Welcome to The E-Sylum: Volume 2, Number 32: August 8, 1999:
an electronic publication of the Numismatic Bibliomania Society.
SUBSCRIBER UPDATES
Our newest subscriber is Fred Reed. Welcome aboard!
This brings our current subscriber count to 186. Just 14
more needed to reach our goal of 200 by the end of the
ANA convention.
SUBSCRIBER RECRUITMENT
Larry Mitchell is responsible four recruiting two of last week's
next subscribers via his ebay sales. Larry deserves an A+
rating for his efforts!
Bob Cochran sent a nice note about The E-Sylum to several
of his electronic pen-pals, with a copy of last week's issue
attached.. Some were already subscribers, but thanks to
Bob's effort, Fred Reed is now on board. Bob wrote, in part:
"Every week Wayne compiles information of interest to
those who appreciate and/or collect numismatic literature.
The "publication" also serves as a forum for discussion of
various topics, as you will see when you read the issue below.
How much is it? Ah, all of you will love this -
IT'S FREEEEEEE!!!!
I sincerely urge you to subscribe and try a few issues. It will
show up in your "in-basket" every week, and always has an
article or two of interest. PLUS, it is a vehicle YOU can
USE to communicate with others who share your enjoyment
of both publications AND information."
MINT OR NATIONAL MEDALS
In response to last week's excerpt from the New Netherlands
Coin Co. 36th Catalogue, January 26th, 1952, John W.
Adams writes:
"Normally the soul of accuracy in cataloguing, New
Netherlands missed the mark in the piece you quoted. Many
original impressions of our National medals are indeed rare as
stated. However, a third or more are common and modestly
priced -e.g. John Eger Howard, William Washington, John
Paul Jones - and another third are eminently collectable
but more highly priced - e.g. Washington Before Boston and
Libertas Americana.
In a similar vein, the statements about when the pieces were
restruck and what the restrikes look like are very wide of the
mark. We now know that some of the War of 1812 pieces
were restruck beginning in the 1820's (not 1861) and we also
know that we don't have a clue as to how to correlate color,
finish and weight to date struck. This latter provides a
magnificent opportunity for further study."
RECOMMENDED READING: SHIP OF GOLD
An article by Paul Gilkes in the latest Coin World notes that
gold coins, bars and other items recovered from the S.S.
Central America will be on exhibit at the ANA convention in
Chicago next week. The items will be auctioned by Sotheby's
December 8-9. This will be the first chance for most
numismatists for get a glimpse of the treasure salvaged from
the famous 1857 steamship wreck.
For background on the ship and its treasure, I recommend
"Ship of Gold in the Deep Blue Sea" by Gary Kinder, 1998.
While not numismatic in nature, the book is a highly readable
account of both the ship and its sinking, and the high adventure
of salvaging its treasure, which lay undisturbed for 132 years,
8,000 feet deep off the coast of South Carolina.
"... the picture on the monitor began to clear and slowly
revealed a scene few people could imagine. "The bottom was
carpeted with gold." said Tommy. "Gold everywhere, like a
garden. The more you looked, the more you saw gold growing
out of everything, embedded in all the wood and beams. It
was amazing, clear back in the far distance bars stacked on the
bottom like brownies, bars stacked like loaves of bread, bars
that appear to have slid into the corner of a room. Some of the
bars formed a bridge, all gold bars spanning an area of treasure
over here and another area over here, water underneath, and
the decks collapsing through on both sides. Then there was a
beam with coins stacked on top of it, just covered, couldn't
see the top of the beam it had so many coins on it."
GOLD RUSH COINERS BOOK
In the "ephemera" portion of my library is an audio tape I
made at last year's ANA Convention in Portland, of John
J. Ford's talk on Western Assay Bars. He mentioned the
Central America recovery and described a gentlemen who
became intrigued with the history of the makers of the
pioneer gold coins and bars discovered on the shipwreck.
Using a magnifying glass, he studied the assayer's names
on bars pictured in a magazine profile of the wreck. Then
he went to the library. While poring through microfilms of
contemporary newspapers, he began to assemble information
on each of the assayers, then looked for any other
documentary evidence he could find. Gradually, he gathered
much heretofore unpublished information on these pioneer
coiners.
The man's name is Dan Owen, and as Ford announced last
year, his work is being published cooperatively by Stack's
and Bowers and Merena. As noted by Dan in the Summer
1999 issue of The Brasher Bulletin, published by the Society
of Private and Pioneer Numismatics (SPPN):
"An Encyclopedia of California Coiners and Assayers
Related to Numismatics" represents my in-depth research
project on the numismatic history of the California Gold Rush.
The text is several hundred pages in length, and contains a
wealth of information which cannot be found in any other
single source. Several chapters in my book will be devoted
to the assaying firms who made the gold ingots recovered
from the wreck of the S.S. Central America."
The book will be available this year. So, you think all the
good numismatic research projects have already been done
to death? Here's one that a non-numismatist picked up and
made his own, discovering several stones left unturned by
previous researchers. What other topics are ripe for a
re-examination?
ANA BOOKSELLERS
Four numismatic booksellers will be set up at next week's
ANA convention: Remy Bourne, Charles Davis, Orville J.
Grady, and Art Rubino (Numismatic Arts of Santa Fe).
Happy hunting!
ANA NBS MEETING
The general meeting of the Numismatic Bibliomania Society
will be held at 6:30 PM Friday, August 13th. Speakers
include:
Nawana Britenriker, ANA Librarian
The ANA Oral History Project &
Book Preservation Work at the ANA Library
Dr. Ute Wartenberg, ANS Executive Director
The New ANS Headquarters and Library Facilities
John H. Burns, Numismatic Bibliophile
"A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the
Numismatic Library"
FINAL NOTES
We're still compiling the results of the email survey, but
please bear with us. Several of you indicated you would
be attending the ANA convention, and we look forward
to seeing you there. Also, due to convention travel, the
next E-Sylum may be a day or two late.
FEATURED WEB SITE
This week's featured web sites contain a longer excerpt
from the Ship of Gold book, and information on a related
book, "The Final Voyage of the Central America -1857"
by Normand E. Klare:
http://bookbrowse.com/nonfiction/excerpts/ship_of_gold3.html
http://www.murrayco.com/voyage.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. To join, print the application and
return it with your check to the address printed
on the application. For those without web access,
contact Dave Hirt, NBS Secretary-Treasurer,
5911 Quinn Orchard Road, Frederick, MD 21701
(To be removed from this mailing list
write to me at whomren@coinlibrary.com)
|
