Two things sprang to mind while reading last week's E-Sylum.

Firstly, there is no better publication in numismatics, period, and that's not just idle prattle.

Secondly, how are we supposed to afford all those 'old books' we need when people keep writing new ones! Don't these authors realize that they're denting our bidding power at auctions! But, seriously, it is great to see so many new books being written on such a regular basis and having this forum to share them.

I have been told by one of the members of our detecting club that one possibility of its origin lies in a promotion that a cereal company did, supposedly back when movies like Ben Hur were popular and Roman history was in the public eye. You could send in x amount of box tops and in return you would receive a Roman coin. Is that the truth? Don't know. That member claims to have found several roman coins over the years in and around Seattle. My girlfriend found her own Roman coin about two years ago, so there may be some truth to why such coins are being found in the area. At any rate, thanks for the help in identifying this (and even better that my coin is older than hers! lol)

My great-grandfather, George J. Verbeck I, was awarded a gold medal of the type illustrated for engraving at the 1900 Exposition. I am the current custodian of the medal, complete with the original brown or maroon leather box. Although a golden wash was applied, its composition is clearly silver, as indicated by the marking "ARGENT" on the edge. A great number of gold, silver, and bronze medals were awarded for excellence in a wide array of arts and industries. The artist is Jules-Clément Chaplain (1839-1909).

It may not be of general interest, but there's a rather atmospheric video of scenes from the event, including Edison's moving sidewalk.

Here's a great short 7 min extract from 2014 which I stumbled on today on YouTube. I was waiting for him to mention "In God we Trust" but that was not needed.

"... but in a day when I see Wikipedia, of all things, being cited as an authority,"

Wikipedia is pretty decent. Its articles are supposed to be well-sourced. My chief concern is more that it is boring rather than wrong. Used properly, it is a solid source.

The article last week on the Conder token highlighting alms, D & H Suffolk 15, is interesting. Robert Loder, the bookseller responsible for the token, was also a local historian. One of his books was Ordinaces, etc., for Seckford’s Almshouses in Woodbridge (1792), which discusses Thomas Seckford’s extensive charity work in the sixteenth century (He is identified on the token as “Sekford”). Presumably Loder was promoting his book. The Latin inscription on the reverse of the token translated means: “Prayers and alms reigns in the presence of God.”

According to the very interesting book Tokens of the Eighteenth Century Connected with Booksellers & Bookmakers (W. Longman, 1916), Loder’s grandson “found a box containing over one hundred of these tokens; the dies were also in his possession, so he had six specimen struck in silver, one of which, with the dies, he presented to the British Museum.”

In the last E-Sylum, you mentioned token coin spinners which were used to determine who would pay for drinks at a bar. Attached are scans of both sides of a Ballantine Beer Spinner. Ballantine Beer was founded in 1840 in Newark, NJ and was sold in 1972. The interesting part of the story is that I have two of these spinners and I have never been a beer drinker.

In last week’s E-Sylum you mentioned, “I don't recall ever seeing a medal relating to parachute troops.”

In the June 21, 2017, Citizens Coinage Advisory Committee meeting at Mint headquarters in Washington, we reviewed a portfolio of design sketches for the upcoming Congressional Gold Medal for the Office of Strategic Services. The OSS was (to give a simplified definition) the predecessor to today’s CIA and other modern U.S. intelligence agencies. Several of the medal’s potential designs feature OSS operatives parachuting into occupied territory from a B-24 Liberator. This was an important means of secretly getting U.S. agents into operation during World War II.

I have the coin-embedded Lucite toilet seats in the bathrooms in my house. In 2011 when I was the General Chairman for the ANA Convention held in Sacramento, I had a large reception at my house with nearly 50 numismatists attending. I was a little disappointed that not a single person commented on my toilet seats. Maybe they were having too much fun to take a bathroom break?

"Is it Bison or Buffalo Nickel?"