Gene Hessler

Eugene Joseph "Gene" Hessler (born July 13, 1928 ) is an American musician and numismatist, specialising in paper money.

Biography Hessler was born in Mount Healthy, Ohio, in 1928. After studying music in Cincinnati he travelled as a trombonist with the bands of Elliot Lawrence, Woody Herman, Billy May, and others. He moved to NYC in 1955 and received a master's degree from the Manhattan School of Music in 1957. Hessler remained in NYC for over 30 years performing in the Broadway pit orchestras for The Music Man, Camelot, How to Succeed in Business, Annie and many other musicals. He also worked at the Radio City Music Hall, and as a free-lance trombonist performed or recorded with Doc Severinsen, Tommy Newsom, Urbie Green and many more New York musicians. In and around New York City Hessler worked with the bands of Buddy Rich, Sauter-Finegan and Richard Maltby.

He also performed as an extra or substitute with the New York Philharmonic and the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra under numerous conductors including Leonard Bernstein and Leopold Stokowski. He travelled through Africa with a musical group in 1964 and went around the world with the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra in 1966; both were State Department tours. It was during his time on Broadway that Hessler became a serious numismatist under the mentorship of Lester Merkin, musician and numismatic dealer.

Numismatic career He has published five books related to the history and the engravers of paper money, and has written for numerous magazines and journals, including the International Bank Note Society Journal, The Numismatist, Coin World, and was editor of Paper Money for fourteen years (1984-1998). He discovered and published several previously unknown designs for U.S. currency through research at the Bureau of Engraving and Printing and the Smithsonian Institution. He was curator of the Chase Manhattan Bank Money Museum (1967-1975, while he continued working as a musician), and the St. Louis Mercantile Bank Money Museum (1986-1989).

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