Don Taxay

Don Paul Taxay was an American numismatist and historian, known for the reference works he composed, and for his disappearance at the height of his career.

Career in numismatics

Taxay's first published work was Counterfeit, Mis-Struck and unofficial U.S. Coins, in 1963, followed by The U.S. Mint and Coinage in 1966 (which Gilroy Roberts called "the most complete and authoritative treatise on the subject ever written"), An Illustrated History of U.S. Commemorative Coinage in 1967, Money of the American Indians in 1970, and Scott's Comprehensive Catalogue and Encyclopedia of United States Coins in 1971. He also served as the curator of the Chase Manhattan Bank's Money Museum. In 1974, he joined award-winning numismatist Harry Forman in establishing the coin dealership of Forman, Taxay and Associates. In approximately 1977, Taxay withdrew from society.

Disappearance

In 2005-2006, the members of the Numismatic Bibliomania Society's mailing list undertook a joint research project to discover what had happened to Taxay. They established that Taxay had been introduced to Indian spirituality by Walter Breen, and that as a result, Taxay became a Rajneeshee and emigrated to India. Historian Karl Moulton—whose 2007 Henry Voigt and Others Involved in America's Early Coinage includes a chapter analyzing Taxay's historiography—speculates that Taxay attempted to liquidate all his property so that he could donate his wealth to the Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh, and describes him as "brainwashed and untraceable", concluding that Taxay's ultimate fate may never be known.