Welcome to The E-Sylum: Volume 3, Number 23, June 4, 2000: an electronic publication of the Numismatic Bibliomania Society. Copyright (c) 2000, The Numismatic Bibliomania Society. SUBSCRIBER UPDATES We have no new subscribers this week, but we do have an updated subscriber count. First off, there was a typo in last week's count - it should have said 303. Secondly, we lost two subscribers this week: Cathy Early and Bob Christie. This ought to bring us to 301, but more on that in a moment. Bob has the honor of being the first E-Sylum contributor to send a submission via the U.S. Postal Service. His letter stated: "I'm writing to tell you I'm no longer on the internet. Thus, you can drop my name from the E-Sylum mailing list. I wasn't using the internet enough to make it worth while being connected. Best wishes on The E-Sylum. Membership has grown from about 175 when I joined to over 300. If I'm on-line again some day and rejoin, it will be interesting to see how many subscribers there'll be." I guess this internet thing was a flash in the pan after all. Oh well, we'll keep hanging in there. Bob's note prompted me to review the subscriber list, and after cleaning and recounting, it seems the actual total is now only 296. So it'll be deja vu all over again when we get back up to 300 again, hopefully long before the ANA convention later this summer. So please be sure to mention the E-Sylum to your fellow bibliophiles and researchers. PETER JONES OF SEABY'S DIES Paul Withers writes: Peter Jones died on 3 March at the Carlos Haya Hospital, Malaga. Peter's name will be familiar to many as the long-serving Manager of Seaby's book department. Peter joined B A Seaby Ltd in 1959 after working for a few months in an estate office in mid Wales and exhibited a keen interest in books. He was able to expand the stock of books (new and secondhand), cabinets and numismatic accessories in 1964, when the firm expanded into a shop at 63 Great Portland Street, and in 1969, at the time of the move to larger premises in Margaret Street. Peter was then the cheerful and very efficient manager of what was generally acknowledged to be the finest numismatic bookshop in the world. He was later to became Assistant Managing Director of Seaby Publications Ltd and, in 1978, a Director of B A. Seaby Ltd. Peter was one of those members of staff who were made redundant at the time of the recession 1982. He continued dealing in books from his home in Esher, where he lived with his wife Donna, also a long time employee of Seaby's. After some years of operating from home, Peter and Donna fulfilled a long-standing ambition and moved on a more or less permanent basis to their apartment on the Costa del Sol, returning to Esher only occasionally to decorate their house and host delightful dinner parties. Those who attended one of these occasions will remember good wine, splendid company and Donna's wonderful cooking - I can only marvel at her ability to provide so much good food, seemingly without any effort. Never robust, Peter's health began to deteriorate earlier this year and he spent some five weeks in hospital; he was able to return briefly to the apartment before his final stay in hospital at the end of February. Donna brought his ashes back to Esher and a service for their interment, attended by some fifty friends and relations, was held at All Saints Church, Weston, on 7th May. Those who knew Peter will want to remember him in happy times and perhaps send their condolences to Donna." BOB COCHRAN RECOVERING The web site of The Society of Paper Money Collectors (http://www.spmc.org) has this report about a longtime NBS member and E-Sylum subscriber: "Former SPMC President Bob Cochran suffered a heart attack, but is recovering nicely and should be back in the swing of things by early June. A card or letter would surely be appreciated. Bob's address is: Bob Cochran, PO Box 1085, Florissant, MO 63031." AUCTION ETIQUETTE George Kolbe writes to remind us that bid rigging is a felony. "Agreements among buyers at auctions not to bid against each other for the purpose of purchasing goods at low and non-competitive prices can be a criminal violation of the federal anti-trust laws, punishable by heavy fines and imprisonment. Section 1 of the Sherman Act (15 U.S.C. § 1) prohibits bid rigging or pooling agreements among competitors if they affect or restrain interstate commerce. Upon conviction, individuals are subject to a maximum fine of $250,000 and/or three years' imprisonment. Bid rigging, or "pooling," consists of any agreement between bidders at auction which lessens competition between them. In recent years, the U. S. Government and private parties have brought lawsuits to restrain and/or penalize bid rigging in art and collectibles auctions. Pooling agreements can be attractive to buyers who do not understand that it is illegal. Not only is bid rigging a violation of the Sherman Antitrust Act, it is a "per se" violation, meaning that once a bid rigging or pooling agreement has been found, the Government does not have to show that prices were actually affected by the arrangement. In other words, it would not be a defense that the presence of other bidders at the auction caused the books or other items to sell for their fair market value anyway. In the 1988 case of United States versus Ronald Pook, antique dealers were convicted of pooling at antique auctions. More recently, several dealers pleaded guilty to pooling at an auction of rare bank notes at Christie's in New York." EARLIEST PATTERN COIN AUCTION? Tom DeLorey writes: "I have in front of me a copy of the Bangs, Merwin & Co., sale of December 15-17, 1863. Besides an exceptional 1802 half dime, the sale lists an extensive section on pattern coins (not all of which are patterns, but never mind). Excuse me if this has been answered before, but what is the earliest known sale that lists patterns as such? One of the pattern lots is an 1838 half dollar that says "...purchased at the sale of Dr. Muhlenberg's coins, where it brought $47." POSTAGE CURRENCY PATTERN BOOK UPDATE David Cassel writes to note that his upcoming book on U.S. Postage Currency Patterns is actually hardbound, not perfect bound as stated last week. In the printing industry, the term "perfect bound" refers to a soft paper cover glued book. His book will be hard cover, glued and stitched. "I have only twenty-nine books left out of the 110 that I ordered published. Nine books that I know of went to E-Sylum subscribers." David can be reached at this address: DavCassel@aol.com. FAVORITE BOOKS FOR READERS Doug Owens writes: "I have enjoyed your Monday morning e-mail missives so much that I have joined NBS and look forward to obtaining a set of back issues of the Asylum. I am a relative newcomer to coins and numismatic books. I would really enjoy a discussion by you and your readers of their favorite numismatic books. I have a limited budget and often think that my collecting dollar goes further with a book than with the coins themselves. I enjoy books with excellent photography (e.g. Hoberman, "The Art of Coins and Their Photography" - this book has the most spectacular color photography imaginable, and constitutes a virtual coin collection in itself). Other books with great photos are Kent-Hirmer "Roman Coins", Kraay-Hirmer, "Greek Coins", and a newly published book on the Wine and Coins of Ancient Greece). I like books on art and coinage, and books with narrative description as opposed to catalogue-type books (such as "The Splendid Shilling", Sutherland's "Art of Coinage", Anthony's "Collecting Greek Coins", "Coins and Christianity", Bastien's "The Coin Collectors", and Berry's "Numismatic Biography"). Other books I have and enjoy are Vermuele's "Numismatic Art in America" and Seltman's "Masterpieces of Greek Coinage". I would appreciate any advice you and your readers may have along these lines, and also would like to hear from others what they like to collect and why, as well as recommendations for particular books." Mr. Owen is certainly a very well-read newcomer, and there's not a book among his list that I wouldn't heartily recommend to others. While I buy and hold innumerable books and periodicals for reference, the ones I cherish most are those which provide a good read. Three titles I always recommend are Carothers, "Fractional Money", Willem's "The United States Trade Dollar", and "The Fantastic 1804 Dollar" by Newman and Bressett. These are all on U.S. coinage, but that's my collecting bias. The Carothers book should be required reading for any student of American numismatics - it lays out the history, economics and politics of small change in a very readable and informative fashion. The Willem book does the same for a single series - the Trade Dollar, and the Newman-Bressett book does it for a single coin. The research, scholarship, and numismatic detective work in these books set a standard for those which followed. The Carothers and Willem books have been reprinted. The Newman-Bressett book is long out of print, but it is relatively common, and easier to obtain than the more comprehensive (and also out-of-print) Encyclopedia of U.S. Silver Dollars by Q. David Bowers. To prove how nuts I am about these books, I've accumulated multiple copies of the original editions, all either signed by the authors or inscribed by famous numismatists to other collectors. I'm not the first to recommend them, and won't be the last. So - what titles do our E-Sylum readers recommend? FEATURED WEB SITE This week's featured web pages are from the U.S. Bureau of Engraving and Printing's web site. The pages describe the designs of the newly-released five and ten dollar bills. http://www.bep.treas.gov/5.htm http://www.bep.treas.gov/10.htm At the Pennsylvania Association of Numismatists' show in Pittsburgh last October, your editor had the pleasure of meeting and sharing a dinner table with Thomas Raymond Hipschen, the artist who engraved the portraits on the new series of notes, beginning with the $100 note in 1996. Back in October, Hipschen's work on the new 5's and 10's had already long been completed, but the official release of the notes waited until this May. It's been worth the wait - the grainy newspaper illustrations of the designs couldn't hold a candle to the Real McCoy - there is no substitute for seeing the intaglio prints in person. I have one nit to pick with the BEP pages - they label the sides of the notes "Obverse" and "Reverse" as if they were coins - the proper terms in syngraphic circles are "Face" and "Back". 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)
