WAYNE'S NUMISMATIC DIARY: DECEMBER 13, 2009

The dinner was held at an upscale Italian Restaurant. We had a private room, and the dinner and drinks were superb. I enjoyed speaking with everyone. Attendees included Roger Burdette, Tom Kays, Chris Neuzil, Joe Levine, Bill Eckberg, Mike Packard, Wayne Herndon, Jon Radel, and Julian Leidman. Regular Dave Schenkman was out due to a bad cold.

Conversation topics were all over the map and largely non-numismatic, but we did touch on the 1933 Double Eagle situation and the recent theft of Julian's numismatic stock. He and his wife were truly touched by the outpouring of support from the numismatic fraternity, and naturally quite relieved to have had most of the stolen items returned.

Before leaving I spoke with Jon Radel and Wayne and Karin Herndon to plan Saturday's event for kids at the Annandale Coin Show. I still had to complete the slides for my presentation, which I didn't complete until Friday night.

Saturday morning I arrived at the show around 10am. I walked to the back row to speak to numismatic literature dealer John Burns, who I hadn't seen in some time. He kindly pointed out the grey appearing on my temples. But I had no time for small talk or perusing inventory - I rushed to get our room set up.

E-Sylum subscriber Mike Hudson was there with his whole family, as was Jon and his son Joe. We got the room set up and I gave a presentation to 16 kids and their parents - we had about 30 people in the room. Mike took some pictures. I quizzed the kids on the Lincoln Cent and Jefferson Nickel. The kids were great, and when we digressed into a discussion of mint marks, one of them not only knew Dahlonega, he could pronounce it as well!

At the end I called an auction of 25 lots of donated material. The kids seemed to have a blast, and I enjoyed doing it. All in all, it was a great morning. While Jon and Mike helped, I packed up so I could leave at 12:30 to get to my 9-year-old son Tyler's basketball game. I'm glad I did. With his team down 4-6 as the end of the first half approached, "Cool Hand Tyler" got the ball and winged it toward the basket. Buzzer sounds. Ball slams backboard and swishes in for three points, putting his team ahead 7-6. The crowd roared and no one was more surprised than Tyler. But all his practice in our cul-de-sac paid off.

The other team must have been stunned into submission - they never scored another point. Final score, 27-6. His team won another game at 4pm 24-12 and a third on Sunday 41-8. His brother Christopher's team won as well Saturday night. All this left little time for The E-Sylum, so I was up past 12:30am finishing this issue. But it's all fun.

Wayne Homren, Editor

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