Gene Hessler
American musician and numismatist
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.
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The entry’s evidential value lies in the named roles, institutions and publications that can be tested against primary documentation. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 6, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q48032619. VIAF identifies the subject as 20753718. The Library of Congress control number is n82134502. 3 of 4 selected statements include explicit references; 1 carry qualifiers and 1 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1928, 1955, 1957 and 1964.
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This entry incorporates text from “Gene Hessler” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.