Robert A. Vlack

Robert A. "Bob" Vlack (1927-2015) was a prominent American numismatist renowned for his expertise in colonial coinage. After serving as a medic in the U.S. Army during World War II, he pursued higher education under the GI Bill, attending institutions such as Northern University and MIT. Professionally, he worked as a project engineer for Western Electric.

In the 1950s, Vlack began his numismatic research, focusing on early American coins and tokens. His seminal work, Early American Coins, was published in 1965. He also authored An Illustrated Catalogue of Early North American Advertising Notes (2001) and An Illustrated Catalogue of the French Billon Coinage in the Americas (2004), the latter earning him the Fred Bowman Literary Award from the Canadian Numismatic Research Society in 2005. Vlack's meticulous studies led to the identification and classification of various colonial coin die varieties, with several numbering systems bearing his name, including those for Machin's Mills coinage and St. Patrick halfpence.