PHOTOGRAPHY COMPLETED OF BASS CORE COLLECTION AT ANA

Digital photographs now document the more than 500 items that comprise the Harry W. Bass Jr. Core Collection at the American Numismatic Association (ANA) Money Museum.

Bass, an enshrinee in the ANA Numismatic Hall of Fame who died in 1998, assembled the most comprehensive collection of America's gold coins, in addition to patterns and large-sized paper money. Many of the finest specimens from that collection are now on long-term loan to the ANA Money Museum from the Harry W. Bass Jr. Research Foundation.

"Work is progressing nicely on mounting an exhibit of this magnificent collection," says Curator Robert W. Hoge. "The wonderful photography was performed by Douglas Plasencia of Bowers and Merena Galleries. He captured more than 1,000 images with the same state-of-the-art, high-resolution digital equipment he used to shoot the photographs for the firm's 1999 and 2000 Bass auction catalogs." (Photographs of the Bass Core Collection will be available for detailed study on the Bass web site - www.hbrf.org - and in the ANA Museum's exhibit area.)

"Among the many items in the exhibit is the first coin Harry Bass purchased for his collection - an 1876 $1 gold piece," Hoge says. "An intriguing specimen is an 1840 large cent, hollowed out and milled to perfectly conceal an 1859 $3 gold piece."

Hoge adds that noted author and auctioneer Q. David Bowers currently is working on a sylloge of the Bass Collection and a comprehensive biography of its founder.

Photographs of the Bass Core Collection are just part of the extensive work being done to prepare the exhibit. When completed, visitors will enter the vault-like environment through metal-grille doors. Audio- and computer-assisted displays will narrate the story of the coins and point out some of the premier pieces in the collection. (The Harry W. Bass Foundation and the Harry W. Bass Jr. Research Foundation are financing the creation of exhibit.)

The Bass Core Collection will stand as the centerpiece of the ANA Money Museum. Concurrent with the work being done to prepare the exhibit, the ANA headquarters in Colorado Springs, Colorado, is undergoing a $3 million renovation. The remodeling will provide 70 percent more space to the Association's circulating library - the largest of its kind - and 50 percent more room to the museum. New display cases in the museum will replace the old ones, which the ANA has donated to its sister organization, the American Numismatic Society, and to the Old Colorado City Historical Center in Colorado Springs.

The ANA Board of Governors has launched a fund-raising effort - ANA Target 2001 - to finance the remodeling. To make a donation, contact the American Numismatic Association, 818 N. Cascade Ave., Colorado Springs, CO 80903-3279; telephone 719/632-2646; fax 719/634-4085; E-mail rochette@money.org.

For more information about the fund-raising effort, contact ANA Governor Barry Stuppler at 5855 Topanga Canyon Blvd., #330, Woodland Hills, CA 91367; fax 818/594-8599; or E-mail ANA2001@coinmag.com.