Additional Resources

Roy Chapman Andrews Collector

Clive Coy

Website: Whales, Camps and Trails

Profession: Chief Technician, Laboratory for Vertebrate Paleontology, University of Alberta
Residence: Calgary, Canada
First Andrews book ever read: In The Days of the Dinosaurs
Began Collecting Roy Chapman Andrews: 1980
Number of items in collection: 200+
Favorite item: Roy’s personal copy of Whale Hunting With Gun and Camera
Strangest item: A fork I found at the 1923 American Museum of Natural History camp at the “Flaming Cliffs.”
My favorite “RCA” place visited: The “Flaming Cliffs,” Shabarakh Ussu (“Place of the Muddy-water Well”), Mongolia.
My favorite book written by Andrews: Across Mongolian Plains

Clive Coy

National Post

Scientists worldwide marvel at staggeringly massive dinosaur boneyard painstakingly excavated by Alberta Researchers
~National Post

My Connection with Roy Chapman Andrews

Prior to 1980, I was not familiar with the work of Roy Chapman Andrews. It turns out that as a child I had read several of his last books, but it was not until I was an adult, myself immersed in dinosaur hunting, that I became aware of Andrews as leader of expeditions to Mongolia, whaling research in Japan, or collecting trips to China and Korea.

In 1980 my friend, Gerhard Maier, showed me a dog-eared copy of The New Conquest of Central Asia, arguably Andrews’s greatest written work. This official narrative of the expeditions, a hefty 678-page volume, was exciting to hold. The exquisite foldout photo-panoramas of Mongolian scenery excited my imagination; I wanted to know more. What else had Andrews written?

Twenty-five years ago it was not easy to find an answer. None of the local used bookstores in Alberta had books by Andrews, so I began to write to antiquarian book dealers in the United States. I received replies that they did have books by Andrews, and I was able to pick up my first few books for about $10 postpaid.

Most of Andrews’ many magazine articles were impossible to find, and in the beginning I had to make do with poor-quality photocopies obtained from large libraries that had holdings from the 1920s. Over the past decade, I have been able to locate many of the original magazines and enjoy not only Andrews’ highly illustrated articles, but also the cover art and advertising that is so evocative of the period.

Today my collection includes all 22 of his books, all but one in original dust jacket. Seventeen are signed by Andrews, several with letters. I am also fortunate to have obtained many original expedition letters from Andrews and other expedition members, original signed photographs, and ephemeral items such as signed dinner menus.

Clive Coy’s RCA Blog

It has been observed that, when you put enough similar books and related materials together in one place, they take on a life of their own. What begins as simple accumulation, becomes meaningful beyond the sum of its individual parts. Such has been the case for me and the works of Roy Chapman Andrews.

I began collecting Andrews because I enjoyed his unpretentious, quick-paced style. I expanded my collecting interest when I started compiling the first annotated bibliography of his work. Unlike Andrews contemporaries such as William Beebe, a complete listing of Andrews’s work does not yet exist. After 25 years of collecting, I now have more than two hundred entries in my bibliography. Although it seems like I must be ready to publish it, I am nagged by a collector’s doubts that, despite it all, I may have missed something. Thus the work and pleasure of collecting continues.

“Consequently, he (RCA) began to write books specifically for young readers in the hope that it would encourage them to pick up the torch.” ~ Clive Coy

From The Clive Coy Collection (see Whales, Camps & Trails blog)

Groundbreaking, acclaimed scholarly work

Whale Hunting with Gun and Camera - Roy Chapman Andrews | Clive Coy Collection

Inspiring the next generation

All About Dinosaurs - Roy Chapman Andrews | Clive Coy Collection

The person of Roy Chapman Andrews

Roy Chapman Andrews & Wilhelmina (Billy) Anderson 1936 | Clive Coy Collection

Andrews and ‘Billy’ in Seattle, boarding the train to New York upon returning from Honeymoon trip to Asia. 1936.

Pop Youth Culture

Product placement to aid in funding? Done that.

Dodge Advertisement 1937 | Clive Coy Collection

CONTEMPORARY ROY CHAPMAN ANDREWS BIOGRAPHERS

Dragon Bones and Dinosaur Eggs

By Ann Bausum

Beloit College graduate as was Roy Chapman Andrews.

“You have written a new chapter in the history of life upon the earth.”

When Roy Chapman Andrews read these words from American Museum of Natural History president Henry Fairfield Osborn, he was being congratulated on his discovery of a new species of dinosaur. A stunned scientific community named it Protoceratops andrewsi in his honor.

Andrews led five scientific expeditions to Mongolia’s desert, the Gobi, from 1922 to 1930. He was a pioneer of modern field research, but it was his team’s fossil discoveries that amazed the world—especially the first-ever complete nest of dinosaur eggs. These were remarkable achievements for a man who began his scientific career scrubbing floors at the American Museum of Natural History in New York City.

It wasn’t easy. Along the way, he battled sandstorms, snakes, and bandit attacks. He drove through parts of the desert that had never seen cars before, and he had to have spare tires—and every drop of gasoline—carted in by camel.
Roy Chapman Andrews had a love of adventure that took him all over the globe. This action-packed story, actual expedition photographs, and quotes from Andrews himself present a great explorer of his century—and a grand tale of adventure!

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Author Ann Bausum Discusses her book, Dragon Bones and Dinosaur Eggs

Book Discussion on Dragon Bones & Dinosaur Eggs | C-Span – April 18, 2000

Dragon Hunter

By Charles Gallenkamp

Forward by Michael J. Novacek (Our FIRST Distinguished Explorer – 2003)

Roy Chapman Andrews led “the most celebrated fossil-hunting expedition of the twentieth century,” wrote New York Times science writer John Noble Wilford. Financed by Morgan, Rockefeller ,and a host of other Wall Street titans, the Central Asiatic Expeditions (1922-1930) comprised the most ambitious scientific venture ever launched from the United States up to that time. Under the auspices of New York’s American Museum of Natural History, Andrews conducted five expeditions to the last unchartered corner of the world: the Gobi Desert of Outer and Inner Mongolia.

In Dragon Hunter, Charles Gallenkamp vividly recounts these tremendous discoveries and the unforgettable adventures that attended them. Filled with astonishing tales of Andrews and his team braving raging sandstorms and murderous bandits, enduring political intrigue and civil wars, and reveling in the fascinating world of Peking’s foreign colony, Dragon Hunter also traces the religious controversy over evolution and the anti-imperialist conflicts between the United States and China that were sparked by Andrews’s expeditions.

Gallenkamp tells Andrews’s incredible life story, from his beginnings as a floor sweeper at the American Museum of Natural History to his international fame as one of the century’s most acclaimed explorers. The result is a thrilling page-turner-an epic search for dinosaurs and extinct mammals cloaked in a sweeping historical narrative.

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