Welcome to The E-Sylum: Volume 3, Number 17, April 23, 2000: an electronic publication of the Numismatic Bibliomania Society. Copyright (c) 2000, The Numismatic Bibliomania Society. SUBSCRIBER UPDATES We have one new subscriber this week: Suellen Ruttkay, Product Manager, COIN World. Welcome aboard! This brings our subscriber count to 297. NEXT ASYLUM AT THE PRINTER The year 2000 No. 1 issue of our print journal, The Asylum, is at the printer. Dues are due, and envelopes for dues payments will be included with each issue. Now would be an ideal time for E-Sylum subscribers who are not yet members of NBS to join up. At only $15 per year for North American members ($20 elsewhere), it's a bargain. Members will receive all four issues of the year 2000 volume of The Asylum. An application is available on our web site at http://www.coinbooks.org/ Editor E. Tomlinson Fort reports that the new issue contains the following: President's Message by Wayne Homren Editorial by E. Tomlinson Fort Letters to the Editor The Development of the Coin Album, Part 5, by David Lange Who's Who in Numismatics by Pete Smith The Printer's Devil: Where Have All the Core References Gone? by Joel Orosz News from the Net by Pete Smith Index to The Asylum, volumes 16 to 17 by William Malkmus Of special note is Joel Orosz's article, lamenting the fact that all the major reference works on American numismatic literature are largely out of print. He expresses concern that the unavailability of core reference works may be slowing the growth of numismatic bibliomania among U.S. collectors. We would be interested to hear opinions from the NBS membership after reading the article. Along with Joel Orosz, David Lange and Pete Smith are regular contributors to our journal, and are to be commended for their prodigious efforts. Our society is in their debt. Finally, William Malkmus has provided an invaluable service to NBS and numismatic researchers everywhere for his yeoman efforts to maintain an index to The Asylum. Indexing is not an easy task, and we can never thank him enough for his efforts. NAMED PETRY SALE SOUGHT George Fuld writes: "Does anyone out there have a named copy of the Chapman Petry Collection, May 10, 1893? I need to know the name of the purchaser of Lot 773 and price paid, if possible. Thanks to all in advance." George can be reached at fuld1@home.com. WHAT'S A BINDING WORTH? NBS Vice President Tom Sheehan writes: "I recently purchased a set of numismatic books that came in two or three bindings with a couple of volumes unbound. I decided that the set would be both more usable if bound and more attractive. Now I didn't hold back much, if anything, in the binding. The cost of binding and the shipping equaled one third of what I paid for the set. It is entirely possible that my two-year-old granddaughter will be the financial benefactor. In the meantime I have a "killer" set for my bookshelf. I find it hard to pass that section of the shelf without admiring the spines or picking one off the shelf just to hold or rummage through. Others might spend two or three thousand dollars to put a real nice paint job on an vintage automobile and know they will never make a dime on the deal. We can have pride of ownership in numismatics just like in other hobbies." THERE'S A WORD FOR THAT? The "A.Word.A.Day" mailing list (http://wordsmith.org/awad/) defines a word that aptly describes some current numismatic terms like "raw coin" or "unslabbed coin": "retronym (RE-truh-nim) noun [Latin Retro- back + -nym.] A term, such as acoustic guitar, coined in modification of the original referent that was used alone, such as guitar, to distinguish it from a later contrastive development, such as electric guitar. "I would think that the grocery lists would be filled with retronyms. Who felt the need, 25 years ago, to add `regular' to their coffee order, `real' to their request for sour cream ...." Gaye LeBaron, Public Television `Storm Damaged', The Press Democrat, 7 Mar 1996." Can you think of other retronyms in numismatic literature? MATTHEW BOULTON WEB SITE Dick Johnson writes: "Has anyone else reported trouble getting into Carl's Website on Matthew Boulton or am I the only one? [last week's featured web site in The E-Sylum]. I have tried over several days without success. Carl is to be congratulated. I am in favor of anything that honors Boulton. He far surpasses anyone else in history for the developments he established for the manufacture of coins and medals. As a coinage technology historian, Boulton is my number one hero. I traveled to Washington DC last May just to get Dick Doty's new book on the Soho Mint. Got two copies inscribed and autographed by Dick. [The Smithsonian bookstore only had two copies in stock or I would have gotten more!]" No other problems have been reported. Later Dick wrote: "Finally, I got in. Great website. I devoured every word. Viva la Boulton!!!" For those who didn't get a chance to look at it, the address is: http://www.geocities.com/mboulton1797/ WHOOPS!, PART TWO Earlier this week I mistakenly sent out a message to many E-Sylum subscribers. The problem was related to the previous week's mailing list problem, which should now be resolved for good. Meanwhile, I would like to apologize to those who may have gotten an unwanted message, and to those whose email address may have been revealed to others without permission. We take our subscribers' privacy seriously, and and this was a big slip. I trust that the recipients will do the right thing and ignore or discard any revealed addresses. FEATURED WEB SITE This week's featured web site is the Guernsey Numismatic Home Page http://www.guernsey.net/~sgibbs/numismatics/ 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 21704 (To be removed from this mailing list write to me at whomren@coinlibrary.com)
