Welcome to The E-Sylum: Volume 3, Number 18, April 30, 2000: an electronic publication of the Numismatic Bibliomania Society. Copyright (c) 2000, The Numismatic Bibliomania Society. SUBSCRIBER UPDATES We have two new subscribers this week: NBS member Gerard Anaszewicz, and Dr. A. A. Boaz of India. Welcome aboard! This brings our subscriber count to 299. NBS EVENTS PLANNED FOR THE A.N.A. This year's general meeting of the Numismatic Bibliomania Society will be held at the convention of the American Numismatic Association in Philadelphia. The meeting will take place at 11:30 AM in Room 201C of the Convention Center. NBS will also host a Numismatic Literature Symposium. Moderated by NBS Board member Dr. Joel Orosz, the symposium will be held on Friday, August 11, from 2 pm to 3:30 in Room 201C of the Convention Center (the same room as the general meeting earlier that day). Tentative participants include NBS Board member Pete Smith, who will be speaking on the books published about the Philadelphia Mint, and Eric Newman, who will be discussing one of the earliest authors on a numismatic topic in the United States, Beale Bordley. A question-and-answer session will follow the presentations. CORNELL'S MAKING OF AMERICA WEB SITE Board member Larry Mitchell writes: "Among the best resources for ancillary coverage of 19th century American numismatic topics are the monographs and journals currently being digitized as part of Cornell University's MAKING OF AMERICA project. The almost 1,000,000 pages digitized to date are a treasure trove of information for numismatists. To give you hint of what's available, a very simple search -- using the keyword "coin"--returns the following: >Search "coin" returned 29269 matches in 13479 works. >View the 5809 matches in 243 books. >View the 23460 matches in 13236 journal articles. >View the 29269 matches in 13479 works." The site's address is: http://library5.library.cornell.edu/moa/ Bill Malkmus notes: "This is a fantastic site (I tried it) and it is every bit as great as Larry Mitchell describes." This site is a fine place to begin a numismatic treasure hunt. American numismatic researchers are encouraged to search it for their favorite subjects; please report back to us if you find any interesting heretofore-unkown nuggets of information. One random example I came across is an article on "An Alloy of Gold and Aluminum" in "The Manufacturer and Builder", Volume XXVI, 1894. "In the course of experiments made for the Royal Society's committee on researches upon alloys, Prof. Austen-Roberts made a discovery that will probably be utilized in the coinage of money. His alloy consists of 78 parts of gold to 22 parts of aluminum. These proportions, moreover, are the only ones in which the two metals alloy perfectly. The product, it is said, is of a beautiful purple color, with ruby reflections, and cannot be imitated. Besides, as gold is 7.7 times heavier than aluminum, the same weight of the latter will be 7.7 times greater in bulk than the former." Has anyone heard of a coin or pattern ever being stuck on such an alloy? BOOKS IN ENGLISH ON ORIENTAL COINS Mike Jones writes: First, let me mention that I started collecting oriental coins (mostly pre-Meiji Japanese coins) in the mid to late '70s. I learned quickly that books in the english language about oriental coins were really hard to come by. I want to ask readers of The E-Sylum whether they own, or know of, or have any knowledge of, the scarcity of the following titles: 1. Anything written by Ramsden in Yokohama earlier this century on Oriental coins 2. The true rarity of Munro's "Coins of Japan", 1904 edition 3. Schjoth on Chinese Currency, original edition 4. Polder on pre-historical Japan 5. Original "Kann" on Chinese 6. Toda on Annamese I have never seen Polder original...had half a dozen Ramsden... also same number of Munro...three original Schjoth...a few Kann... Toda never had... Feedback, please." NUMISMATIC RETRONYMS Dan Demeo writes: "The obvious retronym dealing with numismatics is "ancient numismatics", since much of the early study was on ancient coinage, whereas ancient numismatics is only a fraction of the field today. Perhaps a better term is "classical numismatics". Similarly, all the serious sciences are -ologies, and their practitioners are -ologists. There is a perfectly good word for the science of numismatics, numismatology, with the scientist being a numismatologist. Does anyone know why/when these words fell into disuse? I, for one, would like to again use them, in this case to handle an area where retronyms have failed to keep pace with rapid changes in numismatics. As our life becomes more complex through new technology, a rise in the number of retronyms is perhaps inevitable. Looking back only a few years, many growing up today would be surprised that the Watergate files were not on a computer, but in file drawers or boxes. Should the term photograph or photo be reserved for things which are photographed, with a camera and film? Or are coin images created by scanning a coin with a scanner acceptably called photos? How about digital cameras with CCD arrays and no film? I can see the term "photographic photo" coming into use to distinguish from a digital photo. I also recently had an e-mail discussion with Fred Lake about whether or not I needed a hard copy (like paper, not stone tablets) of his next catalog, or if an electronic (soft?) copy was sufficient." TOMATO OR TOMATOE? Dan also had something to say about the never-ending "catalog" vs. "catalogue" debate. "It seems perfectly obvious that a catalogue should be a more elaborate and comprehensive item than a mere ordinary catalog, but at what point should one draw the line? Is the basis the number of pages, printing quality, illustrations or the lack thereof, or what? Is one committing a serious breach of etiquette if one orders a catalog from George Kolbe, or is it serious only if one fails to enclose payment for it?" GLEANINGS FROM COIN WORLD Michael E. Marotta has a nice article on dealer B. Max Mehl in the May 1st issue, citing, among other sources, an article in the Summer 1994 issue of The Asylum. (May 1, 2000, p20) Q. David Bowers "would be delighted to hear from anyone with access to The Boston Evening Transcript, for the period 1855 to 1860. It is likely that some of the first authoritative information concerning U.S. coins appeared in that venue..." "to share your finds, please write to me at Box 1224, Wolfeboro, NH 03894." (May 8, 2000 issue, p68) DON'T JOSH ME The recent surveys indicating that many Americans believe that the new "Golden Dollar" actually contains gold is reminiscent of the "Racketeer Nickel", the 1883 five-cent piece without the word "cents", which was sometimes gold-plated and passed off as a five-dollar gold piece. An ANA "Money Talks" transcript by Mark Van Winkle features the best-known of the "racketeers": "In one famous court case, a deaf-mute named Josh Tatum was accused of passing off many of these gold-plated or "Racketeer" nickels. But he was able to go free, since no one could ever successfully testify against him. As a deaf-mute, he never actually called the coins anything . . . he merely gave them to clerks, and politely took whatever change they gave him." Some numismatic references state that the story of Josh Tatum is the origin of the English word "josh", as in "You're joshing me." But my favorite online dictionary, Merriam-Webster (http://www.m-w.com/) has this entry for the word: Josh: Etymology: origin unknown. Date: 1852 transitive senses : to tease good-naturedly : KID intransitive senses : to engage in banter : JOKE Given that this citation predates the 1883 coin by over 30 years, it seems unlikely that Mr. Tatum is actually the original source of the word. In none of the references I've come across in my library is there a citation for the Boston trial of Mr. Tatum. How can we verify any of this without consulting original source materials? Does anyone know of any contemporary newspaper articles discussing the trial? FEATURED WEB SITE This week's featured web site is MikeWallace's "Numismatic Americana", which includes a nice illustrated page on the 1883 "Racketeer Nickel": http://localsonly.wilmington.net/mwallace/exonumia.html http://localsonly.wilmington.net/mwallace/exonumia/gold5c.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 21704 (To be removed from this mailing list write to me at whomren@coinlibrary.com)
