2017-05-25 Thu

Michael Gene Pfefferkorn Sr., was a famous collector of Roman coins, Missouri tokens and tax tokens. He passed away on May 11 in St. Louis at age 77.

Mr. Pfefferkorn was an active member and officer of the Missouri Numismatic Society and served as MNS president from 1976 to 1978. He also served the association as a member of the board of directors, librarian and editor of the Missouri Journal of Numismatics.

He was the co-founder of the American Tax Token Society and published the Tax Token Tally during 1970 to 1972. For the American Numismatic Association Anniversary Convention, he worked as a Young Numismatists and Pages coordinator. Mr. Pfefferkorn also was involved in numismatic writings and was a co-author along with Jerry Schimmel of the standard book on tax tokens, Chits, Chiselers and Funny Money, published in 1976. He also wrote many articles for the Missouri Journal of Numismatics, The Token and Medal Society Journal, Coin World, and other publications.

He was born in Delano, Calif., but had extended family from the Chaffee, Mo. As a result, he travelled a lot through south-east Missouri looking for tokens.

However, one day, Mr. Pfefferkorn lost much of his collection in a burglary.

As far as his education was concerned, he received bachelor's of art and science degrees from Southeast Missouri State College in 1961, and a Master of Arts degree from the University of Missouri in 1963.

He also taught history for four decades in the St. Louis public schools system.

He was one of the first to conduct a research on the part-incuse tokens that were made in St. Louis, and published an introduction to the series in the July 1999 issue of Talkin' Tokens.