The name Joseph Oberwise doesn't mean much to the typical coin collector. His modest Los Angeles variety store and coin shop shut its doors more than 40 years ago.

Oberwise didn't write any significant books that would keep his name in current usage, nor did he have an important collection of his own that could be memorialized with a landmark auction catalog. No, Joseph Oberwise is not a name on that rings a bell to most in this hobby, but for a few of us he is something of a legend. His story, and those of his fellow coin board publishers, have now been told in a new book titled Coin Collecting Boards of the 1930s & 1940s: A Complete History, Catalog and Value Guide.

When the first push-in style coin boards hit the market in 1935, numismatics finally became a popular hobby for ordinary people. There had been collectors of coins for centuries, but this was mostly an elitist pursuit in which a lot of money was required to house and display one's coins. Fine wooden cabinets held the best collections, while the only attractive alternative were the slide type albums invented by Martin Luther Beistle in 1929 and marketed by coin dealer Wayte Raymond under his National brand. These too, however, were expensive for their time, and so the coin hobby remained a small one that had little potential for growth, especially during the dark days of the Great Depression.

This situation changed only because one person had a brilliant idea. Joseph Kent Post Sr. was an engineer with Kimberly-Clark Corporation, a manufacturer of paper and tissue items, and he was also a collector of coins. In 1934 he devised a simple product that would revolutionize the hobby. Consisting of just three pieces, his "coin card," as he called it, featured an 11 by 14 inches piece of cardstock with holes punched through it to hold coins, a printed face paper and a plain back paper against which the coins rested. Marketed the following year not to the numismatic establishment, but rather to general retailers as a novelty item, these inexpensive coin boards, as they later came to be known, captured the imagination of the public and turned seemingly everyone into a coin hunter. Collecting current or recently obsolete coin types from circulation was considered absurd to veteran numismatists, but for millions of Americans young and old, the chase was on to fill that last opening in one's board for Lincoln cents or Buffalo nckels. Thus, the hobby as we know it today was born.

Within a year or two, Post's coin boards, published under his Kent brand, had several competitors. Between the seven known publishers of coin boards, millions of units were sold from 1935 through the early 1940s. The debut of more convenient coin folders, combined with wartime shortages of paper, led nearly all publishers to discontinue coin board production after 1942. But there was a lone holdout who still saw their value Los Angeles coin dealer Joseph Oberwise.

Born in Illinois on Oct. 3, 1888, Oberwise moved to California as a young man, where he became a builder and contractor. His name appears in a newspaper account from 1912 as the unsuccessful bidder for a contract to build a sidewalk in front of the new Salem Street School in Chico, a medium size town in the north-central part of that state. Ten years later, he was living in Los Angeles with wife Linda (spelled Lynda in some listings) at 2108 West 29th St. This charming bungalow still stands and, as it was for Oberwise during the 1920s and '30s, it remains today both a business and residence, now bearing a sign proclaiming it to be the location of Wimbley & Associates. Collectors of his vintage coin boards may recognize this address as the same that appears on J. Oberwise & Company boards dating from 1938.

Joseph Oberwise was a sergeant in the U.S. Army 1917-19 and was seriously wounded during his wartime service. He walked with leg braces for the remainder of his life and belonged to the Disabled American Veterans of the World War. He and his wife evidently had no children, but it's not known whether this was related to his injuries.

Oberwise ran for the Los Angeles City Council in 1929 and 1931, both times on a platform of defeating "lien sharks," a predatory group of speculators who sought to drive people out of residential neighborhoods to promote more lucrative commercial development. Though he was the runner up for his district in his first outing, things did not go as well the second time around, and he declined to run again.

Oberwise's greatest notoriety came in 1934, when he served on the jury for a sensational Hollywood trial. In what was described in the language of that time as a "moral's charge," Dave Allen, head of the Central Casting Bureau, and Gloria Marsh, movie extra, were on trial as the result of an incident which occurred during a party at the apartment of actress June De Long. Twice the jury became deadlocked, with Oberwise being among the minority who voted for acquittal. This newspaper coverage of this trial has provided us with the only known photograph of Joseph Oberwise, a grainy image from the Los Angeles Times.

Though evidently successful as a private contractor, by 1938 Oberwise was listed in public directories as city engineer. He was already interested in the coin business, and that same year he joined the American Numismatic Association on July 1 as member number 6938. Among his sponsors for membership was R. A. Wilson, who would figure prominently in Oberwise's coin board sales during the next few years. The coin board phenomenon had radically changed the numismatic hobby in the three years since their introduction by Post, and Oberwise discovered an entirely new use for them that would ultimately make his brand the second most widely produced after those of Whitman Publishing Company.

The first coin boards to appear under the name of J. Oberwise & Company debuted during early 1938. In fact, these were just Lincoln Printing Company boards to which Oberwise affixed a label with his own name covering the Lincoln brand. Whether or not this was done with the permission of Lincoln Printing Company is not known. The address on this pasted label is 2108 W. 29th St., which still doubled as his residence and place of business. When Oberwise finally ordered boards of his own shortly thereafter, they were manufactured by Washington Print Shop in Los Angeles, rather than by Lincoln. It's possible to date the debut of these new boards to the spring of 1938, as Oberwise submitted examples to the U. S. Copyright Office on May 5 of that year.

At that time the list of Oberwise brand boards was limited to the following titles offered by most coin board publishers: Eagle and Indian Cents (Number 101), Lincoln Cents (102), Shield and Liberty Head Nickels (103) and Buffalo Nickels (104). Unlike all previous coin board manufacturers, however, Oberwise labeled his boards as "premium cards," and the object was for buyers to fill the boards from circulation and then return them to Oberwise for a cash premium over the coins' face value. A table of the premiums paid by Oberwise for completed sets appeared on the back of each board. This new twist on the coin board fad that was sweeping the country provided Oberwise with a strong incentive to continue producing his boards long after other publishers dropped out, as the measly premiums he paid left him plenty of room for profit on the coins, too.

As the popularity of his premium cards grew, Oberwise added further titles to the line. At its peak, this listing included boards for Liberty Head (Barber) dimes and quarters, Mercury dimes and Standing Liberty quarters. Four more boards were also offered, but these were not premium cards. Instead, they were sold simply for the purpose of collecting these series, and no premium was paid for such coins. These supplemental entries included Jefferson nickels and Washington quarters, as well as undated boards for U.S. half dollars and U.S. dollars. This highlights the fact that many people who purchased his boards with the intention of returning their completed sets for a profit instead became hooked on collecting coins. Today, partial sets of coins held within Oberwise boards still turn up for sale on the Internet or at coin shows and shops.

In addition to listing the various titles offered, the backs of Oberwise boards included detailed instructions for redeeming completed sets, as well as illustrations and text relating to the various accessories one could purchase from J. Oberwise & Company. These accessories included a pocket magnifying glass, a catalog of United States coins and a catalog of Lincoln cent errors and varieties. This first publication was titled The American Catalog and Standard Premium List of All United States Coins, and its author was R. A. Wilson, who co-sponsored Oberwise's membership in the ANA. Rinaldo Alexander Wilson could be described as the poor-man's B. Max Mehl, since he did much to promote the popularity of coin collecting in the course of selling many thousands of his premium guides. While Oberwise sold Wilson's catalog via his coin boards, Wilson's catalog likewise included advertising for the Oberwise brand boards. The second publication Oberwise offered on the back papers of his boards was James Lalonde's Catalog of Freaks and Facts, a bit of numismatic literature detailing Lincoln cent oddities which appears to be far more rare today that the ubiquitous Wilson catalog.

As sales of Oberwise's premium cards took off, he seems to have quit his city job for the life of a full-time coin dealer. No longer did his residence address appear on Oberwise brand boards; instead, the address is given as 1308 South Vermont Ave. in Los Angeles, which is seen on later boards printed 1938-39. Sometime during 1939 Oberwise relocated his coin business across the street to 1317, where he remained for more than 20 years, and this address appears on boards dating from late 1939 through 1948. Both addresses are on solidly commercial streets; indeed, his business thereafter appeared at the 1317 address in various Los Angeles city directories and in specialized coin dealer directories.

With respect to his coin board activity, the Oberwise operation ran like this: After selling his premium cards both directly and through various vendors, J. Oberwise & Company would buy back completed sets within the range of prices found on the back of each board for that particular series. The premium paid depended on the overall condition of the coins, though in reality it was only the key and semi-key issues that mattered. Oberwise boards cautioned users that "Mutilated excessively worn or polished coins are not acceptable," but, if the scarcer coins were OK, the premium was paid without respect to the other pieces, which were estimated by him at just face value. Some seventy years later, coin dealers follow this same basic practice when making purchases that include very common coins. The sets thus acquired were the piled up awaiting removal of the coins. Oberwise hired boys and young men to pop out the coins, and each of these part-time employees was provided with a list of "keepers," while all the remaining coins were simply rolled and cashed in at the bank. This operation was performed with the greatest of haste, no effort being made to preserve the boards, which were quickly discarded as trash. Therefore, the only boards surviving today are those that were never redeemed, whether this was due to the user's inability to complete them and receive his premium or because the person didn't want to part with his collection.

When the other makers of coin boards dropped out after 1942, Oberwise had this field to himself. By then he had already become the second biggest distributor of coin boards after Whitman, which discontinued its own production of boards that year. Oberwise continued selling his 11 by 14 inches boards until at least 1948, based on the latest mintage figures to appear underneath the coin openings. By this time, however, his own brand of coin folders were more popular than his large, rigid boards.

Introduced in 1940, the Oberwise folders began simply as standard boards that were scored by the publisher for folding, and they were produced in response to similar folders being marketed by the Daniel Stamp Company (now known as Dansco). Printed arrows pointed to this scoring line in the cardstock, and users were instructed to slit the back paper along this scoring line and then fold the board in half. Unfortunately, the scoring line was not always centered properly, resulting in folders that had one page larger than another. This was fixed within months, but the scoring line was dropped after Oberwise decided to make his folders a separate line altogether.

Unlike the Dansco folders and those introduced shortly thereafter by Whitman, both of which folded left to right along a vertical axis, the Oberwise brand folded horizontally from top to bottom. Most titles were available in either format for a time, though the folders won out in the long run for their greater convenience.

Joseph Oberwise seems to have discontinued both products by 1950, though he retained his coin dealership through the early 1960s. A 1961 newspaper account reveals his reason for retiring he and his shop assistant, Ida Young, were robbed at gunpoint of $500, and Joseph was pistol whipped by the two assailants. Though not seriously injured, at age 73 Oberwise must have realized that it was time to give up the shop. The neighborhood was changing for the worse, and my 2006 visit to its former location revealed that things had not gotten any better in that time.

Though the name of J. Oberwise & Company is little remembered today for its coin dealings, hobbyists still come across his old premium card coin boards with some frequency. This is not surprising, as he must have distributed tens or even hundreds of thousands over the decade from 1938 to 1948. Today, these old relics of coin collecting's simpler age have emerged as desirable collectibles in their own right. Though Oberwise published just thirteen titles in all, there are some 26 different versions of the back paper applied to these boards, and the combined result is about one hundred known varieties for this brand alone.

I've been collecting old coin boards for the past 25 years, and in that time I've gotten to know a number of other collectors whose interest ranged from very casual to quite intense. The competition for rare titles and varieties is keen, though knowledge of relative rarities and values is presently known to just a few. With the goal of ending this exclusivity and making coin board collecting a broader hobby, I've finally published the results of my research in the book mentioned previously. This is a thoroughly researched history of the companies and people who produced coin boards, as well as a handy check list and value guide for their collecting.

As noted above, Oberwise brand boards are not especially rare, though there are some notable exceptions. The very earliest printings from 1938, those having the Oberwise name simply pasted over Lincoln Printing Company boards, are quite rare. Also very elusive are titles which were unpopular in their own time and did not sell very well. These include the one for Jefferson nickels, for which no premium was paid, and also the two-volume title for Liberty Head (Barber) quarters, which even in the 1930s was a difficult series to complete. Rarest of all, however, are the Oberwise boards for half dollars and silver dollars. Both have no printed dates and mints; instead, the publisher provided rectangles beneath each coin opening within which were printed the words "DATE" and "ISSUE" followed by blank lines. These were do-it-yourself collections that seemingly held little appeal for hobbyists at the time. Both titles are exceedingly rare today and will command fairly high prices when found.

Upon his retirement, Joseph Oberwise nearly disappeared from the public record. At the time of his death on May 21, 1967, he was married to Ida Zenora Horner (1902-83) who, I believe, was the same Ida Young who worked with Joseph in his shop. No further mention of Linda Oberwise is found after 1938, so it's not known whether she died or simply was divorced from Joseph at some point and was then listed under a new surname from a later marriage. With no children from either of Joseph Oberwise's marriages, it proved to be nearly impossible to find any further information about him and his family. In any case, Joseph and Ida are both interred at Los Angeles National Cemetery. While J. Oberwise & Company is long gone from the numismatic scene, its coin boards are among the brands most often encountered today when old coin collections come onto the market. They are now sought as collectibles equally precious to the coins they once held.