"Knowledge Through Education"

Error specialist James G. Johnson dies
Founding editor of Coin World's Collectors' Clearinghouse
Copyright 1992 by Amos Press, Inc.

James G. Johnson II, founding editor of Coin World's Collectors' Clearinghouse column, died Jan. 3 at age 82 in Columbus, Ohio, after a brief illness.

Mr. Johnson joined the staff of Coin World in November 1960 as an associate editor, six months after the weekly newspaper began publication. He brought with him a background in journalism that included stints as managing editor of a weekly newspaper and sports editor and acting city editor for a small daily newspaper. He also taught journalism classes at several colleges over a period of 15 years; was a high school teacher in New Castle, Colo.; superintendent of schools in Moffat, Colo.; and manager of a minor league baseball team in Norton, Va. 

Although he began collecting coins later in life, he would leave his permanent stamp on numismatics through his research, columns and other writings. 

Two new columns written by Mr. Johnson were introduced in the Nov. 24, 1960, issue of Coin World: the weekly “Poor to Very Fine,” and the occasional “Collectors' Clearinghouse.”

“Poor to Very Fine” eventually was renamed “Fair to Very Fine.” In explaining his choice of titles in his introductory 1960 column, Mr. Johnson wrote that since the average collection contains coins ranging in those conditions,  “it seems to be an appropriate title” although he hoped the information presented therein would range toward the higher grades. Mr. Johnson eventually published the columns in book form in 1978, titled Fair to Very Fine. 

In his first column, Mr. Johnson described the origins of his collecting interest. In the fall of 1949, his son, James, a newspaper carrier in Alliance, Ohio, became interested in some of the coins he received in payment. He asked his father about the coins “and got no intelligent answers since I didn't know, either,” Mr. Johnson wrote in his first column. However, he began inquiring about coins and came across an advertisement by Texas coin dealer B. Max Mehl.

After acquiring a copy of R.S. Yeoman's Handbook of United States Coins, Mr. Johnson and his son would examine the younger Johnson's weekly receipts from his newspaper route, often joined by daughter Judi. It was Judi who found a 1914-D Lincoln cent “early in the game,” Mr. Johnson wrote.

Mr. Johnson thus joined Coin World with backgrounds in both journalism and numismatics. While his “Poor to Very Fine” column focused on a wide variety of topics, his “Collectors' Clearinghouse column” (which the first few years “I wrote spasmodically,” he once noted; it became a weekly full-page column in 1963) focused on numismatic errors. The first Clearinghouse column reported a variety of finds, including different Mint mark sizes on 1942-S Walking Liberty half dollars and coins thought to be errors that are now identified as damaged and altered.

The level of information in the numismatic error field grew greatly during his editorship of  Collectors' Clearinghouse. He brought to the column greater knowledge concerning coinage production and the mishaps that could cause errors during the various processes.

During his editorship of Collectors' Clearinghouse (and companion Numismatic Answering Service, which focused on all areas of numismatics), the columns received 55,244 letters through Dec. 31, 1974, the date of Mr. Johnson's retirement from Coin World. That workload was an average 4,603.7 letters annually, or 396 letters per month.

Edward Fleischmann, who succeeded Mr. Johnson as Clearinghouse editor, noted in a Jan. 22, 1975, column: “. . . His Collectors' Clearinghouse column in Coin World was a teaching aid. He wrote it with only one thought in mind -- to teach the reader about coins. Along the way, he taught all of us more about coins and numismatics in general.” 

Mr. Johnson also wrote numerous news articles for Coin World over the years. He was regularly assigned to cover exhibits at the annual American Numismatic Association convention; his coverage would describe each exhibit in detail. Until early 1963, he also did all proofreading for Coin World advertising. 

Although numismatic errors were his primary focus, he also contributed to the hobby's storehouse of knowledge in many other areas. His ownership at one time of an 1894-S Barber dime led him to do extensive research in the pedigrees of the classic U.S. rarity. More recently, he researched varieties of Indian Head cents for a book he was working on. 

Mr. Johnson played a number of roles over the years in several numismatic error collector organizations.

He was born March 22, 1909, on Long Island, N.Y. He received a bachelor's degree from the School of Journalism of the University of Minnesota in 1933 and a master's degree from Arizona State in 1941. He at times held memberships in more than 50 local, state, regional and national coin clubs.

He also wrote Avoiding the Editor's Waste Basket.
He is survived by his wife, Inga; two sons, James G. Johnson III and Simon S. Johnson; a daughter, Judi Dow; and six grandchildren and three great-grandchildren.

Services were held Jan. 7 at Cromes Funeral Home in Sidney, Ohio. The family requests that donations be made to the Sidney National Association for the Advancement of Colored People or the American Cancer Society

Copyright 1992 by Amos Press, Inc.

CONECA History ...
Who was E-V Hobby Pioneer, James G. Johnson?
By Beth Deisher - Coin World Editor
6/10/2011

    James G. Johnson Jr. joined Coin World as associate editor in the fall of 1960. Various new regular columns were added during the first year, including "Fair to Very Fine" and "Collectors' Clearinghouse," both written by Mr. Johnson, coin collector and former teacher from Colorado. For both columns, readers submitted questions about unusual coins they had found in circulation, many of them errors, die varieties, altered coins and damaged pieces. In studying these finds and reporting on them to readers, Mr. Johnson would become a pioneer in the error coin community. While the level of knowledge about such pieces was well below where it is today, he helped to lead the way to a better understanding of the minting process, what could happen to a coin during minting, and what could not happen. He retired from Coin World in 1974 but continued to write and research for a number of years. At one time he owned an 1894-S dime.

Editors Note:  We'd like to thanks Beth Deisher for taking the time from her busy schedule to provide us with this information.  It was prompted by the fact that in CONECA's Constitution we have a type membership described as "J.G.J. Members" of which most folks no longer have any idea of what it represents.  A "J.G.J. Membership was a Young Numismatist (YN), who's membership in CONECA was sponsored and paid for by Jim Johnson.  Fred Weinberg and I decided to revive this form of membership by sponsoring hand-selected YNs and paying their first year's dues at the adult rate (so that the club loses no money) to keep the memory of one of the hobbies true pioneers alive and to bring in new YNs at the same time.  KP

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