Benjamin Maximillian Mehl (November 5, 1884 – September 28, 1957), usually known as B. Max Mehl, was an American dealer in coins, selling them for over half a century. The most prominent dealer in the United States through much of the first half of the 20th century, he is credited with helping to expand the appeal of coin collecting from a hobby for the wealthy to one enjoyed by many.
Mehl was born in Congress Poland, which was part of the Russian Empire. His family brought him to what is now Lithuania, and then to the United States, settling in Fort Worth, Texas, where he lived for almost all of his adult life. While still a teenager, he began to sell coins, which he had previously collected. Joining the American Numismatic Association (ANA) in 1903 at age 18, he quickly became a full-time coin dealer, and by 1910 was one of the most well known in the country.
During his half-century of coin dealing, his customer list included Franklin D. Roosevelt, Winston Churchill and Colonel E. H. R. Green. He sold coins from the collections of important numismatists (coin collectors) at auction, including Jerome Kern and King Farouk. Mehl was the first dealer to advertise in non-numismatic publications, helping to broaden the appeal of the hobby. He claimed to have spent over a million dollars on advertisements offering to buy a 1913 Liberty Head nickel for $50, though he knew there were none in circulation to be found. This got the public to search through their pocket change looking for rare coins that Mehl might buy, and greatly increased sales of Mehl's coin books, adding to his profit.
Many of his great auction sales took place in the 1940s, but by the following decade, he was becoming less active, and he died in 1957; his business continued into the 1960s. Mehl was elected to the Numismatic Hall of Fame in 1974, and to the CoinFacts Dealer Hall of Fame in 2010.
Early life
Benjamin Maximillian Mehl was born on November 5, 1884, in Łódź, in what was then Congress Poland within the Russian Empire. His parents, Solomon Isaac Mehl and Rachel Mehl, lived in the Jewish Quarter of Łódź, known as Altstadt. Mehl means "meal" (as in ground grain, or flour), and in a time and place when last names were often descriptive of the family trade, the Mehls may have been itinerant millers. Rachel Mehl's last name at birth was Goldstick.
In 1885, the Mehl family, including Benjamin, moved to Vilkomu, in the province of Kovno (modern day Kaunas, Lithuania). There was a growing Jewish community, and Benjamin received his initial education in its school. According to a 1906 biographical sketch, he collected coins from early childhood, and was unable to recall a time when he was not interested in them.
Seeking greater opportunities, in 1895 the Mehl family, including Benjamin, immigrated to the United States, arriving there in April of that year. They initially lived in New York, and settled for a time in Denton, Texas before moving to Fort Worth, likely because Rachel Mehl had family there. Benjamin was educated in the public schools of Fort Worth. A synagogue was built in Fort Worth in 1895, which the Mehls joined; sometime around 1897, Benjamin was called to the Torah as a bar mitzvah. While attending school, Benjamin, along with his three older brothers and one older sister, was employed in the clothing store Solomon Mehl opened at 1211 Main Street in Fort Worth. He left school at age 16 and became employed full-time as a clerk at the store.
From the age of 10, Benjamin collected cigar bands, then stamps, then coins. He dated his start as a coin dealer to 1900, likely with unusual coins taken from the cash register with his father's approval as part of his pay. In June 1903, he applied to become a member of the American Numismatic Association (ANA), giving the Main Street address, and using the name "B. Max Mehl"—he would never use his first name in print. ANA Secretary George F. Heath noted in the ANA's journal, The Numismatist, that the thirteen applicants that month had ages ranging from 18 (Mehl's age) to 65, describing the applications as progress towards the time when every reputable coin collector or student of numismatics belonged to the ANA, adding, "the fires in the Temple of Numisma burn on and on forever." In listing the collecting interests of the applicants, Heath stated that Mehl "collects only U.S. Colonial and Territorial gold and paper money". Each application was subject to no objection being lodged against the prospective member, and Mehl was approved, becoming ANA member number 522 on July 1, 1903.
Early career (1903–1920)
Mehl's first published words in The Numismatist appeared in August 1903. Likely part of a letter to Secretary Heath endorsing the magazine, they read, "I am indeed more than pleased with The Numismatist and think it is the best publication of its kind." In October 1903, that journal reported a change of address for Mehl to Box 24, Alvord, Texas. In 1903, he joined the British Numismatic Society. Mehl's first mail-order advertisement appeared in the December 1903 issue of The Numismatist, selling 33 U.S. coins on a highest-bidder basis. Q. David Bowers, in a 1999 article on Mehl, found it logical that Mehl would focus on the mail order business given Fort Worth's distance from numismatic centers such as New York and Philadelphia—there would be few local collectors to patronize a coin shop in "Cow Town", as Fort Worth was known. By this time Mehl had returned to using the address on Main Street in Fort Worth. The sale was likely not a success, as most of the coins were listed on a circular Mehl sent by mail in January 1904, but the following month, he placed his first full-page advertisement in The Numismatist. According to numismatic author John N. Lupia III, "Apparently he was a smashing success from 1904 on." Mehl was aided in becoming a major coin dealer by C.W. Cowell, a Coloradan who was selling his collection, who sent many rare pieces to Mehl on consignment, allowing him to offer rarities that otherwise would have been beyond his means.
The February 1904 advertisement offered The Hub Coin Book for sale for $.25 (), although in an unfortunate misspelling in the ad, the "k" in Book was rendered as a "b". This book, published by Alexander & Co. of Boston, was widely-sold, and coin dealers could order copies imprinted with their name and address for sale to the public for a small fee. Mehl did so, and sent out copies advertising himself, seeking to promote his business. In 1906, he published the first edition of The Star Coin Book: An Encyclopedia of Rare American and Foreign Coins, sold for ten cents and heavily copied from The Hub Coin Book. Heath described The Star Coin Book as a "well illustrated sixty-four page pamphlet giving prices he pays for coins, particularly the American series, and much other valuable information". Beginning in 1908, Mehl published the more thorough The Star Rare Coin Encyclopedia, which by 1924 had an annual sale of 70,000 copies. These sold for $1 (the price later increased) to members of the public who were hopeful of picking a valuable coin out of their pocket change.
Mehl did not limit himself to advertisements in the numismatic press. Beginning in 1904, he placed classified ads in the Fort Worth Telegram. In 1906, he became the first coin dealer to advertise in the national non-numismatic press, with five lines in Collier's magazine, at an expense of $12.50. This proved successful as an advertising strategy, helping to transform coin collecting, once a niche hobby for the wealthy and for students of art and archeology, into a pastime for the masses.
In 1906, Mehl came east for the first time, visiting New York and the coin business of Lyman H. Low for his first coin auction, where he proved an active participant. Numismatist Farran Zerbe commented on Mehl's youth. Mehl also visited Boston and Philadelphia. In July 1906, he wrote to his customers that he was now a full-time coin dealer, something that likely came as a surprise to many of them, who assumed that he had long been one. According to Bowers, "by 1910, his innovative advertising and colorful personality projected him to the first rank of dealers."
By 1907, Mehl had opened his own office at 1309 Main Street in Fort Worth. On August 18, 1907, Mehl and Ethel Rosen married, in the parlor of Ethel's uncle, Northside Fort Worth developer Sam Rosen. Ethel Mehl's family also had roots in Lithuania. They had two daughters, Lorraine and Danna.
In January 1908, Mehl began to publish Mehl's Numismatic Monthly, with guest contributors including some of the leading numismatists of the day. Published until 1919 with a hiatus in 1911–1912, according to Bowers it "gave The Numismatist a run for its money and in many aspects was more interestingly edited". When Heath, the editor of The Numismatist, died unexpectedly in 1908, Mehl offered the Numismatic Monthly as a replacement journal for the ANA, but Zerbe took over The Numismatist and continued it. In 1912, Mehl moved to New York to join fellow dealer Wayte Raymond in a partnership. Mehl was concerned about his relative isolation in Texas from the rest of the numismatic world. However, after only a few weeks, Mehl returned to Fort Worth, writing in The Numismatist that serious illness in his family had required his return, and personal matters then obliged him to remain. He stated that he had re-established himself on as large a scale as before.
In 1916, Mehl engaged local architect Wiley G. Clarkson to design a three-story, 16,000-square-foot office building of brick, ornamented with stone bas-reliefs of antique coins. Located at 1200 W. Magnolia Avenue, the building was the working place of Mehl and 40 employees (an increase from 10 in 1912) who dealt with correspondence and orders from a subscription list of 70,000 customers. In the years to come, these would include Franklin D. Roosevelt, Winston Churchill and King Farouk of Egypt.
Mehl was one of the largest dealers in early United States commemorative coins, and the only one to make them a major part of his business in the 1916–1920 era, including Columbian half dollars in groups and packets of coins sold to beginning collectors. When the promoters of the 1916- and 1917-dated McKinley Birthplace Memorial gold dollar failed to sell many coins to the public at the original issue price of $3, Mehl purchased about 10,000 (half the extant mintage) at just over face value, selling them to the public at less than the issue price well into the 1920s. Mehl similarly acquired (from Zerbe, the coin's promoter) thousands of the Louisiana Purchase Exposition dollars and sold them to his customers. In late 1919, Mehl stated that he had an advertising budget of $5,000 per year, and he continued to advertise in non-numismatic publications, spending $200 () on a single insertion of an advertisement in The American Boy.
Middle years (1920–1940)