Apropos Q. David's theory on the small border stars, I see in Judd that the 1792 Wright pattern had 87 stars vs. the 94 stars on the 1794 cent die. Speculating with reckless abandon, I could see the 87 stars as commemorating the ratification of the Constitution in 1787, with some later engraver copying the idea in 1794 to indicate the last two digits of the date. However, I am dubious of the idea that the 94 stars were put in a blank die in 1792 and then held for two years before being completed with a new design.

"The only vacation available was at the Münzkabinett. " Should that be "vocation"?

While at the ANA, I talked with a dealer who urged me to get in line to buy the Kennedy gold coins, due to the amount of money he and his family were making. He stated he knew of dealers who flew to Denver to buy coins to have them certified at the ANA. He also claimed there were at least two instances of armed robberies in the ladies room, of persons stealing newly purchased coins, from those who couldn't hold it anymore. I've not seen any other mention of that, but obviously there should be a police report somewhere. Is the ANA covering it up, or did the dealer make up the robberies?

We looked into the robbery issue, talking both to ANA representatives and law enforcement personnel. I believe no robberies actually happened. Someone did leave coins in a bathroom- and they were returned by a Good Samaritan. I was at the ANA show and didn't see anything lending credibility to the robbery claims.

At the PAN show this weekend I'll have a large dealer table with all the remaining John Burns estate items for sale. This includes coins. tokens, medals, photos, correspondence and other general ephemera. Stop by and have a look.

The Conan-Doyle Sale also included coins from his collection that were not ancients. A client of mine has a 1764 1/2 real from Mexico (KM-68) graded VG. She has a letter stating this coin is from the collection and that the writing on the envelope is in Doyle’s own handwriting.