From esylum at binhost.com  Fri Aug  5 23:42:11 2005
From: esylum at binhost.com (esylum@binhost.com)
Date: Fri Aug  5 23:45:00 2005
Subject: The E-Sylum v8#34, August 5, 2005
Message-ID: <42F43193.1040303@coinlibrary.com>

Welcome to The E-Sylum: Volume 8, Number 34, August 5, 2005:
an electronic publication of the Numismatic Bibliomania Society.
Copyright (c) 2005, The Numismatic Bibliomania Society.


WAYNE'S WORDS

We have a contest winner! Alan Meghrig writes: "Since they're
your words.. WAYNES WORD(S)." I like it, and I'll go with
the plural form since I can rarely stop at just one (or even a few)
words. Like Ken Lowe of The Money Tree always said about
himself, I suffer from "diarrhea of the keyboard..."

This issue is arriving a couple days early due to your Editor's
travel schedule. We should be back on the usual Sunday publishing
schedule next week.

Among our recent subscribers is Tony Hine. Welcome aboard!
We now have 775 subscribers. Can we reach 800 by the end
of the year? If you know someone who would enjoy receiving
our newsletter, please forward them a copy and encourage them
to subscribe.

Lastly, this is off-topic, but too good not to include. This
number puzzle mind-teaser will keep some of you busy for a
while. Have a great week.
http://trunks.secondfoundation.org/files/psychic.swf


NBS ELECTION RESULTS

NBS President, Pete Smith writes: "Results of the recent
Numismatic Bibliomania Society election were announced
during the ANA convention in San Francisco.

President: Pete Smith
Vice President: Dan Hamelberg
Secretary/Treasurer: David Sundman

Board Members: John Adams, Dan Friedus, Joel Orosz,
David Perkins, Scott Rubin, David Sklow.

We thank those who served on the board for the past two
years and welcome those who will serve during the current
term. Thanks also to all the candidates and voting members
who participated in the election."


NEW BOOK ON MEXICAN NUMISMATICS

Ralf B?pple of Stuttgart, Germany writes: "I would like to
bring to your attention a new production of the American
Numismatic Association. "!Viva la Revolucion - The Money
of the Mexican Revolution" is the catalog for the corresponding
exhibit which the ANA Money Museum put on display between
November 2003 and September 2004. Authored by two
leading experts in the field, Don Bailey and Joe Flores, it is,
however, more than a simple catalog, since it also gives a lot
of background information on the series, the times and the people.
Owing to the fantastic rarities which had been on display and the
inclusion not only of coins, but also of bills, orders, medals and
photographs, this book is a long-needed primer that makes a
fascinating era of Mexican numismatics accessible to anybody
who would like to get a comprehensive overlook of what this
confusing series with its plenty of necessity issues, crude strikes,
different metals, designs, mints and issuing authorities is all about.

The hardbound book can be ordered at $39.95 through the ANA."

[Viva La Internet! We've just learned from someone in Germany
about a book on Mexican numismatics based on an exhibit in
Colorado Springs. I saw this exhibit on my visit to the ANA
last year, and I'm glad to see it's being published. The ANA's
web site is http://www.money.org. Click on "Shop at MoneyMarket"
and enter "Mexican" in the search box. Or, try the following URL,
which should take you directly to the proper page:
http://tinyurl.com/cegow -Editor]


OKLAHOMA WOMAN NOMINATED AS U.S. MINT DIRECTOR

On August 2nd the Edmond Sun of Edmond, Oklahoma
reported that "A former Edmond business woman who has
served as an auxiliary economic adviser to President George
W. Bush will now have her role formalized.

The president nominated Terry Neese as director of the U.S.
Mint to replace Henrietta Fore, who is stepping down. Neese,
an Oklahoma City businesswoman who lived in Edmond for
several years, will be the highest ranking Oklahoman in the
Bush administration if her appointment passes Senate
confirmation. That confirmation hearing is expected to happen
in September when Congress returns from its August recess,
said Brenda Jones, a spokeswoman for Neese.

Neese did not make any public statements Monday or
this morning about the appointment.

"She's completely focusing on getting ready for her Senate
hearing," Jones said today.

The appointment will take Neese to Washington, D.C.,
where she is looking for a home, Jones said. Currently,
Neese has been based in Oklahoma City and traveling
back and forth to Washington, D.C.

President Bush asked Neese to take the job during a
telephone conversation Friday evening, and word of the
nomination was posted on the White House Web site that night.

Jones said naming a successful business owner to the
U.S. Mint position makes sense.

"It's one of only government agencies that makes a profit.
If there's anyone who knows how to make a profit, that
would be Terry Neese," Jones said.

Edmond's Brenda Reneau, who is state labor commissioner,
praised the appointment.

"No one in Oklahoma, and few in America, can match Terry's
advocacy for small business. Her leadership of the bi-partisan
organization, Women Impacting Public Policy (WIPP), has
made her one of the key players in development of a positive
and substantive agenda to raise the status of American women
in establishing good policies for a stronger economy," Reneau
stated. "I am proud of her personal and professional qualities
that have brought her to this important national position."

The Mint maintains physical custody of the nation's gold and
silver assets, and administers the national depository at Fort
Knox, Ky. The Mint also redeems and processes mutilated coins.

"President Bush could not have chosen a better steward of
national assets than Terry Neese, who has mentored thousands
of American women and men who are successful in today's
complex and integrated world economy," Reneau said. "I am
thrilled for Terry, and for our state, at this joyful news."

To read the full article, see:
http://www.edmondsun.com/articles/2005/08/02/news/news03.txt

The following is the full text of the July 29th White House
Press Release: "The President intends to nominate Terry Neese,
of Oklahoma, to be Director of the Mint at the Department of
the Treasury. Ms. Neese currently serves as President and
Co-Founder of Women Impacting Public Policy, a bipartisan
public policy organization advocating for women in business.
In 1975, she founded Terry Neese Personnel Services and
continues to serve as Chairman of the Board. She previously
served as a member of the National Advisory Council on
Indian Education and the National Women's Business Council."
http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2005/07/20050729-10.html

Here are links to a couple other web pages on Neese:
http://www.fasttrac.org/article.cfm?id=282
http://www.4-monkeys.com/eawc/neese.htm

[In the early days of the Industrial Revolution, Mint Directors
were men of science, such as Sir Isaac Newton and David
Rittenhouse, a renowned astronomer and first Director of
the U.S. Mint. I haven't researched this, but assume many
later Directors included political appointees who didn't have
experience in either science or technology. But what is the
Mint but a huge manufacturing operation? Shouldn't a Mint
Director have experience managing far-flung manufacturing
operations with a large workforce? It will be interesting to
see how the Senate explores Neese's qualifications.
And will she pass the Obama test? -Editor]


GEODETIC MARKER FEATURES NEW NICKEL DESIGN

The National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)
"... is taking part in the United States Mint's launch of the "Ocean
in View" nickel by unveiling a commemorative geodetic marker
featuring the design of the new nickel. A dedication of the marker
took place in a ceremony today at Cape Disappointment State
Park near Ilwaco, Wash.

"The 'Ocean in View' geodetic marker commemorates a significant
moment in American history," said James R. Walpole, NOAA
general counsel. "This marker will have exact coordinates, assisting
hikers and outdoor enthusiasts in navigation and finding specific
destinations using handheld global positioning system equipment."

The last nickel in its Westward Journey Series, the "Ocean in View"
nickel design commemorates Lewis & Clark's completion of their
mission, depicting the dramatic coastal landscape where they
reached the Pacific Ocean in November 1805. The nickel features
the inscription "Ocean in view! O! The Joy!," which reflects a
journal entry by Clark."

To read the full article, see:
http://www.noaanews.noaa.gov/stories2005/s2485.htm


REAL MEN DO ORIGINAL ARCHIVAL RESEARCH

Dave Ginsburg writes: "I was pleased to see in the E-Sylum's
description of David Lange's updated Mercury dime book
that he went to the Archives and did some original research.
So few authors seem to do that and so few collectors seem
to be interested. I've always treasured the details that R. W.
Julian puts in his articles (number of dies, when they were sent,
etc.). I suppose that others might see that as pointless trivia,
but one of my dreams is someday to spend some time in the
Archives unearthing information no one else has published."


FAROUK LOT BUYERS SOUGHT

Andy Lustig of R.M. Smythe, Inc. writes: "Please ask the gang
if anyone knows who bought lots 1987 through 1989 in the
Farouk sale. Thanks."


CONVENTION REPORTS

George Kolbe writes: "The San Francisco ANA was great
fun. Where else can you see real flower children, i.e., "hippies,"
still traversing city thoroughfares, though it is apparent that
many are approaching senior citizen status?"

[I've often wondered what became of many of the Flower
Children. Hearing Grace Slick's vocals on the radio one day,
I had to wonder if she's now somebody's grandma, puttering
around in her flower garden. Then I came to and realized that
here I was listening to an oldies station, and I'm no spring
chicken myself. I'm not eligible for AARP yet, but my wife
keeps reminding me it won't be long. Young whippersnapper!
-Editor]

Howard Spindel writes: "I just returned from the convention.
I spent some time volunteering at the ANA's photo ID booth -
that's a great way to meet people!

It was a fun show for me. I met two guys that I've emailed back
and forth with for several years but never met in person. I
bought three shield nickel varieties - more than I usually find to buy.

On the book front, I saw one book that interested me - Carlos
Guytan's book on Revolutionary Mexican Coinage. Unfortunately,
it's entirely in Spanish and my Spanish is far too rusty to read it."

Larry Gaye writes: "Regarding the ANA Show in San Francisco,
as usual I saw a lot of old friends and met some new ones; life is
good. While I am a national volunteer and have an opportunity
to make the rounds, I will say that it was a very hard show from
the standpoint of set up and take down. My feet were very sore
from start to finish.

I did manage to receive a couple of books from an author
which he donated to our coin club. I am sorry I cannot remember
his name and the books are being shipped, but they were on cameo
proof Franklin Half dollars. I sure do appreciate his generosity.

A lot of dealers seemed to have left early which is of course
bad for those who might come on Sunday. I have no idea
how to encourage them to stay for the entire show. This is
the first convention in a long time that I haven't purchased a
book for my collection, but I did come home with a large
group of Byzantine coinage that will put my existing library
to the test. Got to go for now, cheers to all of you."


NLG ASYLUM AWARD GOES TO ...?

[NBS President Pete Smith will have some additional
convention news in the next issue of The Asylum. The
following note from Asylum editor E. Tomlinson Fort refers
to an award The Asylum received at the convention. -Editor]

Tom writes: "The Lesson for 2005 from the Numismatic Literary
Guild (NLG) is that if you organize a major project and do 90%
of the work all of the credit will go the someone else.

I had been aware that the NLG existed for several years. A
number of The Asylum?s contributors are members and the
numismatic press usually prints a list of the awards that they
present every summer. At the 2004 Pittsburgh ANA convention,
NBS president Pete Smith (who is a member) and I went to their
meeting. Everyone on the floor was recognized by the nice people
sitting at the front table, the only two exceptions being Pete and
myself (they later apologized for this omission at another NLG
function that evening). Since I was a non-member and had never
attended a NLG meeting, let alone an ANA convention before
in my life, this is not surprising. Pete tried to get me to cough up
the $20 for a membership by I demurred, using Groucho Marx?s
famous dictum that I did not want to join any club that wanted
me as a member. I did ask Pete, and other NLG members,
what the organization actually did and they frankly admitted that
they spent most of their time giving out awards to each other
and having a nice time at ANA conventions.

Earlier this year NBS president Pete Smith submitted the special
25th anniversary issue of The Asylum to the NLG for consideration
of one of their awards on the suggestion of our editor-in-chief
David Fanning (who is also an NLG member). It had been their
intention that any award(s) go to the journal, a policy with which
I heartily agree. Instead, the NLG gave an award for ?Extraordinary
Merit? to David. I cannot stress too much that neither Pete nor
David did anything wrong. They submitted the issue to the NLG in
the firm belief that an award, if won, would go to the publication.
David certainly had no idea that the award would go to him. For
those who have not had the pleasure of meeting either man, both
are fine individuals and brilliant scholars. If you do not believe me,
please see their articles in The Asylum over the past few years.
The NLG should give both men awards, but for the outstanding
works they have written.

The special issue of The Asylum was my baby. I conceived the
idea and sold the project to the board. I solicited the articles
from our contributors, sent them gentle (and in a couple of cases,
not so gentle) reminders that I needed their work by the deadline.
I created the layout. I worked the images through Photoshop.
I read and re-read everything until I had almost memorized the
studies. I sent out the press releases. I came up with the ideas of
deferring costs through the publication of a limited edition hardcover
copy and the auctioning of the signed manuscripts from the authors.
I dealt with our printer and binder. David, Pete and Gosia (my wife)
read through the proofs and pointed out lots of errors. Those
who bought the marked up proofs at last years NBS Society
meeting can see the level of their contributions. Nevertheless,
the quality, or lack thereof, for the issue rests with me. If any
awards are to be handed out for this issue they should bear the
name(s) of the journal (the best choice), the NBS or myself.

I am not a member of the NLG and therefore the organization
gave the award to David. Again, please let me stress that neither
Pete nor David is at fault, neither man knowingly did anything
wrong. The blame rests on the shoulders of the NLG. Apparently
it is their policy only to give awards only to members. Even if the
member(s) did not do the work. Thus, if you are an NLG member
and help a numismatic author on his/her monograph and get a
mention on the acknowledgments page you can submit that
work to the NLG and win an award. What a great organization!
Even better, they will send out press releases to Coin World,
Numismatic News, The Numismatist etc? and your name will
appear in print while the person who spent months locked away
from friends and family will be anonymous. And, as an added
bonus, you get a great plaque with your name on it to hang on
your wall and show your friends.

And all this for $20. What a great deal. It must be great to
be an NLG member.

If the NLG wants to truly recognize literary merit, it should be
like the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences and
grant awards (in their case the Oscars) to the best work,
or to those who do the best work, regardless of whether they
are members or not. The NLG is a private organization and is
well within its rights to grant awards to whomever it likes.
However, as today?s lesson demonstrates, the quality of
these awards is very low indeed. "

David F. Fanning adds: "I not only have no problem with
anything Tom says here, but will loudly declaim to all and
sundry that Tom did the vast majority of the work on this
issue and deserves any award for the issue as a whole way
more than I do. I'm an NLG member and am perfectly
happy to be such. I am very pleased that they chose to give
me another award for the individual article I contributed to
our special summer issue. I don't deserve an award for
the issue as a whole, however--Tom does."

NBS President Pete Smith adds: "David did not submit the
issue for the award because he did not have enough copies
to send. I sent in the copies and submitted his name as
Editor-in-Chief because he is the NLG member. The NLG
gives awards to its members and does not accept submissions
from non-members. I feel we should accept the award as
the recognition for a great issue of our Journal.]

[I can certainly attest that the anniversary issue was Tom's
baby from start to finish. I regretted being unable to help
much beyond my individual article contribution due to the
demands of being General Chairman of the convention. The
printer problems were maddening but Tom never threw up
his hands, and kept working though the problems even
during the week of the convention. The naming situation
is unfortunate, but the recognition of the quality of the
anniversary issue is very well-deserved. -Editor]


ROBERT VLACK WINS BOWMAN LITERARY AWARD

In a note published on the Colonial Numismatics mailing list
this week, Ray Williams writes: "I just found out this afternoon
that Bob Vlack has been awarded the Fred Bowman Literary
Award, this past weekend, by the Canadian Numismatic
Research Society (CNRS)!!! You may remember that Phil
Mossman received an award a couple years ago from the CNRS.
I am so pleased to see Bob's work on French Colonials recognized!
I waited until now to inform the membership, because I didn't
want Bob to find out after everyone else. Bob is now aware of
the honor and VERY excited. I wish you all could have heard
his excitement on the phone when I told him why I needed his
mailing address - it was exciting and emotional for me!

Bob is one of the "Old-Timers" still active in colonial numismatics.
Die Varieties have been named for him, he has done pioneering
research in many colonial areas, even when they weren't popular.
At 78, he has experiences from his early days that few of us
can imagine. When you see Bob, congratulate him on the French
colonies Book and on the award it received. It was well deserved.

PS, My copy of the Bob's book will be well worn by the time
I finish referencing it for the Ford French Colonials. Does
anyone know when these will be auctioned by Stack's?"


THE LIBRARY OF DAVID TRIPP

I missed the original publication of this story in the New York
Times, but it has been republished on the web site of The
Financial Express of India:

"When David Tripp planned his home office, he considered
his personality first. ?My study is designed to keep me focused,
when I?m working, because of my short attention span, which
my wife calls scatter shot,? laughs Tripp, a former archaeologist
turned international coin specialist and author of ?Illegal Tender:
Gold, Greed and the Mystery of the Lost 1933 Double Eagle.?

"?It?s also not a heavily lit room. When I?m working, I keep the
wooden window blinds down and one desk lamp on to focus
me, like a spotlight.? Tripp, who is a fellow of the Royal and
American Numismatic societies, says his study is basically his
coin research library.

Bookcases needed to be built to specific measurements to hold
the many sets and journals on special subjects. Tripp?s wife,
Susan, who is also a fellow of the American Numismatic Society
and a trustee, helped design of the room. ?The carpenter didn?t
understand the concept of making the shelves different sizes and
made them all the same size,? recalls Tripp. ?I almost had a
meltdown when the books didn?t fit. There?s something to be
said about having them made with adjustable shelves.?

The new bookcases, which can be removed if needed, are
constructed with small permanent shelves at the top and the space
between shelves becomes larger as you go down to the floor. So
Tripp didn?t have to try to climb behind a heavy bookcase to get
to an outlet, wall sockets were built into the bottom of the
bookcases."

To read the full article, see:
http://www.financialexpress.com/fe_full_story.php?content_id=98442

[Putting electrical outlets into bookcases is a great idea.
I took the poor man's way out with my cheapo "put 'em
together yourself" shelves - I snaked extension cords from
the outlets that would be made inaccessible by shelving units.
Appliance cords are more expensive, but they're heavy duty
and are designed to press flush against the wall, saving
space. -Editor]


EURO ANTICOUNTERFEITING PATENT SUIT

On August 1 Bloomberg news reported that "The European
Central Bank is being sued by a security company claiming
that every euro banknote in circulation infringes its anti-
counterfeiting patent.

Document Security Systems Inc., based in Rochester,
New York, filed the complaint against the bank at the
European Court of First Instance in Luxembourg today,
the company said in a statement. ECB spokeswoman
Regina Schueller declined to comment.

Document Security said it owns the patent on technology
used on euro notes that stops them from being forged
using digital scanners."

To read the full article, see:
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=10000085&sid=aMpK5z5Tecow


THE END OF NORTHERN IRELAND BANKNOTES?

On August 2 the Belfast Times reported that: "The decision by
Her Majesty's Treasury to review the regulations governing the
issue by Northern Ireland banks of local banknotes is to be
welcomed by the general public here.

It has always been difficult to spend local banknotes anywhere
else in the UK or even further afield other than Northern Ireland
and, indeed, some retailers refuse to recognise notes issued
by Northern Ireland banks."

To read the full article, see:
http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/letters/story.jsp?story=655071


COENWULF COIN BARRED FROM EXPORT

In September 2004 (E-Sylum v7n37) we discussed the
gold coin of Coenwulf discovered in Bedfordshire, England.
The coin was later sold by Spink to Allan Davisson, but
there was a question of whether an export license would
be granted to allow the export of the coin out of England.
According to a report published this week, "Culture Minister
David Lammy has placed a temporary export bar on a gold
coin, issued during the reign of Coenwulf, king of Mercia
(796-821). This will provide a last chance to raise the money
to keep the coin in the United Kingdom.

The Minister's ruling follows a recommendation by the Reviewing
Committee on the Export of Works of Art. The Committee
found that the coin was so closely connected with our history
and national life that its departure would be a misfortune; that
it was of outstanding aesthetic importance; and that it was of
outstanding significance for the study of numismatics, monetary
history, royal government and the history of London, where it
was produced. The Committee also awarded a starred rating
to the coin, meaning that every possible effort should be
made to raise enough money to keep it in the country.

The coin is one of the most stunning of all known Anglo-Saxon
coins and was discovered in 2001. It belongs to an excessively
rare category of coinage, is of very fine quality and in an
exceptional state of preservation, and has a striking image of
Coenwulf, with inscriptions in elegant lettering. It weighs 4.33g
and measures 20mm in diameter."

To read the full article, see:
http://www.artdaily.com/section/news/index.asp?int_sec=2&int_new=14516


NASA COIN BILL PROMISES EVERYTHING

Dick Johnson writes: "Both Beth Deisher and David Ganz have
written articles on H.R. 68 ? the new House bill authorizing the
NASA and JPL 50th Anniversary Commemorative Coin Act.
But there is so much in this legislation that neither writer covered
it all.

Congressmen are getting cagey in what they put into these laws.
Both writers mentioned the coins to be issued, the specifications,
design, and surcharges. Both a $50 gold coin and nine one
dollar silver coins are planned. Beth did mention that a new
numismatic museum is to be built if the revenue from the surcharges
is great enough. But that project stands third in line.

Perhaps Congress figured if they held out a new coin museum --
Beth rightly called it a carrot! -- this would appeal to collectors
who would buy enough of these commems to reach the magic
amount. The first million in surcharge profits goes to NASA,
the next half million to National Air and Space Museum, and
whatever is left over after that goes to the Smithsonian for that
new stand-alone numismatic museum.

But what hasn?t been mentioned, I believe, is that there is some
precious metal that has flown in space and this is to be formulated
into a melt with other precious metal to make the composition
for the blanks from which these coins will be struck. This sounds
like what Franklin Mint did 35 years ago. It?s deja vu all over
again, to be redundant.

Numismatists do like RELIC coins and medals ? made from
some distinctive artifact metal used previously for some significant
purpose. This must be stated on the coin or medal itself, MADE
FROM, don?t forget that. But the percentage of relic metal may
be insignificant in this instance.

Let?s see if H.R. 68 passes the Senate when Congress reconvenes
in September. Meanwhile, E-Syluminaries, would you buy either
or any of these commem coins? Would you want a separate
numismatic museum?"


ONE LUCKY SILVER DOLLAR

The Tribune-Times of South Carolina published an interesting
human-interest story on July 25 involving a well-worn, but
sentimentally important silver dollar:

"For many of the men who lived through it, D-Day in World
War II stands as a memory unto itself: 156,000 Allied troops
invading Normandy in western France against heavy gunfire
to begin pushing German troops back toward Germany.

Many in the initial landings never reached the Normandy beach.
Others died from landmines and bullets and many others were
injured trying to establish a beachhead.

But for Simpsonville's Rollins Bayne, his memory of D-Day
takes a back seat to another personal memory that stayed
with him throughout the war and ever since: a 1922 family
silver dollar.

"I believe in luck," said Bayne, 81, who served as a corporal
in the U.S. Army 29th division. "And I believe that silver
dollar is lucky."

"I married my wife Katherine in August 1943 and went
overseas that November on the Queen Mary," Bayne said.

But just before he left home, Katherine handed him a special
coin and told him to always keep it with him.

"I just wanted him to have something from home to carry with
him, something lucky to hold onto," she said. "So I gave him
that silver dollar."

"For eight months it was nothing but a keepsake.
Then came D-Day June 6, 1944. "

"When asked how he escaped any injury or mishap at all,
Bayne simply shrugged and said, "I just wasn't at the right
place at the right time, I guess."

"I was on guard duty and long about midnight the Germans
launched the awfullest barrage you ever saw in your life," he said.
"They dropped a bomb in a hole I had just got out of and it
filled up with dirt just like a swimming pool. My bedroll was
tore up, but I never did have a scratch."

Bayne got to safety but on inspection, he realized that the
silver dollar was missing.

Against all odds of finding it again, he returned to the same
foxhole, which now had been turned into an earthwork.

"I went back the next morning and there it lay," he said.

Pocketing it, he survived the rest of the war and arrived
back home in January 1946, still awaiting his official discharge
and still carrying his keepsake.

Katherine then put it away but unlike other family memorabilia,
this one refused to stay in the memory drawer.

Three other family members carried it into the service; one
survived the Korean War, another survived Vietnam.

By then, the family silver dollar had taken on a life of its own.
If it could bring home three men from three wars, why couldn't
it work its magic in other critical moments?

"It's gotten to be a big family thing," Katherine Bayne said.

Family members faced with an upcoming job interview, a
long trip, a wedding, a doctor's appointment, a driver's exam
practically anything deemed important took the coin with
them and they always returned it."

"I think it's lucky," he said. "And you probably won't find
another silver dollar like it that is that old and has been as many
places as it has and is still here."

To read the full article, see:
http://tribunetimes.com/news/people/2005/07/26/2005072667658.htm


LET THE EVIDENCE SPEAK

Fred Holabird writes: "I was forwarded the comments in
last week's E-Sylum regarding ingots.

As a thirty year member of the mining industry, I have dealt
first hand with tens of thousands of precious metal ingots,
many historical, and had the good fortune to observe first
hand many of the collections still in the original mining families
today.

Every collecting discipline has frauds and fakes, particularly
when cash money is at stake. Ingots are no different. I have
spent considerable time in an effort to educate the public about
historical ingots, much of it published in Coin World or the
Numismatist. I have also presented serious scientific papers
at such prestigious forums as the American Academy of
Forensic Science annual meeting. In fact, an Associated
Press story on some of our work was published yesterday
in many newspapers in America.

I have a simple rule: let science and history direct us to the
authenticity of an ingot, or to any precious metal artifact for
that matter. We did not possess the technology seven or
ten years ago that we have developed today. One needs to
keep an open mind and let the science do the talking.

I have had many discussions with Mr. Buttrey, Hodder and
Kleeberg. All have significant points that need addressing,
particularly with some ingots that I have never seen or analyzed.
But scientific analyses costs money. To date, no one has
forwarded me, or any of my colleagues, for professional
analysis many (or any) of the seriously questioned bars, such
as Hoard, Star, or the "Mexican" pieces. [Another author
has addressed many of the Mexican bar issues recently.]

Dave Fitch and I are working on another paper to present
our latest research, some of which was presented at the ANA
summer seminar, as well as at the AAFS annual meeting in
Dallas last year.

[The article Fred mentions was published by the Salt Lake
Tribune and other newspapers. Here's an excerpt:

"Experts now are able to identify atomic components that can
trace metals to their mining district of origin, providing a sort
of DNA fingerprint. Combined with an unprecedented historical
record recovered from the ocean floor, the process is generating
excitement among numismatists - coin collectors - and hobbyists,
who say it could help expose disguised worthless trinkets and
validate the authenticity of others.

''There have been some exceptionally rare pieces questioned
for a long time,'' said Beth Deisher, editor of Coin World magazine.
''If there is a process by which we can determine without question
the origin of the gold, it could be a definite statement as to
whether the pieces are real or fake.''

To read the full story, see:
http://www.sltrib.com/utah/ci_2904560
-Editor]


COUNTERFEITS ON EBAY

Ralf B?pple writes: "I agree that there are a lot of fakes on eBay.
However, this has not been a bad thing as such for me personally,
because I have been able to acquire a number of contemporary
counterfeits of coins in my collection, as well as a number of
modern fabrications which I can use for study purposes.

In the past, I have been unable to get these counterfeits,
because dealers do not want to sell them - quite understandably,
of course, because even if the dealer and me agree on the
fact that the coin is a fake, he would not want to run the risk
that in some distant future a fake coin appears on the market
with the pedigree "bought from Dealer XY:::" Most of these
fake items sell at the moderate prices at which they should
sell, and they were either correctly offered as counterfeits or
with a statement along the lines of "I am no collector and
don't know much of these things and can't guarantee anything",
which is always a sign that the seller knows pretty well the
item at sale is not the real McCoy.

In two cases of less obvious counterfeits, I have contacted
the sellers (on eBay Germany), and both of them took the
coins off, in one case the sale had already expired and the
seller put me in contact with the buyer and offered to cancel
the transaction at his own cost.

On the other hand, I have contacted sellers on German eBay
of these little Mexican "Maximiliano Emperador" gold disks
and informed them that these are neither "RRR" nor issued
by the Mexican authorities nor really "desirable collectibles".
Most did not react at all, one changed his description of the
item by adding a small "NP" for "Nachpr?gung" (copy), which
can easily be overlooked. One frequent seller made hilarious
statements about the origin and the value of these disks, and
he did not reply to several emails from me, so that I finally
sent an email to every winning bidder, making no claims
about these items at all but only providing a link to a homepage
that gives more information about them. It must have worked,
because now the same seller offers all his items as 'private
auctions', making this after-sale contact impossible! "


DEPARTMENT STORE NAME CHANGE

USA Today and other news media reported last week on
an event of interest to token collectors. Over the years many
department stores have issued charge coins, key tags, tokens,
medals and other items of interest to collectors. Due to the
longevity of many of these locally-based businesses, collectors
delight in being able to visit the business that created these
collectibles decades or even centuries ago. In a number of
cities, however, these long-time names are about the disappear.

"Department store chain Macy's will become a national brand
? and many longstanding regional store names will disappear
? after this holiday season, its parent, Federated Department
Stores (FD), announced Thursday."

"Federated said it will convert about 330 May locations to
Macy's, dropping such names as Famous-Barr, Robinsons-May,
Foley's, Hecht's and Kaufmann's."

Here in Pittsburgh, the Kaufmann's name has been around for
generations, and my own collection includes a number of
Kaufmann charge coins. My encased postage collection includes
one issued by Lord & Taylor in 1862 - this is one name that still
exists. I also have a Bailey & Co. encasement, a predecessor of
the Baily, Banks & Biddle jewelry firm.

To read the full story, see:
http://www.usatoday.com/money/industries/retail/2005-07-28-new-macys_x.htm


RUFF TIMES IS BACK

Dick Johnson writes: "Be on the lookout for advertising in the
numismatic press from Howard Ruff, who publishes a newsletter
called Ruff Times. His recent announcement: "I?m Baaack!"
And then comes the pitch "And just in time to help you make
another fortune in gold and silver."

If you are critical of newsletters as numismatic literature, Ruff
has written a couple of best-selling books, "How to Prosper
During the Coming Bad Years" was his early book. Now he
has "Safety Prosperous or Really Rich."

If you were reading the numismatic press in the 1970s you will
remember his ads touting the purchase of gold, and later silver.
He rode gold from $120 to $850, and later silver from $2 to
$50. he claims he gave the signal to sell two weeks before
the price dropped.

Now you can do the same. Subscribe to his newsletter at $90
a year. Undoubtedly he will tell you to buy gold and silver.
He will fill up newsletter pages with some economic data,
metal market activities and other mumbo jumbo. But you
have to hope he gives the Sell Signal in time again.

His home page: www.rufftimes.com"


ORIGIN OF IN GOD WE TRUST REFERENCE FOUND

Regarding last week's question about the source of a quote
relating to the "In God We Trust" motto on coinage, Bruce
Perdue writes: "I ran a Google search of the quote and of
course your page came in first...however the following quote
came from a Dave Bowers article at
http://www.pcgs.com/articles/article3241.chtml which is
"Collecting Two-Cent Pieces 1864-1873" on the PCGS site...

"In December 1863, Mint director James Pollock wrote to the
secretary of the Treasury as follows, in part: "I also propose
for your consideration the coinage of a two-cent piece, same
material and double weight of the cent, and with such devices
and mottos as may be approved by you. The piece would be
a great public convenience, and its coinage, in my opinion,
should be authorized. The devices are beautiful and appropriate,
and the motto on each coin, as all who fear God and love
their country will approve. I prefer the 'shield and arrows' to
the 'head of Washington' on the obverse of the coin. They
are submitted for your consideration."

The same quote from James Pollock is on the Collin County
Coin Club site:
http://www.collincoinclub.com/Newsletters/April_2003.htm "

[Rodger Burdette was able to provide a reference to the
original source Pollock letter in the National Archives.
Thanks, everyone! -Editor]


THE GOOGLE CACHE AND CRUIKSHANK NOTES

Jeff Starck writes: "You mentioned the ANA Money Museum
exhibit on Cruikshank notes.

A quick Google search leads viewers to the right source... or does it?
http://www.google.com/search?sourceid=navclient&ie=UTF-8&rls=GGLD,GGLD:2004-24,GGLD:en&q=1818+George+Cruikshank+Bank+Restriction 


The page comes up as unavailable, but... Google has a feature
called "Cached." Beneath and to the right of the URL that
matches your request are two links: Cached and More Results.
Click on cached to get a copy of the page, in this case without
images.
http://72.14.207.104/search?q=cache:IbXEqDI8vDsJ:www.money.org/cruikshank.html+1818+George+Cruikshank+Bank+Restriction&hl=en 


While it probably can't match seeing the page in its original
layout, if you just need information, it works well. And of
course, some cached pages show images (though rarely, it
seems). And, not all pages are cached, though Google
misses very little. Cached pages remain in Google's files,
long after sites pull them down. It's a great detective tool.

(Oh, and a quick Google search of "1818 George Cruikshank
Bank Restriction" reveals several related Cruikshank links,
including this from the British Museum:
http://www.thebritishmuseum.ac.uk/compass/ixbin/goto?id=OBJ4992 )"


FEATURED WEB SITE

This week's featured web site is actually a trio of web pages
relating to U.S. Mint Director David Rittenhouse. The first is
an overview of his life, and the others relate to his clocks and
orreries.

"He became an astronomer, mathematician, instrument maker
and one of the leading American scientists of the eighteenth
century, second only to Benjamin Franklin.

Self-taught, he early showed mathematical and mechanical ability,
and mastered Newton's Principia in an English translation. As a
young boy Rittenhouse constructed a model of a watermill, and
by the age of seventeen he had built a wooden clock, but having
little opportunity to attend school, he largely educated himself
from books and a box of tools inherited from his uncle David
Williams, a furniture maker. At the age of nineteen he began
making clocks and other mechanical and scientific devices.

Over the next thirty or forty years he made many highly-prized
and innovative mathematical and astronomical instruments,
most famous of which were two orreries he constructed for
the Colleges of New Jersey (now Princeton University) and
Philadelphia (now the University of Pennsylvania). These
orreries show the solar and lunar eclipses and other phenomena
for a period of 5,000 years either forward or backward."

http://www.archives.upenn.edu/histy/features/1700s/people/rittenhouse_david.html 

http://www.uphs.upenn.edu/paharc/collections/gallery/artifacts/Clock.html
http://www.library.upenn.edu/exhibits/pennhistory/orrery/orrery.html


Wayne Homren
Numismatic Bibliomania Society


The Numismatic Bibliomania Society is a
non-profit organization promoting numismatic
literature. For more information please see
our web site at http://www.coinbooks.org/.

There is a membership application available on
the web site at this address:
http://www.coinbooks.org/club_nbs_member_app.html

To join, print the application and return it with
your check to the address printed on the application.
Membership is only $15 to addresses in North America,
$20 elsewhere. For those without web access,
write to:

David M. Sundman, Secretary/Treasurer
Numismatic Bibliomania Society, P. O. Box 82
Littleton, NH 03561

For Asylum mailing address changes and other
membership questions, contact David at this email
address: dsundman@LittletonCoin.com

To submit items for publication in The E-Sylum,
just Reply to this message, or write to the Editor
at this address: whomren@coinlibrary.com

Those wishing to become new E-Sylum subscribers
(or wishing to Unsubscribe) can go to the following
web page:
https://my.binhost.com/lists/listinfo/esylum


From esylum at binhost.com  Sun Aug 14 22:05:56 2005
From: esylum at binhost.com (esylum@binhost.com)
Date: Sun Aug 14 22:08:20 2005
Subject: The E-Sylum v8#35, August 14, 2005
Message-ID: <42FFF884.9070201@coinlibrary.com>

Welcome to The E-Sylum: Volume 8, Number 35, August 14, 2005:
an electronic publication of the Numismatic Bibliomania Society.
Copyright (c) 2005, The Numismatic Bibliomania Society.


WAYNE'S WORDS

Among our recent subscribers is Dave Provost of North Carolina.
Welcome aboard! We now have 775 subscribers.

Quick quiz: Who was Israel Switt? You'll know soon enough
when you read our lead story. If you haven't heard the news
yet, prepare to have your socks knocked off.

Congratulations to the American Numismatic Society, whose
ANS Magazine is now published in full color. The Summer 2005
issue (Vol 4, No. 2) includes some very interesting and nicely
laid out articles, including the cover piece on posters and medals
of the birth of the Cold War, illustrated with some marvelous
posters uncovered in a basement room at the old ANS building
on Audubon Terrace. The old building was sold on March 11
to the American Academy of Arts and Letters. Of special interest
to bibliophiles and researchers are articles on the ANS Photo file
(268,000 cards) and the photographic negative collection.

The August 2005 issue of the ANA's Numismatist magazine is
out as well, and this full-color publication features three articles
on another unusual topic, canine collectibles. Alan Stahl writes
that "Cornelius Vermeule's passion for puppies and numismatic art
inspired his longstanding collection of canine commemoratives,"
now part of the Princeton University Numismatic Collection.

While on the subject of August 2005 numismatic publications,
The Colonial Newsletter (vol 45, no. 2) deserves special mention.
The issue features two articles in which numismatic literature is
a key element. Roger Moore and Ray Williams write about their
observations on the Maris Plate of new Jersey copper coinage,
and Mark A. Sportack examines the "what we knew and when
and how we knew it" of the Somer Islands Hogge Money.

Wayne Homren
Numismatic Bibliomania Society


TEN 1933 DOUBLE EAGLES RECOVERED

On August 11, 2005, the U.S. Mint revealed that in September
2004 it recovered ten more of the missing 1933 double eagles.
The following is from the press release published on the Mint's
web site:

"The United States Mint has recovered ten more of the fabled
1933 Double Eagle gold pieces. These numismatic artifacts
were illegally removed from the United States Mint at Philadelphia
more than 70 years ago."

"To ensure that they are properly secured, the recovered 1933
Double Eagles will be held in the United States Bullion Depository
at Fort Knox. The United States Department of the Treasury does
not intend to monetize, issue or auction them. The United States
Mint will assess the best way to use these historical artifacts,
including possible public exhibits, to educate the American people.

With the assistance of the U.S. Secret Service and the Department
of Justice, the United States Mint recovered the 10 gold pieces in
Philadelphia in September 2004, after being approached by an
attorney whose client allegedly possessed the Double Eagles. With
the help of the Smithsonian Institution, the United States Mint
authenticated the gold pieces on June 21, 2005, as genuine 1933
gold Double Eagles."

"About 445,500 Double Eagle gold pieces were minted in 1933.
However, President Franklin Roosevelt took the United States
off the gold standard in an effort to help the struggling American
economy recover from the Great Depression. As a result, none
of the Double Eagles was ever issued at that time; instead, all but
two of the 1933 Double Eagles were ordered destroyed.

However, in addition to these two, which were transferred to the
Smithsonian Institution, the Government has now recovered a total
of 20 specimens that were stolen from the United States Mint at
Philadelphia. Nine of the 20 Double Eagles were seized by, or
relinquished to, the U.S. Secret Service in the 1940s and 1950s,
and were subsequently returned to the United States Mint and
destroyed.

"One 1933 Double Eagle surfaced in 1996 and was seized
by the U.S. Secret Service. The gold piece was returned to
the United States Mint, and following a legal settlement, was
issued and auctioned in New York City for $7 million on
July 30, 2002.

?The 2002 auction was the result of a legal settlement. At
the time, the United States Mint declared that it would not
monetize or sell future 1933 Double Eagles that might be
recovered,? said Acting Director Lebryk. ?We do not intend
to monetize, issue, or auction the recovered Double Eagles.?

To read the full press release, see:
http://www.usmint.gov/pressroom/index.cfm?action=press_release&ID=607


David Tripp, author of "Illegal Tender: Gold, Greed, and the
Mystery of the Lost 1933 Double Eagle" writes: "As it happens
I was at Sotheby's on something else when the news broke.

It's the story that won't stop; the gift that keeps on giving.
(I've already been on to my editor!).

The coins are clearly Israel Switt's hoard that he spoke of
to James Macallister (who related it to the Secret Service in
1944: Switt said he had 25 and had only sold 14.....which
would have left him with eleven....and ten are now in this
group.)

The Secret Service doesn't appear to have ever followed
up on this lead (which was mentioned in both the 2002
auction catalogue...and repeatedly in my book).

Even better, these don't even appear to be the one (from
the 1980 snapshot) illustrated in the back of my book as
the Mystery Coin!

And the controversy will continue!"

On Friday, August 12, the New York Times published a
story confirming that the Switt family returned the coins.

"The lawyer, Barry H. Berke of Manhattan, said the gold
pieces were "voluntarily" revealed to the government by Joan
Langbord, the daughter of the jeweler, Israel Switt, who died
in the early 1980's. He added: "The Mint has responded to
their good-faith efforts to amicably resolve any issues relating
to their coins by seeking to keep the coins. The Langbord
family fully expects that their coins will be returned to them so
they can be freely traded like every other numismatic treasure
with a colorful history. I expect that if they are not returned
there will be litigation."

The article quotes COIN World editor Beth Deisher and Dr.
Wartenberg Kagan of the ANS. In a bizarre touch, the article
includes a photo of the ten coins (attributed to the U.S. Mint)
which shows only the reverse of the coins - the dates are not
shown.

To read the full article (registration required):
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/08/12/nyregion/12coins.html


JOHN REICH E-NEWSLETTER DEBUTS

Bill Luebke (an E-Sylum subscriber) writes: "I am creating a
newsletter for collectors of 1794-1839 U.S. federal coinage
in silver and gold called the JR Newsletter. It is not affiliated
with any numismatic organization, though subscribers are
encouraged to join the John Reich Collectors Society (JRCS),
a club dedicated to these series. JRCS can be contacted at
www.jrcs.org.

I invite all to subscribe to the JR Newsletter. There are no dues
or other fees of any type. I plan to pattern JR News after your
fine work with The E-Sylum and Mark Switzer's fine work with
Region 8 of the Early American Coppers Society. Imitation is the
greatest form of flattery, after all.

To subscribe, simply send an email to JRNews@nyc.rr.com.
Please also include any newsworthy item pertaining to U.S.
federal silver and gold coinage of 1794-1839. I do need some
news to publish. Comments re conventions, auctions, cherries,
questions to members, new die states, interesting items on the
web including eBay, etc. (Just like E-Sylum)."

[Actually, we don't publish eBay links in The E-Sylum,
since we have a general policy against publishing individual
wanted or for-sale items. This is to keep the focus on
research and information rather than commerce. We do
however, publish web links to numismatic literature dealer
web sites, fixed price lists and auctions.

As far as imitation goes, flatter away. One of the goals in
the back of my head when I started The E-Sylum was to
provide an example of what an electronic publication on
numismatic topics could become. I'm actually surprised
that it took so long for similar publications to appear. I
don't know how many actually model themselves on
The E-Sylum, but I've been told a number did. None is
exactly like The E-Sylum, and I wouldn't expect them to be.
But I would encourage all prospective e-newsletter editors
to read my article on the creation of The E-Sylum in the
25th Anniversary issue of The Asylum. There's a method
to the madness - many aspects of this publication were
carefully planned, and there are good reasons for doing
things the way we do them. Not that we can't be improved
upon - The E-Sylum finished second in the Electronic
Newsletters category in the American Numismatic
Association's Outstanding Club Publications Contest for
2005. Congratulations to a fellow Swede, Nels P. Olsen,
editor of the Ozaukee Coin Club Newsletter, from the
Ozaukee (Wisconsin) Coin Club. -Editor]


SEAR'S ROMAN COINS VOLUME III PUBLISHED

Douglas Saville writes: "We (Spink) are about to publish
David Sear?s "Roman Coins and Their Values, Volume III.
Here are the details?..

"Roman Coins and Their Values, Volume III - The Third
Century Crisis and Recovery, A.D. 235-285

To be published in late September by Spink, London
Orders now being taken.

528 pages, fully illustrated with new photographs
throughout the text

Valuations in three grades of preservation

Price: ?45 plus carriage

Volume I covered a period of approximately 375 years,
from the origins of the Roman coinage in the Republican
period in the opening decades of the 3rd century BC down
to the violent end of the second Imperial dynasty, the
Flavian, in AD 96.

Volume II extended coverage of the Imperial series from
the accession of Nerva down to the overthrow of the
Severan dynasty in 235.

This third volume continues the comprehensive revision and
covers in detail the following half century, a very different
period during which the Empire came perilously close to
total disintegration under the pressure of foreign invasions
and seemingly interminable civil war. The economy also
collapsed and with it the Imperial coinage, a desperate situation
which was only partially alleviated by the currency reform of
Aurelian undertaken late in his reign.

The complexities of the mint attributions in this chaotic period
- lacking as they do in almost every instance the name or initial
of the responsible mint - have been dealt with in light of recent
scholarship. Also included are detailed listings of the Antoninianus
coinage not covered in the ?Roman Silver Coins? series.

To place your order:
E-mail: books@spink.com

Tel: 0207 563 4056 / 4046 / 4045 Fax: 0207 563 4068"


GALLERY MINT MUSEUM SELECTS BOARD OF DIRECTORS

The following is taken from an August 10, 2005 press release:
"The Gallery Mint Museum Foundation continues towards its
goal of establishing the premier minting museum in the United
States with the selection of its first Board of Directors. Agreeing
to serve on the twelve-member Board are historians, minting
scholars and museum professionals whose names are already
familiar in the numismatic world.

The new GMM Board includes Erik Goldstein, Curator of
Mechanical Arts and Numismatics at Colonial Williamsburg;
John Kraljevich, numismatic researcher; Dick Johnson, founding
editor of Coin World and widely published author on medals
and minting; U.S. Mint historian Robert Julian; Greg Lambousy,
Director of Collections at the Louisiana State Museum; Ron
Landis, noted die engraver and visionary founder of Gallery Mint,
Inc.; Chris Madden, intaglio engraver with the Bureau of Printing
and Engraving; John Nebel, computer guru and numismatic
photographer; Edward C. Rochette, Executive Director emeritus
of the American Numismatic Association and founder of the
ANA?s Summer Seminars; Bob Evans, Chief Scientist, Conservator
and Exhibitor of the S. S. Central America ?Ship of Gold,?
Timothy Grat, Chief Coiner and long time employee of the Gallery
Mint and Mike Ellis, Editor of the ?Cherrypickers? Guide to Rare
Die Varieties, Fourth Edition, Volume I,? current president of
CONECA and error coin authenticator for ICG.

Board President Ron Landis noted that the new, non-profit
numismatic museum was careful to select individuals with
impeccable academic reputations and a passion for minting
technology to serve on the Board. ?This is a ?Dream Team?
with a clear understanding of museums, numismatics and minting.
We are going to move very fast in reaching our goals,? he said.

For more information about Gallery Mint Museum Foundation,
contact Mike Ellis at POB 101, Eureka Springs, AR 72632;
telephone 888-558-MINT; FAX 479-253-5056; or via
e-mail at gmmmike@arkansas.net."


CHARLES DAVIS REPORTS ON THE ANA CONVENTION

Regarding the recent ANA convention in San Francisco,
numismatic literature dealer Charles Davis writes: "The Union
situation was not a problem as those who brought in a "normal"
amount (in my case 14 boxes of books that I had UPS'd to my
hotel) found the free porter service quite convenient. The
biggest negative was sitting in a taxi with the meter running while
the queue of cars and vans moved slowly to the loading dock.
But once in, the UPS charge, taxi and tip to the porter did not
represent an excessive amount. The main problem was that
someone forgot to invite the public. It seemed that the number of
people in the hall at a given moment numbered in the hundreds
instead of the thousands we have been accustomed to. I have
not seen the official numbers, but an unconfirmed rumor had it
that 3,600 people had registered through Friday. Extrapolation
through Saturday would make the total 5,000, a pathetic number
for any convention, more especially so for a major city like San
Francisco. Most of the dealers in the middle to the back of the
hall said they had never seen a smaller crowd. Only the fact that
the hall was small (going only to row 900 instead of the usual
1200-1300) and thus compacting the public, stopped dealers
from the proverbial bowling in the aisles. The big boys in front
did their wholesale millions I am sure, and will put a positive
spin on the whole affair, but wow, where was everybody?
Certainly a West Coast convention suffers from being 2,500
miles from the population center of the country, and Europeans,
not wanting to spend 11 hours in a plane, were nowhere to be
seen. Denver in '06 and Milwaukee in '07 will probably not be
much better, attendance not improving until Baltimore in '08.
In sum, it was more like drudging for a week in the office than
an A.N.A. Convention. No spark; no buzz. The highlight was
the banquet, Wendall Wolka as the M/C in black tie and one
very large tux kept the program moving smartly and sharply,
and Arthur Fitts eloquently installed the new board including
the candidate that had defeated him. Arthur may have lost the
election, but he won the admiration of those who saw him
perform this difficult task with grace. "


1854-S QUARTER EAGLE CERTIFIED AT ANA

Dave Lange forwarded a link to an article on his firm's web
site, about a previously unknown 1854-S $2.50 gold piece
certified by his firm at the convention:

"A prized rarity was revealed to the numismatic community
when NGC certified an 1854-S Quarter Eagle on July 27,
during the ANA World?s Fair of Money.

A scant 246 of these $2.50 gold pieces were struck during
the San Francisco Mint?s first year of operation in 1854.
Today, approximately a dozen 1854-S Quarter Eagles are
known, and most show heavy wear from circulation. Most
intriguing about this particular example?s history, however,
is the story of its discovery by the numismatic community.

Earlier in the year, on Saturday, April 2, at the Santa Clara
Coin & Collectibles Expo, a woman and her family arrived
at the show toting an heirloom gold coin. They believed that
it had been in their family?s possession since 1858, being
the first gold coin acquired by a long-ago ancestor who
immigrated to California during the Gold Rush. They approached
NGC Director of Research, David Lange, for his evaluation,
recounting the coin?s story and explaining that they believed
they had something valuable. ?Though I hear such claims at
every coin show, she seemed to speak with more confidence
than most visitors,? recalls Lange. ?I was shocked to see that
the coin she took out of her bag was the extremely rare
1854-S Quarter Eagle.?

As she had arrived late in the show, on-site grading was no
longer available. The coin would need to be sent to NGC?s
office in Sarasota for certification. Having just been told that
she did, in fact, have a very valuable coin, she was not ready
to let it out of her sight for so long. Lange then mentioned that
he would be returning to with NGC to the area in three months
for the ANA?s World?s Fair of Money. ?I didn?t expect I
would ever see her or the coin again,? recounts Lange.

She did return, however, and this time on the opening day of
the show. The coin was promptly submitted to NGC for
certification, and was graded XF-45, making it the third finest
known example."

To read the full press release, see:
http://www.ngccoin.com/news/viewarticle.asp?IDArticle=290

[Included is a photo of David, NGC's Director of Research,
holding the coin. -Editor]


ONLINE MINT ARCHIVES PLANNED

A front-page article by Paul Gilkes in the August 22 issue of
Coin World outlines the U.S. Mint's plans to make more
archival research material available on the Mint's web site.
This could be a real boon to numismatic researchers.

"During the American Numismatic Association's World's
Fair of Money July 27 to 31 in San Francisco, the Mint's
booth showcased an exhibit from the Office of the Historian
featuring a collection of unique historical artifacts, many of
them on public display for the first time."

The exhibit included daily coinage ledgers from the
Philadelphia, Denver and San Francisco mints 1925-1935,
a New Orleans Mint ledger for 1838 to 1893, and a
Jefferson galvano. The mint's web address is
http://www.usmint.gov

Does anyone know the name of the Mint's chief historian?
Could we encourage them to become and E-Sylum
subscriber?


IN GOD WE TRUST

J. A. McNerney writes: "The subject of the motto ?In God We
Trust? has always been one of particular interest to me. I agree
with Theodore Roosevelt that God's name on money is
sacrilegious,not to mention a violation of the First Amendment
of our Constitution.

The subject deserves a deeper study than a few lines in QDBs
article about the Two Cent piece. A more complete understanding
of the subject can be found here:

http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/jon_murray/coins.html
http://www.religioustolerance.org/nat_mott.htm "


NUMISMATIC LITERARY GUILD RULES CLARIFIED

Kerry Wetterstrom writes: "I read Tom Fort's recap in the latest
E-Sylum about the NLG award given to David Fanning for the
25th Anniversary issue of The Asylum. Unfortunately, there is a
major misconception that either an officer of the NLG or a close
perusal of the submission rules could have cleared up. A NLG
member must submit the piece/work being nominated, but the
actual recipient of the award does not have to be a member of
the NLG.

I can personally attest to this as editor of The Celator. Every
year I submit various articles or columns from The Celator that
I deem worthy, and rarely is the author also a member of the
NLG. (This year three individuals received awards from the
NLG for articles/columns in The Celator, and none of them
were/are NLG members.)

On the original nomination form, it should have been stated
that the NLG member making the nomination on behalf of
NBS was David Fanning, but that the actual recipient would
be Tom Fort. I also believe that NLG award rules stipulate
that an individual (Fort) must be an nominee and not an
organization (NBS), hence the reason that David Fanning's
name ended up on the plaque.

In the end, the scapegoat should not be the NLG as their rules
are printed every year in the NLG Newsletter that announces
the competition, and I find them to be clear if not redundantly
so."

Ed Reiter writes: "I'd like to set the record straight regarding
the Numismatic Literary Guild Writers' Competition. As
executive director of the Guild, I was concerned by the
misconceptions contained in a report in the latest edition of
The E-Sylum.

Anyone can enter the NLG Writers' Competition. We do not
prohibit entries from non-members, and we judge all entries,
determine all winners and inscribe all award plaques without
regard to whether an entrant is a member of the Guild.

Strictly speaking, "Best Issue" awards do indeed honor the
winning publications, not their editors. However, it has been
our long-standing practice to recognize the editor in presenting
each "Best Issue" award, since he or she is pivotal to the
publication's success. In determining whose name should appear
on a plaque, we rely on the information furnished to us with the
entry. The special issue of The Asylum submitted for consideration
in this year's contest -- and judged to have Extraordinary Merit
-- was accompanied by a letter from Pete Smith stating that
David Fanning, the Editor-in-Chief, was the entrant. Accordingly,
we placed Mr. Fanning's name on the award plaque. The letter
made no mention of E. Tomlinson Fort.

We certainly want to give credit where credit is due, so we'll
modify our list to reflect Mr. Fort's role as Editor of the award-
winning issue. We'll also send him a plaque with our hearty
congratulations for a job well done.

I can appreciate Mr. Fort's distress at not being recognized for
what obviously was a real labor of love. I cannot agree, however,
that the NLG is somehow to "blame" for not recognizing his work.
We simply acknowledged the person named in the entry. This
may have been Mr. Fort's "baby," as he says, but until now we
never got a birth announcement."


Tom DeLorey writes: "Regarding the NLG award given to the
25th anniversary issue, I was one of the judges in this category,
and considered the issue to be wonderful. As to the naming on
the plaque, all I can say is that we conscientiously attempt to
correctly reflect the entries as presented to us, and if Pete Smith
erred with the best of intentions by telling us that the entrant in
this case was David Fanning, there was no way that we could
know this."


Tom Fort writes: "Regarding the NLG award being open to
non-members, a couple of NLG members have written me and
also said that this was the case. However, if you look at the rules
on the NLG web site, they state for the 2005 NLG Writers
Competition: "1. All NLG members are eligible to participate
if their dues have been paid." It nowhere states that NLG members
may submit the work of non-members. From the published rules,
both David Fanning and Pete Smith assumed (wrongly as it may
seem) that the competition was only open to NLG members.
Since I am not an NLG member they felt that they could not submit
The Asylum in my name, since from the text on the web it would
appear that I was not eligible.

The best award that I can receive for the issue is that people
thought it was pretty good."

[Hopefully this exchange sheds enough light on the matter that
future nominations and awards will not be subject to the same
confusion. Clearly the 25th Anniversary Asylum issue was a
deserving winner, and the recognition by our sister organization
is welcome and appreciated. -Editor]


1848 TRAFALGAR MEDAL EXHIBITED

"A rare medal awarded for service in the Battle of Trafalgar
has been secured for a Manx Museum exhibition."

"It belongs to Charles Barkler, of Kelso, Scotland, who is the
great, great, great grandson of the recipient, John Cowle, who
served on the HMS Temeraire.

The medals were issued in 1848, more than 43 years after the
battle, to men who submitted a claim. However, due to the
lengthy interlude only a handful of sailors collected them.

The medal will go on display this October when the museum
will host an exhibition to commemorate 200 years since Lord
Nelson's famous victory in the battle, which involved 60 Manxmen.

John Cowle lost his arm at Trafalgar and was known ever
afterwards as 'Hook' Cowle."

"The medal will go on display alongside Lieutenant John Quilliam's
uniform and sword. He was first lieutenant on board the Victory
and was an MHK in the Island.

The True Glory: Manxmen at Sea in the Age of Trafalgar will
run until March 2006.

To read the full article, see:
http://www.iomonline.co.im/ViewArticle2.aspx?SectionID=870&ArticleID=1105870

An image of one of the medals appears here:
http://www.gov.im/lib/news/mnh/manxnationalheri2.xml


WHO ARE WE HIDING FROM?

Dick Johnson writes: "I ordered a book from a collector
whose address was a nearby town here in Connecticut.
Could I, I requested of the seller, visit him to pick up the
book and view other numismatic items he might have for sale?
Sure, he said, but the books are in another state. He was
using a false address!

Reminds me of the time when we conducted the official
auction for the New England Numismatic Association annual
convention. Of course, we wanted to mail an auction catalog
to each NENA member. Sorry, they would not turn over the
mailing list to us. We had to put the catalogs in and postage
on blank envelopes and ship these to the secretary who put
on the address labels.

Why are New Englanders terrified someone might find where
they live? Maybe it was these same New Englanders who
influenced the ANA. I see the ANA board just declined for
the umpteenth time not to publish an ANA roster."

[Why a bookseller would want to hide is hard to fathom,
but any coin collector who's ever been robbed has a good
reason to keep their address confidential. No one who's
ever been in this situation, or knows someone who has,
wants to risk it. Sure, there are plenty of other ways
crooks can locate their marks. But why make it easy?
-Editor]


RARE MAPS STOLEN FROM LIBRARIES

The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette today published a report on
thefts of rare maps from libraries across the country:

"An X-acto blade can slit a page from a book in less than
a second, and police say that's how a well-known rare-
documents dealer stole maps worth hundreds of thousands
of dollars from Yale University.

The Philadelphia-based FBI art crime team issued an alert
this month to institutions that hold rare maps in their collections,
advising them to determine whether they were missing any,
and soon libraries from Chicago to London were reporting
that they were. No rare maps in local collections are missing,
but those in charge of reading rooms say that such major
thefts always prompt reviews of inventory and security
measures.

E. Forbes Smiley III, a Massachusetts-based dealer in antique
maps, has been charged with stealing rare maps by cutting them
from books in Yale University's Beinecke Rare Book and
Manuscript Library."

"Maps tucked into books are especially vulnerable, said Tony
Campbell, former map librarian at the British Library who also
worked as an antiquarian map dealer.

"If you take a page out of a rare book, you've got a worthless
piece of paper. But if you take a map, you haven't destroyed
its worth. It's likely to have fair amount of value, and it's virtually
untraceable. That's the joy of it for the thief."

The theft can be hard to detect. "That book is handed to
someone, then handed back with one folded map removed,"
Campbell said.

Unless the librarian is aware that there are maps inside the
book, and knows how many, a theft can easily go undetected."

http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/05226/553813.stm


OLD HARVE BAILEY CAPTURED

On this week in 1933, lawmen accidentally captured "Old Harve"
Bailey, who was implicated, but never tried, for a robbing the U.S.
Mint in Denver in 1922. Bailey, a notorious bank robber, was
hiding at the same Paradise, Texas ranch as "Machine Gun" Kelly
and his gang, who had kidnapped businessman Charles Urschel.

Although it is now believed that Bailey had nothing to do with
the kidnapping, he spent more than 30 years in Leavenworth for
the crime. Also of interest is the fact that it was not coin or bullion
stolen from the Mint, but U.S. paper currency!

The following excerpt is from an article on the U.S. Coin
Values Advisor web site. References include:
Eitemiller, David J. Historic Tours: The Denver Mint.
Frederic, CO: Jende-Hagan Corporation, 1983, and
Helmers, Dow. "The Denver Mint Robbery, 1922."
Denver Post, December 7, 1975.

"The nearby undersized Federal Reserve Bank frequently
utilized the Mint's vaults to store overflow currency. On the
morning of December 18, 1922, a total of $200,000 in new
five dollar bills was ready for transfer from the Mint to the
Federal Reserve. Just as the bank's truck was loaded with
the bundles of cash, a car pulled up and out jumped three men
with guns blazing. A bank guard was mortally wounded before
Mint security could return fire. Under a withering rain of bullets,
one of the thieves grabbed the loot and hopped into the getaway
car where he was joined by his companions.

A massive dragnet ensued, but it took 18 days to find the
bandit's shot up vehicle inside a rented Denver garage. Sitting
in the front seat was the frozen body of one of the men, who
apparently died of gunshot wounds inflicted during the robbery.

The investigation linked the dead man to several gangsters who
had been on a terrifying rampage throughout the central region
of the nation."

http://tinyurl.com/ayokr
http://www.gigfoot.net/lol/facts/1406.html


The following excerpt about Bailey was found on the Amazon
web site, in the book "Conquering Deception" by Jef Nance,
a former police interrogator.

"Considered the dean of American bank robbers by crime
historians, Bailey had a reputation for meticulously planning
the jobs his group undertook. In selecting his prospective
targets, he would assess the financial worth of a town,
determine the locations of traffic policemen, calculate the
precise time allowable inside the bank, and make certain
to strike when the stores of money were at their maximum.
In his book "John Dillinger Slept Here", crime historian
Paul Maccabee writes, "Who else but Harvey Bailey would
think to obtain road maps from the county surveyor's office
to ensure that the roads were adequate for a perfect getaway?"


NEWFANGLED COIN SORTER DEBUTS

An article today from The Associated Press describes a new
coin sorter its maker thinks will set a new standard:

"He calls it the Verifier, which sounds faintly ominous, like
something from a Stephen King novel.

But what this new machine does, according to inventor Gregory
F. String, 49, is to relentlessly and efficiently sort coins - any
coin in the world. He says it will do a better job than all similar
machines on the market today. It can handle huge volumes of
coins, upwards of 8,000 per minute."

"This new coin machine will be huge. This can go around the
world," he noted.

"Wilson said her brother built the Verifier because "he got tired
of hearing me scream and whine and complain" about the
coin-sorting machines she was then using.

Since the mid-1990s, she said, the problem of "dirty" coin-sorting
has burgeoned. Bags that are supposed to contain 10,000 dimes
might have 9,500 dimes along with 500 pennies. They gummed
up the old-style coin-sorting machines and had to be pulled out
manually, reducing production by 50 percent.

"We dump a bag of coins into Greg's machine and it counts the
dimes and spits out the wrong ones into a reject bin," she said.
"It works great."

http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/business/national/12383359.htm


NEW COIN HOARD FOUND IN ATHENS

Following another tip from The Explorator e-newsletter,
Arthur Shippee writes: "A large coin hoard was found in the
heart of Athens."

"Scores of silver coins dating back well over two millennia
have been unearthed in the heart of Athens, officials announced.

More than five kilos (11 pounds) of silver pieces dating
primarily from the 4th century BC were discovered in an
excavation project of the American School of Archeology,
a statement from the ministry of culture said.

Some 45 of the silver pieces are believed to date back
to the 5th century BC.

The discovery at the Athens Agora -- the chief marketplace
and ancient center of the city's civic life -- is of "considerable
importance" because it represents one of the most sizable
finds of its kind, the statement said."

To read the full story, see:
http://tinyurl.com/bbjer


GOOGLE HALTS SCANNING OF COPYRIGHTED BOOKS

Dick Johnson writes: "Google was well into its project of
scanning millions of books in three American libraries, Harvard,
Michigan and Stanford, but received strong objections from the
publishing industry to stop scanning books still under copyright.

When Google received its first objections it offered publishers
a "negative option." It offered publishers a form to submit if
they wanted to option out of the program. This infuriated the
publishers even more (instead of the right to option in). Google
has now ceased scanning books still under copyright.

E-Sylum first reported on this December 19, 2004 (vol 7 no 51)
and again when it offered the reform request January 16, 2005
(vol 8 no 3).

To read Google?s August 13, 2005 announcement, go to: 
http://apnews.myway.com/article/20050813/D8BUSQV80.html "


EATING THE EVIDENCE?

The following report is from a Philadelphia-area TV station
(August 10, 2005):

"An off-duty letter carrier accused of trying to pawn a stolen
gold coin worth $275,000 was arrested with the help of an
alert coin dealer, but investigators still can?t find the rare 1907
coin.

Police initially thought suspect Ernest Wilson might have
swallowed the coin as they closed in, and took him to a
hospital for X-rays, to no avail.

?I could see him literally throwing it, just to be rid of it,? said
dealer Robert Higgins of Wilmington, Del. ?Unfortunately, it?s
an incredible coin that is now lost, possibly forever.?

"The coin was one of just 42 ?rolled-edge? $10 gold coins
made at the Philadelphia Mint in 1907, but never circulated
because of an intricate, raised design that proved troublesome
both to produce and to stack."

"The missing coin had a pristine rating; only two of the surviving
1907 rolled-edge Indians had a higher grading, Higgins said. "

To read the complete story, see:
http://kyw.com/Local%20News/local_story_222120037.html


FAROUK QUESTION ANSWERED

In response to Andy Lustig's question, Saul Teichman writes:
"Lots 1987-9 in the Farouk Sale were purchased by "Randall".
I always assumed it was James P. Randall who is listed in
Gengerke.

This is per Gaston DiBello's Farouk catalog of which I have
a Xerox of the pattern sections."


NEW RUSSIAN 5,000 RUBLE NOTE

A Russian news site announced that "The Central Bank of
Russia has officially announced that a 5000-ruble banknote
will be produced in 2006. This is not surprising, since the
most used banknote in Russia in recent months has been the
1000-ruble note. Statistics show that the issue of a larger-
denomination banknote is directly related to the rapid growth
of the money mass and inflation. The 1000-ruble note was
introduced at the beginning of 2001. In the course of that year,
it rose from 1 percent of all banknotes in use to 3 percent,
reaching 7 percent the next year and 25 percent at present."

"The largest Russian banknote will now be worth more than
the largest in the United States and Great Britain."

To read the full story, see:
http://www.kommersant.com/page.asp?id=600175


MAN PAYS FINE WITH CENTS

Tom Fort forwarded this story: "A man ticketed for
speeding thought he?d get even by paying his fine with
12,000 pennies.

But the judge had the final word by making him wait for
the change to be counted."

Rather than count the small garbage can full of pennies by
hand, Court Administrator Jan Cosette took them to the
bank, where they were put in a counting machine. She
returned with $120 in cash and some extra pennies, which
were given to the Seattle man, who waited in the courthouse."

To read the full story, see
http://www.kansascity.com/mld/kansascity/news/special_packages/coffee_break/12294901.htm


NUMISMATIC HUMOR: PENNY'S PICKUP LINES

Dick Johnson writes: "Here's some numismatic humor for the
day. I had a good line of my own Saturday, while I was in the
barber shop with my wife. I went to pay and was $10 short.
I called to my wife in the waiting room filled with unshorn men.

"Shirley, bring me a stack of twenties!" Everyone in the shop
laughed, including both barbers."

http://www.bellaonline.com/articles/art34510.asp


FEATURED WEB PAGE

This week's featured web page is from the Coin World site,
describing the record-breaking 2002 Sotheby's sale of a
1933 Double Eagle for $7.59 million. The article is illustrated
with images of the coin and the official bill of sale and
transfer of title documents.

http://www.coinworld.com/news/081202/News_bulletin1.asp


Wayne Homren
Numismatic Bibliomania Society


The Numismatic Bibliomania Society is a
non-profit organization promoting numismatic
literature. For more information please see
our web site at http://www.coinbooks.org/.

There is a membership application available on
the web site at this address:
http://www.coinbooks.org/club_nbs_member_app.html

To join, print the application and return it with
your check to the address printed on the application.
Membership is only $15 to addresses in North America,
$20 elsewhere. For those without web access,
write to:

David M. Sundman, Secretary/Treasurer
Numismatic Bibliomania Society, P. O. Box 82
Littleton, NH 03561

For Asylum mailing address changes and other
membership questions, contact David at this email
address: dsundman@LittletonCoin.com

To submit items for publication in The E-Sylum,
just Reply to this message, or write to the Editor
at this address: whomren@coinlibrary.com

Those wishing to become new E-Sylum subscribers
(or wishing to Unsubscribe) can go to the following
web page:
https://my.binhost.com/lists/listinfo/esylum


From esylum at binhost.com  Mon Aug 22 00:11:13 2005
From: esylum at binhost.com (esylum@binhost.com)
Date: Mon Aug 22 00:13:54 2005
Subject: The E-Sylum v8#36, August 21, 2005
Message-ID: <43095061.5090609@coinlibrary.com>

Welcome to The E-Sylum: Volume 8, Number 36, August 21, 2005:
an electronic publication of the Numismatic Bibliomania Society.
Copyright (c) 2005, The Numismatic Bibliomania Society.


WAYNE'S WORDS

We have 775 subscribers, and many of you are very well read.
Two readers referenced a recent book about the theft of maps
from libraries, and one noted an interesting numismatic connection.
Our lead this week item is a report of a theft of numismatic literature.

Wayne Homren
Numismatic Bibliomania Society


NUMISMATIC LITERATURE STOLEN

Andy Lustig writes: "At the San Francisco ANA Convention,
the following were stolen from the trunk of my car:

1. Original program for the 1894 ANA Convention, 8 pages.
2. Superb First Edition Redbook.
3. Manuscript on Latin American gold coins by Harry Williams.

Please ask your readers to keep a lookout for these items.
Thank you."

[We certainly will. Those of you who prowl eBay and the
various book websites, please keep on the lookout for
these items. -Editor]


CLAIN-STEFANELLI VOLUMES IN KOBLE SALE 97

The press release for the upcoming Kolbe numismatic literature
sale follows: "On September 29, 2005 George Frederick Kolbe
Fine Numismatic Books will conduct their 97th sale of rare and
important works on numismatics. The sale features selections
from the Vladimir and Elvira Clain-Stefanelli Library and other
properties. Included are key works on ancient numismatics,
books and sale catalogues on a wide variety of medieval and
modern numismatic topics, important European numismatic
periodicals, and a number of interesting and unusual titles on
various aspects of American numismatics, some of them rarely
offered.

Among the more interesting and important items to be sold in
the sale are: twenty-eight of the first thirty-one volumes of
"Zeitschrift f?r Numismatik"; Mint Director A. L. Snowden's
copy of Johnson's rare work on Bolen medals; Babelon's
"Inventaire Sommaire de la Collection Waddington"; Amon
Carter's Deluxe Dunham sale catalogue featuring correspondence
on Carter's purchase of the Dunham 1822 half eagle; Gielow
on Zankle; a complete set of Mionnet; several lots of important
offprints from the Clain-Stefanelli Library; the Tr?sor de
Numismatique on French Revolutionary medals; Henry
Chapman's sales room copy of the important 1912 Fenerly Bey
auction sale of ancient coins held in Vienna; Virgil Brand's copy
of Crosby's 1897 work on 1793 cents; a very fine example of
Stack's Galleries' 1952 Sobernheim sale; a number of works
on American and world paper money; and much more.

The catalogue may be viewed at the firm's web site: www.numislit.com,
or printed catalogues may be obtained by sending $15.00 to George
Frederick Kolbe, P. O. Drawer 3100, Crestline, CA 92325.
Consignments are currently being accepted for Kolbe's November
2005 and March 2006 auction sales. Those interested are invited
to write Kolbe or to call at (909) 338-6527."


AMERICAN COINAGE RENAISSANCE 1916-1921

Roger Burdette provided the following information release
on his new book: "Renaissance of American Coinage 1916-1921,
a new book by Roger W. Burdette, has been released by Seneca
Mill Press LLC, PO Box 1423, Great Falls, VA. The book is the
first detailed research study to examine the new American coinage
designs of 1916 and 1921. It is based on contemporary documents
from government, university and private archives. Renaissance of
American Coinage 1916-1921 tells the complete story of how
artistic improvement of American coinage, begun by Theodore
Roosevelt and Augustus Saint-Gaudens in 1907, was completed
by Saint-Gaudens? former assistants.

The 335 page, hardcover book presents fascinating, new
information on virtually every page. Aficionados of the Buffalo
nickel will be surprised to learn that numismatic nemesis Hobbs
Manufacturing Company (which tried to squelch Fraser?s new
design), was active in suggesting alterations to Weinman?s
?Mercury? dime. Collectors of Standing Liberty quarters will
relish new information on how the coin was designed, including
alternate versions never before presented. The confusion about
why MacNeil covered Liberty?s breast on the revised 1917
design is also cleared up. Discussion of the 1916 pattern coins
includes a comprehensive revision of varieties and issue sequence.
(This information was also provided to the editors of the eighth
edition of the Judd pattern book.)

The Peace dollar story is presented in its entirety for the first
time. This includes original drawings and models by several of
the competing artists as well as de Francisci?s proposed and
final models. Of special interest will be the last-minute
suppression of the original reverse design and mint engraver
George Morgan?s work to save the project from imminent
failure. Lastly, efforts to revise the Peace dollar for large-scale
production of low relief coins is explained along with details of
previously-unidentified pattern and experimental coins. This
section also includes a detailed examination of all varieties of
1921 and 1922 proof Peace dollars.

It may be of interest that Renaissance of American Coinage
1916-1921 (and its companion volumes covering the
1905-1915 period) are extensively footnoted and cross
referenced to one another. The current volume has more
than five hundred document citations and references, ensuring
that future numismatists will be able to locate source documents
for further research.

Copies are available from major numismatic book sellers or
from the publisher at a special pre-publication price of $44.95
through August 25. The cover price is $64.95."


MERCURY DIME BOOK ERRATA

Dave Lange writes: "I've become aware of some minor
omissions and errors in the new second edition of The
Compete Guide to Mercury Dimes, and the publisher will
be including an errata sheet in books shipped from this point
forward. Those who have already received their copies may
obtain this errata sheet by seeing me at most major coin
shows (the NGC booth), by writing to me at POB 4776,
Sarasota, FL 34230 or by emailing me at
DLange@NGCcoin.com.

I gave out an errata sheet during the San Francisco and
Baltimore shows, but that version is incomplete. If you have
a sheet measuring only half a leaf, you will want to have the
revised one, which is a full leaf."


NEW BOOK ON POLYMER BANKNOTES

The following excerpts are from a recent article published
on the web by The Star of Malaysia:

"Polymer banknotes have been around for almost a quarter
of a century, with more than three billion bills circulating in
26 countries today. Malaysia first joined the plastic money
club with a RM50 denomination.

Now, three Malaysians have put the country ahead of the
polymer pack. After eight months of research, three Malaysian
banknote collectors wrote, compiled and designed a collector?s
tome, World Polymer Banknotes ? A Standard Reference.

The trio ? Peter Eu, Ben Chiew and Julian Chee ? claim the
book is the first reference in its category which documents
and records the history, development and listing of world
polymer banknotes."

"Collecting polymer currencies can be an educational journey,
if not an appreciation of the artwork. "

?Compared to paper banknotes, the polymer banknotes are
twice as expensive to produce, but last four to five times longer.
As a result, they are replaced less often which leads to lower
production costs. They can more durable and won?t fade with
handling. Hence, they can be washed and won?t get damaged
in the washing machine,? he says.

Polymer banknotes are clean throughout their life. Impermeable
to water, sweat or liquid, they don?t absorb moisture, odour
or get stained. The final overcoating (with a protective varnish)
also protects the banknote from excessive ink wear."

"In the late 1970s and early 1980s, du Pont pioneered this
evolution of technology in currency with its Tyvek polymer, a
material that was jointly developed by du Pont and American
Banknote Company. It was later discovered that the printing
ink does not bond to the Tyvek material and after handling a
few times, the ink on the notes smudges and wears off."

"In the late 1980s, the Reserve Bank of Australia developed
and perfected the technique with Guardian polymer, and
introduced plastic banknotes in 1988. Today, all countries
that issue polymer currency use this version."

World Polymer Banknotes ? A Standard Reference (1st
edition 2005/2006) is available from MPH, Kinokuniya and
other major bookstores at RM39.90. It can also be purchased
from the website, www.eurekametro.com

The 208-page reference book lists more than 500 banknotes
with 60 banknotes illustrated in high-resolution images. It is
educational for both collectors and non-collectors as it includes
the currency history, data of each country, description of the
artwork of each banknote and information of the currency."

To read the full article, see:
http://thestar.com.my/lifestyle/story.asp?file=/2005/8/15/lifeliving/11632782


NARAMORE CARDS IN ORIGINAL BOX OFFERED

Lot 194 in the September 7-8, 2005 Stack's sale is a set
of Naramore cards in an original box, something rarely seen
in numismatic literature sales. it is the "pocket edition" of
"Naramore's United States Treasury and National Bank Note
Detector." It includes 17 banknote photos.
http://tinyurl.com/dcm8j

The following is taken from an article by Michael J. Sullivan
on the NBS web site:

"Naramore's United States Treasury and National Bank Note
Detector [Bridgeport, CT, 1866] is the single photographic
counterfeit detector. The work consists of 18 individual
photographs: U.S. Notes ($1, $2, $5, $10, $20, $50, $100,
$500, and $1000) and National Bank Notes ($1 Pittsburgh
National Bank of Commerce, $2 Washington National Bank
of Boston, $5 National Union Bank of Swanton, Vermont,
$10 Second National Bank of Sandusky, Ohio, $20 New
York National Exchange Bank, $50 New York National
Exchange Bank, $100 New York National Exchange Bank,
$500 Manufacturers National Bank of Philadelphia, and
$1000 Fourth National Bank of City of New York). The 18
photographic images of unsigned proof sheets were issued in
four formats: Individual 10 x 6.3 cm. cards issued in a printed
cardboard box; individual cards mounted on heavy stock
issued in a morocco pouch; a single sheet with the photographs
arranged 3 x 6; and a single sheet with a brass eyelet for hanging.
According to Charles Davis, this represents the earliest use of
photographic technology in numismatic literature. The Naramore
work was issued sans text, greatly limiting its usefulness. The
morocco pouch and full sheet Naramore versions are prohibitively
rare. The version of 18 cards can be secured occasionally, but
almost always lacks the cardboard box. Most cardboard boxes
seen are in a poor state of preservation often lacking the top and
bottom flaps. For an extensive illustrated history of the Naramore
work, see Raphael Ellenbogen's article "The Celebrated Naramore
Bank Note Detector Cards" (Paper Money, Jan./Feb. 1997)."
http://www.coinbooks.org/club_nbs_asylum_foote.html


HIDDEN HAWAIIAN COIN COLLECTION TO BE SOLD

Dick Johnson forwarded a link to the following article about
an obscure old-time collection to be auctioned next year:

"For more than 80 years, a coin collection amassed by
banker and landowner Samuel Mills Damon has been locked
in the vaults of First Hawaiian Bank. Now, the multimillion-
dollar collection has been shipped to New York, where it will
be auctioned off early next year.

Described by a local expert as among the world's top 10,
the collection has more than 6,000 coins from Hawai'i,
Europe and Asia.

"This will probably be one of the greatest collections that will
ever be auctioned off," said Honolulu coin merchant Craig
Watanabe, president of Captain Cook Coin Co. "This Damon
estate collection is probably going to go down on record as
among the top 10 sales in the history of the world."

The collection includes Hawaiian bank notes, highlighted by
an 1880 Kingdom of Hawai'i $10 bill, Serial No. 1, one of
only three uncanceled examples known to exist.

However, it is primarily a collection of American coins, and
features an 1876 proof set of 14 coins from a copper penny
to a $20 gold piece. The proof set is expected to bring in at
least $250,000."

"Damon, a minister of finance under Queen Lili'uokalani who
followed Charles Reed Bishop as head of First Hawaiian Bank's
predecessor, Bishop & Co., collected coins from the late
19th century until his death in 1924. The selling of the collection
was prompted by the dissolution of the land baron's estate.

Watanabe said there are legends about how Damon gathered
his coin collection.

"Supposedly, Mr. Damon, every year from about 1895 to 1924,
got one roll of each denomination of coins from the shipments
that came in from the San Francisco mint."

"Damon also collected 200 medals dating from the 17th
through the 19th centuries representing various Western
European countries, the United States and Hawai'i, including
two 1850 Hawaiian agricultural medals."

"Damon's will stated that the assets of the estate would be
held in trust until the death of his last grandchild. Last
November, the last surviving grandchild, 84-year-old Joan
Damon Haig, died in New Jersey. In December, the trust
began distributing assets to beneficiaries."

To read the complete story, see:
http://tinyurl.com/bgekd


U.K. COINAGE REDESIGN PLANNED

A redesign is planned for coins of the United Kingdom.
Here are excerpts from recent articles in The Telegraph
and The Guardian:

"The Royal Mint has announced plans to redesign six coins
in an attempt to better reflect modern Britain.

An open competition has been launched to find new designs
for the tails side of the 1p, 2p, 5p, 10p, 20p and 50p coins,
with a prize of ?30,000 up for grabs."

"It is the first time the designs on five of the coins have been
altered since they were prepared for decimalisation in 1971."

To read the full story, see:
http://tinyurl.com/9danj

"The existing profile of the Queen's head is being retained,
but the Mint believes that the Prince of Wales' feathers on the
2p piece and the thistle on the 5p piece no longer reflect modern
Britain. It is launching a competition to find new designs for six
of the eight coins in circulation.

Anti-euro campaigners believe that the decision to launch a new
series of coins shows that the Treasury has no plans for Britain
to sign up to the European single currency.

Neil O'Brien, of the Vote No campaign, said: "I don't think
anybody believes there is any prospect of us joining the euro
in the foreseeable future. Today's announcement shows
institutions are planning on that basis."

But the Treasury said the redesign was independent of any
decision to join the euro."

"The current coin designs are the longest-lasting since Queen
Victoria's era. The designs for the 1p, 2p, 5p, 10p and 50p
are by Christopher Ironside and were introduced in 1971."

To read the full story, see:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,3604,1551303,00.html


MONEY FOR ALL - HELP REQUESTED

Ron Haller-Williams writes: "Money For All" by Ivor Wynn Jones
describes the "banknotes" or more correctly in my opinion, bearer
cheques, issued in Wales in the late 1960s. I have handled two
copies, both have a note glued in on the second title page. I
should like to know more about the notes used for this purpose.
Please would you kind people help me? e.g. "4 copies, 2 without
notes and 2 with DEG SWLLT (10 shillings) showing a castle,
serials 72345 and 98765." Thanks a lot. By e-mail direct to
Maria at heraldstar dot co dot uk Please use symbols for "at"
and "dot", I don't want the address harvested for spammers.
I'll send a resume of the results. Regards & thanks"


SAN FRANCISCO ANA CONVENTION NOTE

Ken Barr writes: "As General Chairman of the recent ANA
Convention in San Francisco, I'd like to respond to some
of the comments made by my friend Charlie Davis in last
week's E-Sylum.

First, the ANA has reported the registration figure for this
convention as "nearly 15,000". This is approximately the same
as the registration at Pittsburgh 2004, and several thousand
more than any other ANA convention in the past ten years with
the exception of Philadelphia 2000 at which Bill Horton and
his crew registered an amazing 21,000 visitors. I don't know
where the "3,600 by Friday" rumor came from, but it was
obviously "left field", as we had well over that number
registered by Thursday afternoon, and in fact registered
almost 3,000 on Friday itself ...

Second, the exhibit hall was not "small", but in fact quite
large compared to most ANA conventions. The Moscone
West level one Exhibit Hall is 96,660 square feet, by itself
almost 20% larger than the 82,450 square feet used by the
ANA in Hall B of the David Lawrence Convention Center
in Pittsburgh the previous year. When the 20,000 additional
square feet used on Moscone West level two (for the Mint
Mile, the collectors exhibits and the ANA area, all of which
were included within the 82,450 square feet area in
Pittsburgh) are added to the level one space, the San Francisco
convention was approximately 50% LARGER than Pittsburgh.
While it is true that the San Francisco layout only had nine
rows (as compared to fifteen rows in Pittsburgh), each row
was about twice as long as in Pittsburgh, as Moscone West
has a vertical orientation versus the horizontal orientation in
Pittsburgh. The actual 10' x 10' booth count (including bourse,
publications and club booths) in Pittsburgh was about 465 --
in San Francisco it was about 430 on level one and the
equivalent of about 80 more on level two.

Several factors unfortunately contributed to "ghost town"
atmosphere in the bourse area. First, the "two level" layout
selected by the ANA meant that the dealers could not see
(or hear) the activity on level two, which was always well-
populated and vibrant due to the popularity of the world
mint booths and the special exhibits of some fantastic
American numismatic rarities. Second, the aisles on the
bourse floor seemed to be inordinately wide, something
like 15' versus the normal 10' to 12' feet at most convention
centers, most likely a Fire Marshall requirement. And finally,
this was the "first coin show ever" for many of the registrants
at this convention, not surprising considering the dearth of
coin shows that have been held in San Francisco over the
past few decades. Many of them were quite content to
visit the Mint Mile and the collectors exhibits area, but were
hesitant to enter or spend much time in the bourse area,
probably due to the overwhelming nature of the material
being offered. During my infrequent jaunts through the
bourse area, it appeared that the crowd density in the front
third of the show was about twice that of the middle third,
and about four times that of the back third, indicating to me
that many visitors probably suffered from Coin Overload
and exited the bourse without seeing most of it.

Personally, I hope that the ANA summer convention returns
to Northern California sooner than the 56 years it took this
time. I do hope, though, that the venue selected is the San
Jose Convention Center, as was originally planned for this
convention, a 143,000 square foot single-level column-free
facility in a city that does not suffer from the perceived
expensiveness, traffic, parking and homeless problems of
San Francisco. In that event, I suspect that we might give
Philly's 21,000 registration count a strong run for its money ..."


OFFICE OF THE U.S. MINT HISTORIAN

Len Augsberger writes: "Regarding the Mint historian, I picked
up a business card at the Mint's ANA display:

Betty Birdsong / Operation Manager, Office of the Historian, /
Department of the Treasury, US Mint / 801 9th St. NW. /
Washington, D.C. 20220

I didn't get a chance to talk to her at the ANA, but surely
someone on the E-sylum readership did? The question I had
was, what's in their collection and it is unsearched material that
has never been part of the archives?"

Dave Lange writes: "I don't know the name of the historian,
but the person manning the Mint's history display at the convention
was Betty Birdsong, Operations Manager, Office of the Historian.
She was quite helpful in permitting me to examine the ledger
containing complete die records for 1917-35. This is amazing
information which I had assumed was lost to history (and which
I wish I had while preparing the new edition of my Mercury Dime
book). I asked whether these books could be studied at some
location for research purposes, but she told me that they must
remain within the Historian's office, which is not open to non-
employees. She did believe that these ledgers would be scanned
at some point and put online, but the exact timing of this had not
yet been determined."

Douglas Mudd, Curator and Director of Exhibitions at the
American Numismatic Association writes: "The Mint Historian is
Maria Goodwin."

[I've written to both Ms. Birdsong and Ms. Goodwin inviting
the to join The E-Sylum mailing list. -Editor]


DOLLY AND POLLY, NUMISMATIC LADIES OF FLORIDA

John and Nancy Wilson write: "It was with great sadness
that we heard of the passing of two grand ladies of the
numismatic hobby. Longtime Treasurer of Florida United
Numismatists Polly Abbott passed away, along with Dolly
Criswell, who was the wife of Grover Criswell, who served
both the ANA and FUN as their President. Both of these
great ladies of our hobby will be greatly missed. We pass
on our prayers and thoughts to their families."


1933 DOUBLE EAGLES

Saul Teichman writes: "With regard to the 1933 Double Eagles,
supposedly there was one in the Browning collection which
was not sold when the rest of the collection was offered.
There are also rumors that Naftzger owned a couple of these
at least in the 1950s.

Perhaps one of these rumors accounts for the unidentified
Tripp image.

I wonder if Dave Tripp has heard of these rumors before. "

[Thanks for your note. I looked at Dave's book and he does
discuss a number of these rumors. Although he didn't name
names in every case, one could speculate based on the profiles
of the unnamed collectors. -Editor]


MAP THEFTS AND A NUMISMATIC CONNECTION

Regarding last week's item about the theft of maps from libraries,
Bob Leonard writes: "You might be shocked to learn that there
is a numismatic connection to the following item, one of those
"Whatever became of So-and-so?" stories. An entire book
has been written on the subject of map theft, The Island of
Lost Maps, A True Story of Cartographic Crime, by Miles
Harvey (Random House, 2000). On p. 159 we discover
"Charles Lynn Glaser, one of the most notorious Jekyll-and-Hyde
figures in cartographic crime....he was...a compulsive map thief
with a criminal career that spanned three decades. Even before
his legal troubles began, Glaser exhibited a curious fascination
with fraud. In his 1968 book, Counterfeiting in America: The
History of an American Way to Wealth, he took lengths to
praise the 'few great counterfeiters...men of unusual skill or
cunning' who 'ennobled the crime by demonstrating vision and
industry.' It's not clear why Glaser himself turned to crime.
He did sell the maps he stole...

"In July 1974 Glaser was arrested for stealing eight sixteenth-,
seventeenth-, and eighteenth-century atlases...from Dartmouth
College. Sentenced to a three-to-seven year prison term, he
spent seven months behind bars before being paroled....Upon
his guilty plea [for stealing two maps from the University of
Minnesota] in 1982, Glaser, who also admitted stealing two
maps from the Newberry Library in Chicago, was given six
months in prison....he pleaded guilty in March 1992 to stealing
a map...housed at the Free Library of Philadelphia. Less than
one month later, while on probation, he was discovered again--
reportedly while wearing surgical gloves and carrying a hammer
--in the stacks of Leheigh University...."

These brief excerpts give the barest summary of his frightening
career as a map thief, which may not be over yet. Perhaps it
is just as well for numismatics that he turned his attention from
coins to maps, though the articles he wrote as a teenager
showed great insight and promise."

Katie Jaeger writes: "Your notice about someone being convicted
of stealing maps from priceless atlases reminded me of an excellent
book called Island of the Lost Maps: A True Story of Cartographic
Crime by Miles Harvey, Random House (hardback) and Broadway
Books (paperback). It details the story of map thief Gilbert Bland,
who destroyed hundreds of immensely valuable atlases in great
libraries in the U.S. and Canada, by slitting out their map plates
with an exacto knife.

This average looking, mousy little man never attracted the attention
of librarians. He would spend a few hours studying books and
taking notes, as though on a tightly focused research project, then
he'd request the book he intended to rob, take it to his table,
remove and roll its map plates into his sleeves. He sold them
from his map dealership in a strip mall near Atlanta. He infuriated
competing, legitimate map dealers with his "incredible luck" at
securing great rarities, and his reasonable prices. He got away
with it for years, and when he was finally caught leaving Johns
Hopkins' Peabody Library with two maps up his sleeves, an alert
was placed to all the other U.S. and Canadian libraries with
famous map collections. Nearly all of them determined they
had missing maps.

The best parts of this book to me were the in-depth look at
the culture of map collecting, its characters and personalities,
the fascinating chapter on the psychology of collecting, the
discussion of how rare books are repaired and restored, and
its excellent history of cartography. Bland's own story is never
satisfactorily told. Harvey was thwarted in his every attempt
to interview the guy while he was in prison, and he (Bland)
has since died."


GOLD MOHURS STILL SHINE

The following excerpts are from a recent article published by
the Economic Times of India:

"Can you imagine a currency exchange rate that has remained
fixed for 170 years? Before central bankers die of jealousy,
it should be made clear that the currency involved is used by
only a very small and specialised group of people and, in fact,
doesn?t really exist.

The Bombay High Court is, probably, the only place where
senior counsel, particularly experienced lawyers whose ability
has been formally recognised by the judiciary, are still technically
paid in gold mohurs, a currency introduced by the Mughals
and then taken on by the British Raj.

Of course, no actual exchange of gold coins take place, but
as a mark of respect for their status, solicitors record the fees
of senior counsel not in rupees but ?GMS? or gold mohurs
(though the old British term ?guineas? is also used), which the
solicitors convert into rupees at the rate of 1 GMS = Rs15.

This is the rate that has remained fixed since 1835 when the
British imposed a common currency across the country,
removing the discrepancy between mohurs struck in their
own Bengal Presidency, which were at Rs16 to the mohur,
and those struck in the Bombay and Madras Presidencies,
which were at Rs15."

"Mohurs were struck in mints across the country and, in
fact, this is what their name means. ?Literally, it is Farsi for
?Struck? or ?Stamped?. Can also mean ?strike? or ?stamp?
as a noun,? says Mr Bhandare."

"Apparently some English lawyers still quote by the guinea,
though this is an eccentricity, and the figure is taken as equivalent
to a pound sterling."

To read the full article, see:
http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/articleshow/1186079.cms


SIR WALTER ELLIOT, NUMISMATIC SCHOLAR OF MADRAS

A recent article published on the web discusses the career
of numismatist Sir Walter Elliot:

"He came to Madras in 1821 and worked till 1860. At the
time of his retirement, he had risen to the position of a Member
of the Council of the Governor of Madras. He was a life long
and devoted student of Oriental Studies. He had wide-ranging
interests, which included Botany, Zoology, Indian languages,
Numismatics and Archeology. He rescued the Amaravathi
Marbles, which are now housed in the British Museum along
with his coin collection and collection of other artifacts. The
credit for compiling a valuable history of coins in South India
goes to Sir Walter Elliot who was a great numismatist.

His work, 'Coins of Southern India', formed part of the famous
series 'Numismata Orientalia', published in 1884."

"He was an authority on Sanskrit legal literature and his
elucidation of the Dharma Shastra Texts were so clear that
not a single intricate point of Hindu Law was decided without
his opinion being taken. Sir Walter Elliot and Ranganatha
Sastri were great friends and they helped each other in their
oriental studies. Sir Walter Elliot lived in Randals Road,
Vepery and his house was the beehive of several national
and international oriental scholars for one generation."

To read the full article, see:
http://newstodaynet.com/19aug/ss3.htm


HARD TO HIDE

Scott Semens writes: "This is off topic, but how do other
collectors keep their addresses secret? I always used a
different name for local utilities, a P.O. Box, and didn't link
my real name with my street address except for friends and
neighbors, whom I cautioned to keep the information mum.
Today, however, anyone can look up a street address on
the internet from a phone number, and your phone number
is liable to to out to brokers whenever you order something
by phone. You can't open a checking account or buy a
house (even one you don't live in) without giving a street
address, thanks to the Patriot Act. I just don't see how
anyone can keep an address secret nowadays."


BIRMINGHAM COLLECTION DONATED TO MUSEUM

An August 15th article in a Birmingham, England newspaper
describes a collection of coins recently donated to a museum
by a company called IMI:

"A collection of coins, minted at the time when Birmingham
was the world's money-making machine, has been given to the
city as a gift.

For almost a century coins made by IMI jangled in pockets
of people in scores of countries around the world, from Algeria
and Angola to Zambia and Zimbabwe.

Now the Birmingham-based global engineering business has
donated its collection, worth a "considerable five figure sum",
to the city's Museum & Art Gallery.

IMI spokesman Graham Truscott said: "It is an incredible
collection, from the time when Birmingham supplied the
currency for almost half of the world."

"It seemed wrong to keep such an interesting collection,
which shows just how big a role Birmingham played in the
world's financial system, hidden away. We decided the best
home for it was the museum, where future generations will
be able to see it."

The collection covers the period from before the Great War
to the 1990s and includes pieces minted at Witton and King's
Norton.

A few copies of each coin were kept as records, and locked
in a strong room at IMI. However the company sold its interests
in the currency business a few years ago to concentrate on more
advanced technologies and sectors.

Some of the coins are very rare: for example the collection has
a Greek 50 lepta piece, of which there are fewer than ten left
anywhere in the world."

To read the complete story, see:
http://tinyurl.com/7s9nf

Assuming I've located the right "IMI", the following links are
to company's web site and capsule history:
http://www.imi.plc.uk/
http://www.imi.plc.uk/about/comhist.asp


NOTES ON VIVA LA REVOLUCION!

Recently we discussed the new !Viva la Revolucion! book
based on an American Numismatic Association exhibit.
Gar Travis writes: "The book was on sale at the ANA booth
in San Francisco. Don Bailey was also at the show and
someone may have been able to get a signed copy. "

One reader questioned whether the coins illustrated were the
actual pieces in the exhibit. Ralf W. B?pple adds: "All the
coin photos are the same size. I do not know the reason
behind this decision, but I suppose this was done because
the main purpose of the exhibit, and thus of the catalog, is to
show the different types and designs of the necessity money
that was used during this period. For the smaller coins, this
certainly is a plus, but I consider it very unfortunate that the
larger coins have been reduced in size. This is a point for
criticism.

I find the images of the coins of quite good quality. One
should always remember that many of the coins were made
in base metals, with crude designs and poor quality of the
strike. I am no expert in coin photography, but I assume a
color picture of a dark, crudely made copper coin is a
considerable challenge! Many standard references in the
field, such as Leslie & Stevens' study of the coinage of
Emiliano Zapata or Woodward / Flores on Oaxaca, use
line drawings instead of photographs to depict the die
varieties and facilitate their identification.

More than anything, one should not expect this catalog to
be the much-needed standard reference for the series, an
updated Guthrie/Bothamley, so to say. It was not the
purpose of the exhibit to present each and every known
type and variety, and so the catalog doesn't do it either.
This can most clearly be seen in the fact that it does not
include the 60 pesos gold coin of Oaxaca, which could be
considered the 'king' of the series, at least by looking at
recent auction results. As I said, this book is a primer on
RevMex coinage, but the specialized collector will have to
continue waiting for an updated standard reference. Let's
hope Joe Flores is making good progress there!"


MEDAL THEFTS IN FLORIDA

On August 17 the Associated Press ran an article about the
theft of medals from the National Museum of Naval Aviation
in Pensacola, Florida:

"A former employee was convicted Monday of stealing medals,
citations and a Mercury astronaut's boot from the National
Museum of Naval Aviation and selling them on the Internet."

"The former Navy corpsman denied the two medals belonged
to the museum, claiming they were part of a personal collection
she began as a child. One is a Purple Heart and the other a
rare Navy Cross issued only during the early 1940s and known
as the ''Black Widow'' because a manufacturing error gave it
a dark finish."

"The two medals, citations and boot were sold at auction in
2002 and 2003 on eBay. Authorities said they also found
other museum items, including books, manuals, photographs
and posters, at her home in nearby Pace.

Shaw, who cleaned and preserved artifacts at the museum
from 1991 until she resigned in March 2003, said she had
borrowed, not stolen, the cache."

To read the full article, see:
http://www.gainesville.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20050817/LOCAL/50817014/1078/news


U.S. MINT STOPS PRODUCING DOLLAR BRICKS

Dick Johnson writes: "I seldom bring to the attention of
E-Sylum readers an item on CoinToday. I figure if you are
smart enough to find E-Sylum on your own you can do the
same with CoinToday. But you might wonder why the editors
of CT included such an item as this last Wednesday.

Call it humor if you wish (it might be funny in your cave). I
didn?t laugh (okay, I smiled). It is such a stretch. It is a rerun
this week from an item written by Dirk McQuickly in September
2003. [I have run that name through the Social Security Death
Index and found that he is still alive!]

Maybe I?m getting old, but I hold the U.S. Mint in pretty high
regard. Would they really stoop to making gold bricks? Or
dollar bricks?

This is blogging gone wild. Read at your own peril!
http://www.brokennewz.com/displaystory.asp_Q_storyid_E_1299dollarbrick


FEATURED WEB PAGE

This week's featured web page is a biography of
American Numismatic Society curator Agnes Baldwin
Brett, on the ANS' web site:
http://www.amnumsoc.org/archives/baldwinbrettbio.htm .


Wayne Homren
Numismatic Bibliomania Society


The Numismatic Bibliomania Society is a
non-profit organization promoting numismatic
literature. For more information please see
our web site at http://www.coinbooks.org/.

There is a membership application available on
the web site at this address:
http://www.coinbooks.org/club_nbs_member_app.html

To join, print the application and return it with
your check to the address printed on the application.
Membership is only $15 to addresses in North America,
$20 elsewhere. For those without web access,
write to:

David M. Sundman, Secretary/Treasurer
Numismatic Bibliomania Society, P. O. Box 82
Littleton, NH 03561

For Asylum mailing address changes and other
membership questions, contact David at this email
address: dsundman@LittletonCoin.com

To submit items for publication in The E-Sylum,
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Those wishing to become new E-Sylum subscribers
(or wishing to Unsubscribe) can go to the following
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From esylum at binhost.com  Sun Aug 28 22:57:23 2005
From: esylum at binhost.com (esylum@binhost.com)
Date: Sun Aug 28 23:06:07 2005
Subject: The E-Sylum v8#37, August 28, 2005
Message-ID: <43127993.3080304@coinlibrary.com>

Welcome to The E-Sylum: Volume 8, Number 37, August 28, 2005:
an electronic publication of the Numismatic Bibliomania Society.
Copyright (c) 2005, The Numismatic Bibliomania Society.


WAYNE'S WORDS

Among our recent subscribers are Dave Millington of the
U.K., and Nancy White Kelly Young Harris of Georgia.
Welcome aboard! We now have a lucky 777 subscribers.

The E-Sylum got some publicity in Q. David Bowers'
column in the latest Coin World (September 5, 2005 issue,
p58). Dave raises a number of interesting points about the
Internet and its effect on our hobby, including, "Remarkably,
there are fewer members of the Numismatic Bibliomania
Society now than there were 10 years ago. Is e-Sylum,
which is emailed to subscribers for free, stealing from the
paid membership?"

The E-Sylum has always been intended to supplement, not
supplant, The Asylum, our print journal. I would argue that
any E-Sylum subscriber who doesn't also belong to NBS
either doesn't understand what they're missing,or would
not likely become a member regardless. The E-Sylum has
been a recruiting tool for NBS, attracting new members
who didn't know that NBS existed, or might not have
considered membership before. I'd be happy to hear our
readers' thoughts on this topic.

This issue brings another interesting assortment of numismatic
news and information, including a new cache of letters relating
to James Longacre, some more background on Israel Switt,
and some web sites covering Mexican Revolutionary coinage,
lead tokens and Chinese currency. Our lead item is about
The E-Sylum itself - thanks to Fred Reed and Rich Jewell,
an important anniversary will not go unnoticed.

Wayne Homren
Numismatic Bibliomania Society


E-SYLUM ANNIVERSARY

Rich Jewell writes: "I just finished reading the Coin World
issue for week of August 29. Fred Reed's column, The Week
That Was, The week Aug 29 to Sept. 4, in banner headlines
notes, "E-Sylum weekly electronic newsletter debuts". The
last entry in column states "1998, first issue of electronic
newsletter, E-Sylum". Kudos all around!!! And Happy
Anniversary on seven great years!"

[Seven years - time sure flies. My eldest son Christopher
was born in December 1998, and soon he'll be seven, too.
It's been a great run, and I'm still having fun putting the issues
together. Having such a great group of subscribers is
another reason for slogging through each week. We've
all created something of value here, and I'm glad to play my
part. Keep those submissions coming, folks: questions and
queries, news items, and just about any old item that seems
interesting. And keep up the promotional work - we get
most of our new subscribers by referral, so tell your numismatic
friends and encourage them to sign up at this web address:
https://my.binhost.com/lists/listinfo/esylum
-Editor]


LONGACRE ESTATE CORRESPONDENCE OFFERED

Pat Parkinson writes: "I am a banking history collector, NBS
member, and faithful reader of the E-Sylum. I saw this item
offered at auction and thought it might be of considerable
interest to you or some other NBS members."

 >From the lot description: "Archive of letters pertaining to
James Barton Longacre (1794-1869), an Engraver from
Pennsylvania."

"From 1844 till his death he was engraver to the United States
Mint, and designed many of the new coins that were struck
during this time, including the Indian head cent, the two cent,
and 3 cent pieces, the first five cent piece, as well as the
double-eagle, the three dollar piece, and the gold dollar.
He was afterward employed by the Chilean government to
remodel the entire coinage of that country, and had completed
the work shortly before his death

The following letters were written by Orleans and Andrew
Longacre, his sons, regarding the auctions of their fathers
modes, coins and medals, prints and books, discussing items
which they wish to purchase and which should be kept in the
family, all 1870s most multipaged."

Here's one excerpt from the letters:
"The coin catalogues have come to hand....There are some
things which I should have preferred to have had reserved
and sold among ourselves, but as that is too late now. They
seem to be fathers studies, and some are of great interest to
us...Of 577 & 591 I want to know if either is fathers own
head. He had, I think a wax model of himself. If it is in the
collection it ought to be withdrawn of course...The plaster
casts are generally too frail to be valuable. But those of the
Jackson Medal - ought to be retained...None of the Jackson
heads it being an unfinished work of fathers ought to be sold
out of the family... "

To view the auction lot and description:
http://www.hcaauctions.com/items/item0907.html

[The auction closes September 15th. We typically do not
publish individual wanted or for-sale items, but this seems
appropriate because of the research value of the material.
Gentlemen, start your bidding paddles!

Can anyone tell us more about the Longacre connection
to the Chilean coinage? -Editor]


CARSON CITY MINT BUILDING HOSTS COIN SHOW

An article in the Reno, NV Gazette-Journal August 26th
notes that a coin show will be held in the former Carson
City Mint building:

"The annual Carson City Mint Coin Show has a rare quality.
It?s the only show in a former U.S. Mint, which organizers
and dealers say adds a special touch.

?We?ll have 40 dealers this year, and we anticipate another
good crowd,? said Deborah Stevenson, curator of education
at the Nevada State Museum and coin show coordinator for
the two-day event beginning Saturday. ?Dealers tell us this
is one of their favorite shows because of the historic setting.?

The Carson City Mint produced coins for 23 years in the late
19th century and now is the state museum."

"To Reno coin dealer Rusty Goe, a show in a former mint
is a special occasion.

?There?s no better feeling for a collector than to look at coins
that were minted in the same room they?re in. It?s exhilarating,?
Goe said.

Goe, author of ?The Mint on Carson Street,? will sign copies
of his book at the show. The official signing is 1 to 2 p.m.
Saturday."

To read the complete story, see:
http://tinyurl.com/7pke8


STEALING LITERATURE

Steve Pellegrini writes: "In reading of Andy Lustig's loss
through another collector's theft, it hits like a punch in the gut.
It immediately brought to mind the 'written in stone' advice
I got as a young teen from one of the oldtimers at the
construction company where I worked during summer
break, 'A workman never steals another workman's
tools.' It was just about unheard of for this to happen.
As a matter of fact you didn't go near, or ever touch,
another guy's tools. Taking things from another person's
collection seems to me to be about the same level of sin
and heartlessness. I surf the 'Publications' listings in eBay's
coin section. If the thief tries to sell these rare numislit
items online, they will stick out like a sore thumb. I hope
we can see to it that this crumb gets his."

I asked Andy, "Do you think it could have been a fellow
numismatist or bibliophile who targeted these items, or
just a random thief who may not know what they have?"

Andy writes: "It was definitely a random theft. The 1894
ANA Program was in a fancy leather clamshell box so,
I'm hoping the thief may figure out it has value."

[So, gang, let's keep out eyes peeled for these items -
they could turn up anywhere. For reference, I'll repeat
the list here:
1. Original program for the 1894 ANA Convention, 8 pages.
2. Superb First Edition Redbook.
3. Manuscript on Latin American gold coins by Harry Williams.
-Editor]


1933 DOUBLE EAGLE ARTICLES

I'd been surprised that the popular press hadn't picked up
more on the story of the ten "recovered" 1933 double eagles.
Aside from the one New York Times story, I'de seen nothing
outside of the hobby publications. But this week (August 25)
the Philadelphia Inquirer picked up on the story, attempting
to interview Joan Langbord, who now runs her father Izzy
Switt's antique and jewelry shop on South Eighth Street.

"Standing behind a counter in her shop, 75-year-old Joan
Langbord yesterday agreed that there was a fascinating story
in the disputed double eagles that her father had, but she
declined to tell it.

"I have nothing to say, sir," she said. "Until this is resolved,
there is nothing I can say."

Berke also declined to provide any details about when and
where the coins were found, except to say that the discovery
was "recent."

Berke said Langbord and her son, Roy, voluntarily notified
the Mint in September of the discovery of the coins."

"Switt was a cantankerous man who ran a cluttered shop
filled with antique jewelry and silver table pieces.

He was described in his 1990 obituary as the "dean of Jewelers'
Row," a short, roly-poly man who wore cheap suits, kept a
messy shop, and disliked bothersome customers so much that
he kept a "closed" sign on the shop door during business hours.

But he was considered a master at his trade. Other jewelers,
describing Switt after his death, said that amid the clutter in his
store were the finest diamonds, sapphires and other jewels in
the city.

Switt started in business in 1920 and kept working until shortly
before his death at age 95.

He traded heavily in gold. He cultivated relationships with people
who worked at the Mint. And that is how, according to the Mint,
he obtained a cache of double eagles in February and March
1937, shortly before the coins were reduced to bullion."

To read the full story, see:
http://tinyurl.com/bfko4

The same day the Associated Press came out with their
own article:

"The Mint contends Switt obtained a cache of the gold coins
from his connections at the Mint just before they were to be
reduced to bullion in 1937.

Switt admitted in 1944 that he had sold nine Double Eagle
coins, but he was not charged in connection with those
transactions, according to the Mint.

The family attorney said the coins were found recently, and
Langbord and her son, Roy, notified the Mint of the discovery
in September. Mint officials asked to authenticate the coins,
then confiscated them after doing so, Berke said.

He contended Langbord and her son never relinquished
their right to the coins."

To read the full story, see:
http://www.startribune.com/stories/484/5578843.html

David Tripp was interviewed on National Public Radio
Go to the following web page and click on "Listen" to
hear the interview:
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4815976

[Let's see now: they're among the most rare and valuable
U.S. coins in existence, but they're illegal to hold. The
Secret Service had come calling for them in 1944, and these
ten have been hidden ever since. The Sotheby's auction
catalog and David Tripp's book came out and reminded
the world that Switt once had these coins. And the family
just accidentally "found" them? Barring evidence to the
contrary, the story just might hold water in court, but this
will get interesting, folks. Who here thinks it's just a
coincidence that these coins were "found"? -Editor]


PLAYBOY ARTICLE ON 1933 DOUBLE EAGLE

At a local coin club meeting this week, Chick Ambrass
noted that there was also a good article on the 1933
Double Eagle in Playboy magazine, giving all of us a
legitimate reason to keep some cheesecake in our numismatic
libraries. Coincidentally, a page-one article about the coins
in the current Coin World (September 5th issue) mentions
the Playboy article:

"Freelance writer Bryan Christy, who wrote an article in
the April 2004 issue of Playboy, filed several Freedom of
Information Act requests in 2004 and 2005 seeking any
information the Mint may have had concerning their
knowledge of other 1933 double eagles, including the 10
whose existence was announced by the Mint Aug. 11."

Christy has a web site, where he writes: "Because it is recently
back in the news I have added a number of pages concerning
the 1933 double eagle. "

Here is Christy's home page:
http://www.bryanchristy.com/

Here is Christy's complete 2004 Playboy article:
http://home.mindspring.com/~bchristy/sitebuildercontent/sitebuilderfiles/april04.pdf


OCEAN IN VIEW CEREMONY REPORT

Joe Fitzgerald, designer of the new Jefferson nickel obverse
and "Ocean in View" reverse writes: "The ceremony in
Washington State was a whole lot of fun. I signed stuff for
8 1/2 hours on Friday at Cape Disappointment and 5 1/2
hours the next day in Portland. Everyone was really sweet.
Even after lining up for 2 or 3 hours, they were worried about
my hand. It's the first time we'd ever been out to the Northwest
and it was really beautiful. I wish we could have stayed longer."

[I saw the new coin for the first time Thursday evening at
a local coin club meeting. Chick Ambrass distributed some
to the members (thanks!). He had ordered rolls from a dealer.
No one at the meeting, myself included, had seen them in
circulation yet. -Editor]


BIRMINGHAM MINT COLLECTION

Roger deWardt Lane of Hollywood, Florida writes: "I read
with great interest your story about the IMI gift of the Birmingham
Mint (H) Collection to their local museum. I did not check
out the links you posted as I went first to Google and look
up their URL. I noted a link to their collection which displays
170 or so images of their current collection. Some of them
quite interesting.
http://www.bmagic.org.uk/browse/collection/Coins+%26+Medals?page=1

There was a reference to a 50 Lempta coin, which I assumed
has the H mintmark. I only have the Paris mint copies in my
e-book.

I sent them some e-mail suggesting that the add the new
collection to their data base first, so we can all look at them.
"I note with great interest the gift the Birmingham Museum
just received from IMI of the Famous Birmingham Mint (H)
coin collection. As a numismatist, I purchased a few rarities
when the duplicates were sold in the late 1960's.

The press release stated that the Museum is planning a
catalog of the collection, which would be great, but reach
a very limited number of people, due cost of purchasing the
book and storage of numismatic books.

I would like to suggest that you strongly consider adding
the collection as JPG images on your web site, so that the
world of researchers and collector, numismatist and all the
people of the UK could see them at any time. You have
a small but very interesting collection viewable by the
Internet now."..."

Anyway, whether you know it or not, your Museum
has a world class collection, which the world is waiting
to see."

As usual, you get some great items. I wish I had
purchased a "Dollar Brick for my collection!" .

[I was short of time for pulling together last week's issue,
and although I suspected the IMI collection was somehow
connected with the Birmingham Mint, I was unsure and
didn't say anything.

I, for one, would never discourage the publishing of a
numismatic book, but would of course welcome the
addition of more coin images to the Internet.

Meanwhile, can anyone fill us in on how the Birmingham
Mint came to be owned by IMI? -Editor]


INDIAN NUMISMATIC MUSEUM EXHIBIT OPENS

Tribune India published an article on August 23rd about a
new museum exhibit of Indian coinage:

"Coins have been crucial in deciphering history. In an endeavour
to introduce to the public the significance of coins to the writing
of history, the Government Museum and Art Gallery, Chandigarh,
has opened a special section on Numismatics.

According to the director of the museum, Mr V.N. Singh, the
350 coins on display are the best of the 4,000 odd coins the
museum has in its collection. ?They are representative of the
evolution of Indian coinage from the earliest times?."

"The display begins with an explanation of how coinage originated
from the barter system of ancient times. There are coins from
the earliest silver punch-marked and copper cast coins going
back to 500 BC to 250 BC to those minted during the British
Raj, including the coins minted by the native Indian states from
1715 to 1947.

On display also are Larins, thin bars of fixed weight bent
double and stamped on at one end on both sides. These
were issued by two rulers only ? Mohammad Adil Shah
(1627-1657) and Ali Adil Shah (1657-1672) and were
used for mercantile trade."

"Art historian Dr B.N. Goswamy feels that it is important
to constitute a section like this because it is only when you
are exposed to such objects that you feel for them. ?If you
can excite a mind, then it serves a purpose and one never
knows what may spark that interest off?."

To read the full article, see:
http://www.sikhsangat.org/publish/article_317.shtml


NUMISMATIC LITERATURE EXHIBIT AWARDS

With help from American Numismatic Association Chief Judge
Joe Boling and our webmaster Bruce Perdue, we've updated
the listing of past exhibitors in the numismatic literature classification
at the annual ANA convention. Here's a direct link to the page:
http://www.coinbooks.org/club_nbs_exhibits.html

The Aaron Feldman Memorial award for Class 22, Numismatic
Literature, was funded by the Numismatic Bibliomania Society
in 1991. The class is for "Printed and manuscript (published or
unpublished) literature dealing with any numismatic subject."

We've had as many as five different exhibits is some years;
in other years we've had only one. It's never too soon to start
thinking about an exhibit for next year. The 2006 convention
will be held in Denver, CO August 16-19, with ANA Member
Appreciation Day following August 20 at ANA headquarters in
Colorado Springs, CO. The day is a fine opportunity to visit
the ANA Museum and Library, so keep this in mind when
planning your travel. I attended the ANA day after the last
Denver convention, and it was pure numismatic heaven -
elbow to elbow with top collectors from around the country,
all having a field day running about the headquarters. A
nightmare for the staff I'm sure, but a dream come true for
those who, like most of us, rarely get a chance to visit in person.


MORE ON THE 1854-S QUARTER EAGLE

Richard Jewell writes: "I had a special interest in reading about
the newly-discovered example of the 1854-S quarter eagle.
I have in my collection the discovery coin, first reported by
dealer B. Max Mehl in 1911. The coin found its way into the
Eliasberg collection, was sold to to a Nevada collector, then
to me via Doug Winter.


HIDING WITH VOIP PHONE SERVICE

Dennis M. Gregg writes: "Thanks for your weekly
newsletter - I look forward to starting my Monday
mornings by reading it, and always find it informative
and entertaining.

Perhaps I can offer something for Scott's question on
"hiding" in today's world. I used to work for the
phone company (C&P Telephone of MD, now Verizon)
years ago, but learned many things they did and still do.
One of them is sell the heck out of your name, address,
and of course, phone number. I vowed to be the first
to leave them (for these and other personal reasons)
when an alternative came along. Ta-daaaaa. As of last
year, I left Verizon with no plans to return. The
alternative? Voice over IP (VoIP), from Vonage
(vonage.com).

Now, how does all this help Scott? First, Vonage does
NOT sell your information in any way. Secondly, you
won't be in the phone book, as Verizon only publishes
their customers, unless you pay them to publish yours.
And thirdly, you can set your telephone number
ANYWHERE in the US that Vonage can offer it. For
example, I have a Maryland/DC suburban phone number,
so my friends and family in the area can call me toll free,
even though I'm physically located 50 miles from the "area".


AMERICAN FAMILY CONFRONTS CANADIAN COINS

Dick Johnson writes: "Remember each time you visit Canada
and are confronted by different coins and currency?

Here is a story of a writer from Carlisle Pennsylvania who took
his family to Montreal and his recent problems with their coins.

No earth-shattering numismatic news here.
This is just a fun read. Enjoy:
http://www.cumberlink.com/articles/2005/08/26/editorial/rich_lewis/lewis01.txt


ARTICLE ON COUNTERFEIT "SUPERNOTES"

Tom Fort forwarded an article from Slate magazine on
high-quality counterfeit U.S. notes. Here are some
excerpts:

"Undercover agents lured members of a smuggling ring to a
bogus wedding in New Jersey last weekend; many of the
alleged conspirators were arrested en route. The FBI claims
the international ring has trafficked weapons, drugs, fake
cigarettes, and more than $5 million in "Supernotes" to North
America. What are Supernotes?

Counterfeit $100 bills of very high quality. Government agents
say that most funny money falls into three categories. The first
two are relatively easy to spot. Traditional fakes come from a
process called offset lithography that produces phony dollars
without the "raised ink" feel of genuine bills. Digital forgeries,
made with high-tech scanners and printers, also lack the texture
of the real thing. Supernotes are more deceptive. They're printed
on cotton-fiber paper using the same expensive "intaglio" printing
presses used by the U.S. government. An intaglio press creates
tiny ridges on a piece of paper by forcing it into the ink-filled
grooves of an engraved plate at very high pressure. That's
what gives dollars?and Supernotes?their characteristic feel.

Government agents first discovered Supernotes in 1990. A very
experienced overseas cash handler identified one as a forgery
by the feel of the paper, even thought it was printed on an intaglio
press. The fake was as good as any the Secret Service had ever
seen?it even contained the right proportion of embedded red
and blue fibers that the Treasury Department uses as a security
feature."

"The Secret Service says the high-quality notes have detectable
flaws and that information about those flaws has been shared
with international banks. (They won't discuss the details in public.)"

To read the full article (registration required):
http://www.slate.com/id/2124884/


CASINO CHIP COLLECTORS CLUB

An August 22nd Associated Press story profiles the
Deep South Chip Collectors organization, a club for
collectors of casino-related items. Casino chips have
their own exhibit category at American Numismatic
Association conventions.

"Members of the Deep South Chip Collectors acquire
poker chips, tokens and other gambling items for the
memories and the thrill of owning something rare.

Thumbing through their collections is like spinning back
the years to when casinos operated like speak-easies, or
fast-forwarding to the age of corporate gaming."

"Bob Reed of Gretna, La., the club's president, said he
became interested in the hobby when a chip collector spoke
to his coin club.

"Everybody got the fever after that," he said.

His collection spans from a late-1800s chip made from ivory
to one from 1996 bearing the image of George Burns, when
Caesars Palace celebrated his 100th birthday.

Some of the most collectible chips come from illegal clubs that
once operated up and down the Coast: the 406, Broadwater
Beach, Carter's, Crescent Club, D.J's Club, Eastside Club,
Edgewater Club, Fiesta Club, Fisherman's Hangout, Grove
Club, Key Club, and Magnolia Club, just to name a few."

"Other casinos, like the Beverly Club in Metairie, La., were
less low-key. Its owners included mobsters Meyer Lansky and
Carlos Marcello, who reportedly paid off politicians."

To read the full article, see:
http://tinyurl.com/a8o9n


VOCABULARY WORD: PALAEOGRAPHY

Katie Jaeger writes: "I subscribe to the monthly newsletter
of the U.K. Institute of Heraldic and Genealogical Studies.
Today's issue announces they are offering a September
course on palaeography, using samples of records from the
16th Century onward. Ah, to have the money and time!
The definition of palaeography is: "the study of reading,
interpreting and understanding old handwriting." Out of
curiosity, I Googled the term and found an online tutorial
at the U.K National Archives:
http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/palaeography/

I think this website would be of interest to E-Sylum readers."

It's a remarkable coincidence, but the word appeared the
same day on the Colonial Coins mailing list, in a posting by
Bill, a semi-retired lawyer who has recently renewed his
interest in numismatics. He wrote: "I am astounded by the
plethora of numismatic websites today that simply did not
exist ten years ago -- I still have my old fashioned library
of books (some long out of print). My current online project
is brushing up on my Latin and Latin palaeography and
epigraphy, and I have discovered some fantastic websites
in that area."


HOBO NICKEL QUESTION

Dennis M. Gregg writes: "I'd love to see an article on
Hobo nickels. I have a couple, and have read the book
on them, but I'd like to see opinions on the "traditional"
versus "newer" types. Why aren't the older, true hobo
nickels more valuable then the newer "knock offs"?

I collect Civil War, coins, exonumia, and philatelic
material. It'd be great to know what your other readers
collect/specialize in.... Keep up the fantastic work."


SAN FRANCISCO ANA CONVENTION NOTE

Wendell Wolka writes: "I would like to reinforce some of
Ken Barr's comments. I worked several days as a volunteer
in public registration (and not just in "guest appearances"
but hours at a time) and came away with the following
impressions:

The vast majority of the people I registered were from
the local area, say a fifty mile radius, and many had never
been to a national show. I think that Ken is on the money
when he said that many suffered "coin show overload."

Every person I registered was informed that there were
two levels; mints and exhibits upstairs and dealers downstairs.

At times we had to quickly call in reinforcements as lines
could rapidly extend down the hallway in a heartbeat.

If there was a "failure" that I could identify, it was that
the "out of town" collectors seemed to "pass" on this
year's show. Local publicity was apparently pretty
good as many attendees mentioned that they had seen
TV spots and the like.

And Charlie (Davis), I would prefer to think of the
tuxedo size as "spacious"!"


MEXICAN REVOLUTIONARY COINAGE IMAGE SITE

Regarding the American Numismatic Association's Viva la
Revolution exhibit catalog, Nancy W. Green, ANA Librarian
writes: "Both Don Bailey and Joe Flores were at the Author
Table in San Francisco. In fact they were there for two
separate hours, once on Thursday and once on Saturday."

Regarding our discussion on the image quality in the catalog,
Howard Spindel writes: "I started collecting RevMex coins a
couple years ago. I noted at the time that the reference books
I was able to acquire were long on information content but
short on photographic quality. I am sure this necessarily due
to the cost of printing books with many high quality photographs.

But now we live in the Internet age and photos are easy to
publish. I have a project ongoing to provide large, high quality
photos of RevMex coins. You can visit my RevMex website at:
http://www.shieldnickels.net/revmex/revMex.html

It's free for all, no registration required. The website is
photographic only, and intended to be used as a photographic
adjunct to the excellent existing references. In its present state
it is far from comprehensive, but nevertheless I think it's a good
start.

Other people can contribute photos if they want. There is a link
to a page that describes the requirements for doing so.

Thank you for another good read in the current E-Sylum! "


LEAD TOKENS

Rich Hartzog writes: "I'm always surprised at the amount of
interest in narrow specialty areas. However, this one is
really amazing, to have some 1,250 people interested in lead
tokens! See a sample issue at
http://www.mernick.co.uk/leadtokens/


FEATURED WEB SITE

This week's featured web site is suggested by Roger
deWardt Lane. He writes: "I found a great site from
Shanghai with pictures of Chinese money & bonds:

I think you could spend hours looking at this site and reading
the stories about old Shanghai. They quote the value of the
dollar as follows:

"The unit of Chinese currency is the yuan, a silver dollar
loosely called Mexican. Since it fluctuates less in terms of
Chinese commodities than in terms of gold, it is the only fair
measure of Chinese values. Hence the dollars throughout
this article are Mexican. The 1935 value of the Mexican
dollar is about thirty-four cents."

Watch out for the typos as the English was copied by
Chinese.

When I first found this site my Goggle link took me to one
of their pages, which is linked from the home page as
"Reading" and then "Fortune magazine January 1935".
I found the tales fascinating as it was published at the
time from here in the U.S.A."

http://www.talesofoldchina.com/money/money.cfm


Wayne Homren
Numismatic Bibliomania Society


The Numismatic Bibliomania Society is a
non-profit organization promoting numismatic
literature. For more information please see
our web site at http://www.coinbooks.org/.

There is a membership application available on
the web site at this address:
http://www.coinbooks.org/club_nbs_member_app.html

To join, print the application and return it with
your check to the address printed on the application.
Membership is only $15 to addresses in North America,
$20 elsewhere. For those without web access,
write to:

David M. Sundman, Secretary/Treasurer
Numismatic Bibliomania Society, P. O. Box 82
Littleton, NH 03561

For Asylum mailing address changes and other
membership questions, contact David at this email
address: dsundman@LittletonCoin.com

To submit items for publication in The E-Sylum,
just Reply to this message, or write to the Editor
at this address: whomren@coinlibrary.com

Those wishing to become new E-Sylum subscribers
(or wishing to Unsubscribe) can go to the following
web page:
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