In 1918, when he was 7, Eric P. Newman’s grandfather gave him a strange old penny.

In the nearly 10 decades since, the passion for coin collecting ignited by that gift turned Mr. Newman into one of the hobby’s most respected figures and a leading authority on the art and history of American money. Beginning last year, Mr. Newman — who, at 102, is still researching and writing on the hobby — began selling some of the prized items from his collection to benefit a foundation he established to promote scholarship on coins.

Late last week, two coins from that collection — a rare 1776 silver dollar minted by the Continental Congress and a 1792 experimental penny with a silver center — were sold at auction in New York for $1.41 million apiece. All told, four sales of coins from the Newman collection by Heritage Auctions of Dallas have yielded $44 million.

Mr. Newman has dedicated the proceeds to promoting the study of coins and popularizing the hobby. The Newman Money Museum he established at Washington University in St. Louis, where he obtained a law degree in 1935, has also benefited.

“He belongs to that tradition which barely exists today,” said Ute Wartenberg, the executive director of the American Numismatic Society in New York, comparing Mr. Newman’s trove to the old-time cabinets of storied collectors like J. P. Morgan.