Theodore V. Buttrey, Jr. In His Own Words

In 1996, the American Numismatic Society (ANS) presented Ted Buttrey with the Huntington medal, its highest award for numismatic scholarship. The event included remarks from Arthur Houghton, Mark Salton, and William Metcalf, followed by Buttrey’s lecture on “Western American Gold Bars.” In processing papers from the Eric P. Newman library, a cassette tape recording of the event was found. This has been digitized and is available on Newman Portal or via the ANS library catalog. Buttrey’s lecture dates to the height of the controversy regarding the authenticity of gold assay bars sourced by John J. Ford, Jr. and Paul Franklin. In this presentation Buttrey speaks to a number of points, in particular the sudden appearance of this material in the 1950s. Due in great part to the efforts of Buttrey, Eric P. Newman, and John Kleeberg, numismatists today regard many pieces once considered “market acceptable” as forgeries. The Newman Portal acknowledges ANS librarian David Hill and publications director Andrew Reinhard for their assistance with this material.Link to Buttrey lecture on Newman Portal: https://nnp.wustl.edu/library/multimediadetail/515008?Year=1996&take=50Link to Buttrey lecture via ANS library catalog (DONUM): https://donum.numismatics.org/cgi-bin/koha/opac-detail.pl?biblionumber=166829