NNP

Coffee, John

Born in Tacoma, Washington, son of. congressman John Main Coffee (1897-1983). Received B.A. from Yale in 1951, M.Dv. from Harvard in 1954, and ThM. from Harvard in 1956. Ordained a minister in the Unitarian Universalist Church in 1954. Served as minister in Roxbury, Massachusetts, 1955 to 1961. Minister in East Boston after 1961. History professor at Emerson College in Boston 1966 to 2006.

Coffee collects car wash tokens, parking tokens and real estate tokens. In 1991 he claims the largest U. S. collection of transportation tokens.

He was acquainted with Stephen King who named the main character in The Green Line after Coffee.

He has served as editor of "The Fare Box", journal of the American Vecturist Association since 1949. He is the author of several books:

Real Estate Tokens (1973)

Car Wash Tokens with Harold V. Ford (1974)

Personal Tokens of Vecturists (1975)

Century of Eloquence (1980)

Atwood-Coffee Catalogue of U.S. & Canadian Transportation Tokens in 3 volumes 1982-1986. 

Automobile Washing Tokens (1986)

Land Company and Real Estate Tokens (1991)

Received Krause Publications Numismatic Ambassador Award in 1997.

bio: Who's Who in Religion, 1977; correspondence, 1991

obit: The E-Sylum 5/20/2012