Here are the details of the new 50 state quarter program and useful descriptions of other commemorative coins (1849-1999).
DAVID L. GANZ, 59, is an accomplished lawyer, a dynamic author, and speaker. He is the youngest person ever appointed by the President of the United States (Nixon) to the annual Assay Commission (1974). He has done Continuing Legal Education lectures and speaking engagements on an ongoing basis on topics that range from Z to A, zoning law to African literature, and many topics in between.
He is also managing partner and principal litigator in the law firm of Ganz & Sivin, L.L.P. of Fair Lawn, N.J. and Ganz & Hollinger, P.C. in New York City, (www.GanzHollinger.com) focusing his practice on municipal law and land use, litigation, general commercial transactions and numismatic law.
Since 2003 he has been an elected Freeholder (at large) in New Jersey's largest and most populous County, Bergen, where he chairs the Committee on Budget & Finance of a $600-million annual budget. (Freeholder is similar to a County Supervisor or County Commissioner. He was re-elected to a second three year term (2006-2008), and a third three year term in November, 2008 (2009-2011). He served as the 29th Mayor of the Borough of Fair Lawn, New Jersey (the 4th largest municipality in Bergen County) for seven years, 1999-January 2006, the longest serving Mayor of Fair Lawn since the early 1960's.
Widely respected by his peers, he is listed in the Martindale-Hubbell legal directory with an a-v rating (highest rating), and his accomplishments are listed in Who's Who of American Law, and other Who's Who publications. He is listed in Who's Who in America (Millennium edition, 2000) and subsequent years. He has a rating of "Superb" (10.0/10.0) on www.AvVo.com.
He served as a member of the Zoning Board of Adjustment for Fair Lawn, N.J., appointed by the Mayor and Council from 1988-1997, and as Chairman of the Zoning Board from 1993-96 for an unprecedented four consecutive terms. In 1997, he was elected to a four year term on the Borough Council (1998-2001). During that time he wrote the first Public Advocate Ordinance in Bergen County, designed to provide representation for consumers, homeowners and tenants before the planning and zoning boards and worked hard to restore the Borough infrastructure.
He became Fair Lawn's 29th Mayor in January, 1999, at the start of its 75th anniversary jubilee year, and was re-elected to successive one year terms, leaving office on January 3, 2006 as the first person in more than 35 years to serve for more than five years as Mayor.
In 2002, he became Attorney to the Zoning Board of Adjustment of the Borough of Paramus and served until his installation as Freeholder in January, 2003. He served as the Rent Leveling Board attorney for the City of Hoboken in Hudson County from 2005-2006.
A prolific author in a variety of different fields, his books include A Critical Guide to Anthologies of African Literature (African Studies Association, 1973), which 37 years after publication is still considered the definitive guide to anthologies of African Literature and is found in most university research libraries. A revised 2d edition was publised in 2010.
His three most recent books are Smithsonian Guide to Coin Collecting (HarperCollins, 2008); Profitable Coin Collecting (Krause Publications, 2008) and Guidebook of Americas State Quarters (Completely revised 2nd edition, October 2008, Random House). The Smithsonian book received "best U.S. book" award from the Numismatic Literary Guild (2008); Profitable Coin Collecting was given a special NLG award in August, 2009.
He also authored 14 Bits: A Legal & Legislative History of America's Bicentennial Coinage 31 U.S.C. 324d-i (1976), The World of Coins & Coin Collecting (first published by Scribners in 1980, 3d revised edition, Bonus BOoks, 1998), Planning Your Rare Coin Retirement (Bonus Books, 1998), The 90 Second Lawyer (Wiley, 1996) , The 90 Second Lawyer Guide to Buying Real Estate (Wiley, 1997), How to get an Instant Mortgage (Wiley, 1997), The Official Guide to Commemorative Coins (Bonus, 1999), and The Official Guidebook to America's State Quarters, a Random House Fall, 2000 mass market paperback. He is also the author of a number of law review articles, and book chapters in important works on real estate, and other areas.
Some of his most recent publications are "Proof of Value of Coin Collection," which appears in Thompson-West vol. 95 Proof of Facts 3rd pages 155-465 (April, 2007) and "Wrongful Death in Claims Against Emergency Service Workers," 101 POF3d 1-282 (2008). There is also a 2009 work on Rent Control, and a 2010 Zoning Law anda 2010 book on Police Liability for civil rirghts actions. In September 2010, "Rare Coin Investing" (Krause) was published..
A graduate of the School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University (Class of 1973) where he followed President Bill Clinton by Five years, he took a law degree at St. John's University Law School and did post-graduate legal studies in the masters of law program at New York University. He also studied international law at Temple University (Philadelphia) Law School in Rome, Italy, while working for the coins and medals office of the Food & Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. In 1994, he was awarded the Order of St. Agatha (Commander) by the Republic of San Marino. In 2006, he was presented with the prestigious Krause Publications "Numismatic Ambassador" award. In January, 2009, the Industry Council for Tangible Assets (ICTA), of which he is a founding award, presented him with the prestigious James U. Blanchard Lifetime Achievement Award.
He has been asked to testify before the Subcommittee on Consumer Affairs and other subcommittees of the House Banking committee on more than a dozen occasions since 1974, most recently in September, 2000 (coinage redesign); in July, 1995, he strongly advocated circulating commemorative coinage and is widely credited as being the moving force behind America's state quarters, which to date have returned over $5-billion to the Federal Treasury.
Then-Mint director Philip N. Diehl wrote in 1998, "From my vantage point, the lion's share of the credit for making the 50 States program a reality goes to David Ganz, for his persistence as an advocate..."
More recently, Mint director Jay Johnson referred to Ganz as the "father of the 50 state quarter program". The program has returned over $5-billion to the American taxpayer since its inception which has been used to lower the interest paid on the national debt. He was quoted recently on the state quarter program in the Wall Street Journal of December 29, 2003, page 1 (above the fold).
He is qualified in the first panel of certified arbitrators for the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York, and New Jersey, and is an arbitrator and mediator in the Superior Court program in Bergen County, New Jersey. In 1996, he became one of only 71 certified mediators of the U.S. District Court for the District of New Jersey mediation program and was recertified in January, 2002.
In his spare time, he is a coin collector. A life fellow (one of 200 voting members) of the American Numismatic Society, he was appointed by President Nixon to the 1974 Annual Assay Commission, the oldest continually functioning committee in the Federal government (dating to the founding of the Mint in 1792). He served from 1985-1995 as an elected member of the Board of Governors of the American Numismatic Association, the largest, educational non-profit organization of collectors in the world, and the only hobby organization chartered by the Congress of the United States. He became the organization's 48th president in July, 1993, serving until August, 1995.
In December, 1993, Treasury Secretary Lloyd Bentsen appointed him a charter member of the Citizens Commemorative Coin Advisory Committee (www.CCCAConline.org) . He was reappointed in 1995 for a second one year term, leaving office in February, 1996. As a CCCAC member, he was the initial advocate for circulating commemorative coinage and fought to include such a plea in the CCCAC's first two reports to Congress. He chaired the World Mint Council in 1994 and 1995 at its meetings held in conjunction with the American Numismatic Association annual convention. In 1995, more than 24 nations ministers attended Council meetings in Anaheim.
He has served as a consultant to the Canadian Olympic Coin Program (1973-76) and was largely responsible for proposing that Canada issue a Gold commemorative, the Moscow Olympic Coin Program (1976-80), for Occidental Petroleum and Lazard Freres in their 1981-2 Olympic Coin program effort, the 1985-6 Statue of Liberty Centennial Celebration (where his proposal for a low-priced copper-nickel commemorative went on to become the best-selling non-circulating commemorative coin of all time), and many others. His legislative expertise has been tapped by Olin Brass, Memorial Mission Hospital (Asheville, N.C.) (www.msj.com) for a Congressional Gold medal honoring Billy & Ruth Graham, The Platinum Guild, the Dutch Mint, the Portuguese State Mint, and others, on coin and related matters over the course of the past 25 years. He has had many articles reprinted in The Congressional Record and other periodicals.
He is also a 20 year board member of the Token & Medal Society (TAMS) and served as the organization's President (2004-2006). He received the TAMS Medal of Merit, its highest award, in 1997. He is also a founding director (1983) of the Industry Council for Tangible Assets (ICTA), a non-profit industry trade association, and has served on its executive committee and provided it with advice and counsel for a quarter century.
He has three adult children (Scott, Elyse and Pam) and is married to the former Kathleen A. Gotsch, and adoptive parent to four felines, Bizi, Mimi, Mistletoe and Habibi.
