Ben was introduced to the field
of medal collecting in 1972. Since his retirement in 2000 he has been
concentrating on the art and history of historical and commemorative medals,
becoming an avid collector of these medals. He has also been writing articles on the role
medals play in religious and racial bigotry, for which he has received awards
from the Numismatic Literary Guild and a medal issued jointly by the Token and
Medal Society and the American Israel Numismatic Association. For ten years
he was the Webmaster of the Medal
Collectors of America website. He is currently
a Juror for the American Medallic Sculpture Association and a Board Member of
the Medal Collectors of America.
In addition to collecting medals and working on
his website (www.historicalartmedals.com), Ben now spends his time
woodworking, gardening, engaging in various other crafts,
and enjoying his grandchildren.
He also writes
stories about his boyhood, growing up in a tenement in
The Bronx and on a
chicken farm in
Toms River.
His
recently
published articles explore the role medals play in religious and
racial bigotry (LINKS to these articles are shown below):
Weiss, Benjamin,
Medallic History of Religious and Racial Intolerance: Medals As
Instruments For Promoting Bigotry
Artwis.com,
Kunstpedia Foundation 2008.
Weiss, Benjamin,
Badge of
Intolerance,
The Numismatist, vol. 124, no. 5: 48-51, 2011.
Weiss, Benjamin,
Medallic
History of the War of 1812: Consequences to the American Indian Nations,
Journal of the Medal Collectors of America (MCA
Advisory), Vol.15, No. 5, Sept-Oct pp. 1-32, 2012.
Weiss, Benjamin, Medallic History of the War of 1812: Catalyst for Destruction of the American Indian Nations (e-book)
Artwis.com, Kuntstpedia Foundation, The Netherlands, 2013.
Weiss, Benjamin, Medals of the Glorious Revolution: The Influence of Catholic-Protestant
Antagonism, ANS Magazine, Vol. 13, Issue 1, pp. 6-23. American
Numismatic Society, New York, 2014.
Weiss, Benjamin,
Anti-Semitic Bigotry: A Retrospective As Chronicled by Commemorative Medals,
(e-book) Artwis.com, Kunstpedia Foundation, The Netherlands, 2015.
Weiss, Benjamin,
Anti-Semitic Medals Through History:
Anti-Semitic Bigotry as Chronicled by Historical Medals,
Part I. The Shekel:
Journal of Israel and Jewish History and Numismatics, Vol. 48, No. 1, pp. 12-48,
2015.
Weiss, Benjamin, Anti-Semitic Medals
Through History: Anti-Semitic Bigotry as Chronicled by
Historical Medals, Part II. The Shekel: Journal of Israel and Jewish History and
Numismatics, Vol. 48, No. 2, pp. 6-25, 2015.
Weiss, Benjamin, Anti-Semitic Medals
Through History: Anti-Semitic Bigotry as Chronicled by Historical Medals, Part
III, Conclusion. The Shekel: Journal of Israel and Jewish History and
Numismatics, Vol. 48, No. 3, pp. 6-35, 2015.
Weiss, Benjamin, Anti-Semitic Medals
Through History:
Anti-Semitic Bigotry as
Chronicled by Historical Medals, Jewish-American Hall of Fame,
Jewish Museum in Cyberspace, 2015.
Weiss, Benjamin,
Medals as Instruments for Promoting Anti-Semitic Bigotry,
Artwis.com, Kunstpedia
Foundation, The Netherlands, 2015.
Weiss, Benjamin,
How a German
Became King of England: Part I: A Medallic History of Religious Conflicts in Britain,
Journal of the Medal Collectors of America (MCA
Advisory), Vol.19, No. 2, pp. 12-26, 2016.
Weiss, Benjamin,
How a German
Became King of England: Part II: Hanoverian Dynasty Incites Jacobite
Rebellions,
Journal of the Medal Collectors of America (MCA
Advisory), Vol.19, No. 3, pp. 8-19, 2016.
Weiss, Benjamin,
Medal Commemorating the Visit of
Sultan Abdul Aziz to London, Revisited, Journal of the Medal Collectors
of America (MCA Advisory), Vol, 20, No. 2, pp.16-23, 2017.
Weiss, Benjamin,
Medallic
History of Slavery: Racial Oppression as Chronicled by Historical and
Commemorative Medals, Newman Numismatic Portal
at Washington University in St. Louis, pp. 1-265, 2020.
Awards for contributions to medallic art:
Ben & Sylvia Odesser Memorial Award, for Outstanding Contribution,
Judaic Numismatics & Exonumia, 2016, awarded jointly by the Token and Medal
Society and the American Israel Numismatic Association, Inc.
Numismatic Literary Guild Award (NGL Award), Small Club Publications for Best Article
"Anti-Semitic Bigotry as Chronicled by Historical Medals", The Shekel,
awarded by the Numismatic Literary Guild, August 2016.
A portion of
Ben Weiss' medal collection
was
on display at the Philadelphia Museum of Art.
Other medals from the Weiss collection are on
currently on display at the
exhibit
ART AND WONDER: A
CABINET OF COLLECTIONS (Gallery 257) at the Philadelphia Museum of Art.
CURRICULUM VITAE of
Benjamin Weiss
Born in the Bronx and raised on a chicken farm in New Jersey, Ben received his
undergraduate and graduate training from the Philadelphia College of Pharmacy
and Science (University of the Sciences), where he earned a Ph.D. in Pharmacology in 1963. He took a
Postdoctoral Fellowship at the National Heart Institute, National Institute of
Health and was a Research Associate at Columbia University. Since then he
worked at the National
Institute of Mental Health, where he held the position of Chief of the Section
on Neuroendocrinology, and the Medical College of Pennsylvania, where he held the positions
of Professor of Pharmacology and Psychiatry, and Chief of the Division of Neuropsychopharmacology. He was also a Visiting Scientist at the Mario Negri
Institute in Milan, Italy, and a Visiting Scientist at the Weitzman Institute in
Israel. Now a retired Neuropharmacologist, Weiss currently holds the
position of
Professor
Emeritus in the Department of Pharmacology and Physiology at Drexel
University College of Medicine.
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