I knew and dealt with John for many years. He was originally from Baltimore, MD area and worked for the airlines - returning misplaced baggage to customers. In his later years he moved to California with relatives. The last time I saw him was at the Convention last year or the year before.
John was a very quiet, low key and unassuming person but he was an avid token collector and collected all sorts of Tokens including high value tokens up to $1000 from all over the World !!
At a Convention years ago a collector stopped by my Table and was very proud to show me a couple of live $100 chips he had just purchased. I called John over and said to him -"Show the other collector what you just picked up." John calmly reached in his pocket and pulled out four live Tokens - two $1000s and two $500s - a total of $3000 worth of Tokens. The other collector almost passed out as John calmly returned the tokens to his pocket.
I will never forget John and the look the other collector had on his face !!
Rest in Peace - my old friend.
Take care,
Jerry