AN ENCOUNTER WITH THE DUPONTS 上市 Deposited
The E-Sylum: Volume 7, Number 15, April 11, 2004, Article 14
AN ENCOUNTER WITH THE DUPONTS
Alan Luedeking writes: "On Friday April 2, I was fortunate
enough to be invited to box seats at the Nasdaq 100 Open
in Key Biscayne. As I settled down to watch the men's
semi-final match, I was introduced to a couple sitting in front
of me, who turned out to be none other than Willis H. DuPont
and his wife Miren.Between changeovers I couldn't resist mentioning coins to
him. I congratulated him on his recent recovery of the 1866
no-motto dollar. I then ventured to ask him if he still collected
now and was disappointed to learn that he does not. He did
tell me that his favorite recovery thus far has been the
Linderman '04, and that of the still missing pieces, the one
he'd most like to get back is the Stella. This came as a bit of
a surprise to me. I had expected him to mention some exotic
colonial coin or pioneer gold piece, or maybe something from
the Mikhailovich collection. I must in fairness say that the
subject of his lost coins is very far from Mr. DuPont's favorite.
As he is an extremely low-key gentleman, not at all prone to
overindulging in conversation, it took me much longer than it
should have to pick up on this fact. As a result, I'm afraid he
did not enjoy the company of his box-mate nearly as much
as I did the pleasure of meeting him and his lovely wife. In
hindsight, I regret having importuned him with my questions,
but who could pass up the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity of
talking coins to the man who owned the greatest coin
collection ever stolen? Let's hope he eventually gets all of his
coins back, though after nearly 37 years the prospects are
indeed grim. (For those who'd like to know a bit more about
this collection and the circumstances surrounding its robbery,
I suggest Edward C. Rochette's excellent article in the
February 2000 issue of The Numismatist)."- 2004-04-11
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