Canadian astronomer Harvey Richer will soon release his second book on Canadian numismatics.
A long-time numismatist whose day job includes groundbreaking research in astronomy and physics at the University of British Columbia (UBC), Richer has published more than 150 scientific papers in peer-reviewed journals. His first numismatic book came in 2017 with The Gold Coins of Newfoundland, 1865-1888.
His forthcoming release, 100 Greatest Canadian Coins and Tokens, will be “a richly illustrated new coffee-table book sure to delight every collector and historian,” Dennis Tucker, of Whitman Publishing, told the Numismatic Bibliomania Society’s May 1 E-Sylum newsletter.
As an observational astronomer, Richer is one of the Hubble Space Telescope’s most frequent Canadian users. Along with other telescopes, it helps him “explore the age of the Universe, the evolution of stellar systems, and the formation of galaxies,” according to his Peter Wall Institute profile on the UBC website.
Richer, who’s a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada, also received the Canadian Astronomical Society’s Carlyle Beals Award for lifetime achievement in 2014.
He’s also the namesake of the Harvey B. Richer Gold Medal for Early Career Research in Astronomy, established in 2016.