolbe passes at 83.” CoinWorld, July 17, 2025. https://www.coinworld.com/news/us-coins/numismatic-bookseller-george-kolbe-passes-at-83

Grokipedia. “Jack Collins (actor).” Accessed December 2, 2025. https://grokipedia.com/page/Jack_Collins_(actor)

Homren, Wayne. “BOOK REVIEW: 1794: THE FIRST UNITED STATES DOLLAR BY JACK COLLINS.” The E-Sylum: Volume 11, Number 18, May 4, 2008, Article 7. https://www.coinbooks.org/esylum_v11n18a07.html?fbclid=IwVERDUAOa-oZleHRuA2FlbQIxMABzcnRjBmFwcF9pZAwzNTA2ODU1MzE3MjgAAR6vh2U-vqWiTRSuH2WKQdUkt-zXdaQvgQs6RAdv1LA7K1U-OKV5DnC7IH9X4A_aem_X2DpWsZdSOKejDiGSnsRkA

Kolbe & Fanning: Numismatic Booksellers, Gahanna, OH. Accessed December 2, 2025. https://www.numislit.com/about.php?m=1

Kolbe, George F. “Reminiscences of a Numismatic Bookseller 1.” The Asylum, January-March 2013. https://www.numislit.com/pdfs/16_catalog.pdf

“Numismatic literature giant George Kolbe dies at 84.” * Canadian Coin News, July 19, 2025. *NOTE: Kolbe passed 2 months before he turned 84. https://canadiancoinnews.com/numismatic-literature-giant-george-kolbe-dies-at-84/

Orosz, Joel J. “A History of the NBS: The Numismatic Bibliomania Society, 1980-1997. A History of Seventeen Years in Fifteen Volumes.” Accessed November 20, 2025. https://www.coinbooks.org/about/index.html

Orosz, Joel. “Want to be a (biblio)maniac?” CoinWorld, February 14, 2012. https://www.coinworld.com/news/us-coins/want-to-be-a-biblio-maniac.html

“Re: [Colonial Numismatics] DIGITAL PHOTOGRAPHY.” Accessed December 2, 2025. https://nnp.wustl.edu/library/periodical/540277

Trav S.D. “Jack Collins: Berle, Bewitched, and Bradys.” Travalanche, August 24, 2024. https://travsd.wordpress.com/2024/08/24/jack-collins-berle-bewitched-and-bradys/