Harry, Linda,

You are absolutely right about Veronica's uncle.  I totally forgot about
this.  Thank you for correcting this err.  I now remember Veronica talking
about MacArthur and all of the interesting people who visited both of their
shops over the years.  You both slightly predate my many visits to her 3rd
Ave. shop when I was just a kid.  I found her shop sometime around 1972,
and probably visited almost weekly for an eight to ten year period.

Veronica did purchase a large amount of Hano's stock, which was hopelessly
mixed into her cabinets and back room storage.  I was hired to help
Veronica's attorney value and dispose of her shop contents in 1988.  There
was a wealth of conchological history squirreled away within her shop.  If
you remember the area behind her desk -- we found copies of rare journals
and fascinating correspondence with some of the leading names in the
conchology and malacology at that time.

It was in Veronica's shop that I first met Bill Old (Strombus oldi) and
Karl (Morris) Jacobson who first encouraged me to collect land
shells.  Veronica insisted that I attend the New York Shell Club meetings
and there I first met a young guy who used to take the train up from
Haddonfield, N.J. to attend NY Shell Club Meetings named Gary Rosenberg.

I also gained an appreciation for conchological literature through Veronica
who had a rather extensive library of antiquarian books.  She also
acquainted me with mainstream collector journals such as Of Sea & Shore
magazine of which she kept many copies on display for her patrons to read.

If you hung out in her shop long enough on any given day, someone notable
in the hobby was sure to show up.  And grant it, this was long before large
national conventions and the Internet.  So I think you would have to agree
that her shop really was the center of conchology in New York.  The one
memento and remembrance that I still retained from her shop at the time of
its closing is the enormous and fabulous piece of coral that she used to
keep on top of the double-wide draw wood cabinet next to her desk; memories
of a day when the hobby was far more intimate and far less complex.

Rich
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At 06:13 PM 9/5/2002, Harry Lee wrote:
>Dear Philip, Allen, Rich, Winston, et al.,
>
>I hasten to second Winston's nomination of The best of the
>Nautilus.  Among the
>chronicles there is none more engaging than Remington, P. S. and W. J. Clench,
>1925.  Vagabonding for shells. The Nautilus 38(4): 127-143. April. (pp.
>136-152
>of the anthology).  The title tells it all!  Having been in the field with the
>junior author (1970's), I feel and keen sense of kinship and continuity of
>this
>marvelous enterprise we are so fortunate to carry forth.
>
>Rich, I think Veronica Parker Johns became a shellshopkeeper through the
>offices of her uncle, Mr. MacArthur, who operated the shop from (at least) the
>early 1950's to 1964, when Veronica assumed management (and emended the
>name of
>the proprietary from "The MacArthur Shop" to "Seashells Unlimited").  I
>thought
>it was just south of 39th St.   Philip Hano ran a contemporary shell shop
>about
>40 blocks north for at least 1964-1966.  Maybe Veronica got his stock after he
>died or retired.  In any event visits to the two shops kept me out of the
>Cornell Medical College library for large and frequent respites.
>
>Harry

At 05:07 PM 9/5/2002, Linda Bush wrote:
>Well, I shall have to reread Veronica's book, which I just found in some
>books I had brought out of the storage room.
>
>I was fortunate enough to begetting my Master's degree at NYU during one
>of the years that Veronica had her shop.   I spent many a happy hour
>there.   However, she had acquired
>the shop through the fact that the previous owner, named MacArthur, I
>believe , was a distant cousin.   There were at that
>time three other shell dealers in Manhattan - Hugh and Marguerite Stix,
>whose book you are all familiar with, I'm sure,
>and two whose names I shall have to search for in my oldest catalogue.   I
>think Hano was one of them.
>
>The New York shell club during this time met on a Sunday, at the American
>Museum of Natural History, and was a knowledgeable and jolly
>group,  including Anthony D'Attilio and Moris K. Jacobson.   Also, Bill
>Old was a good friend of Veronica's and spent a good deal of time in her
>shop too.
>
>Gosh, I must be getting old - that was about 35 years ago.
>Get Veronica's book and read it; you'll have a good time!
>
>Cordially,
>Linda Bush