Welcome to The E-Sylum: Volume 3, Number 32, August 6, 2000:
an electronic publication of the Numismatic Bibliomania Society.
Copyright (c) 2000, The Numismatic Bibliomania Society.
SUBSCRIBER UPDATES
We have 23 new subscribers this week, 20 of whom signed
up while renewing their NBS dues. Welcome aboard!
Our new subscribers hail from Alabama, California,
Connecticut, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Missouri,
New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Ohio,
Pennsylvania, Texas, and Virginia. They are:
Michael Agenta, Dave Bowers, Michael Bourne, Tony
Carlotto, Greg Charlesworth, Ralph Cole, Jr., Arthur
Crawmer, Rick Day, Ron Gammill, Robert Johnson, Jr.,
Bob Korver, Douglas Logan, Gilbert Malone, Marc
McDonald, Scott Miller, Charles Moore, Eric Newman,
Jon Schmeyer, Terry Stahursky, James Stofel, William
Stone, David Vroom, and one NBS member who did
not want their name published.
This brings our subscriber count to a whopping 327!
ANA ISSUE
It's that time of year again - the American Numismatic
Association holds its annual convention this coming week in
Philadelphia. The ANA convention is often the only time of
the year when our members get to meet in person.
The annual meeting of the Numismatic Bibliomania Society
will take place at 11:30 AM in Room 201C of the Convention
Center. At the meeting W. David Perkins will speak on "The
Ostheimers of Philadelphia and their Extraordinary Collection
of Silver Dollars".
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 the same room as the general meeting earlier that day).
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.
I'll look forward to seeing many NBS members and E-Sylum
subscribers there. As you go about the convention, please
keep NBS in mind and help recruit new members and
subscribers. Spread the word!
[By the way, due to convention travel your Editor may be a
bit late with the next issue. Meanwhile, feel free to send me
your thoughts on the convention for the next E-Sylum.]
DONATION AUCTION PLANNED
It has been suggested that we hold a short auction of donated
items at our annual meeting, to help beef up our treasury. If
you're coming to the convention and would like to donate an
interesting item of numismatic literature, please bring it along to
the meeting. If possible, let me know by email by Wednesday
August 8th. Write to me at: whomren@coinlibrary.com
The auction is a good opportunity to help the organization and
free up some shelf space. Manuscripts, inscribed or advance
copies, "first off the press" copies - all make for interesting
auction lots. Also, we're not above auctioning gag items for fun,
so put on your thinking caps.
ARD W. BROWNING ANA PILGRIMAGE PLANNED
Carl Herkowitz of Detroit has been researching the life of
Ard W. Browning, author of the classic 1925 work, "The
Early Quarter Dollars of the United States". On Thursday,
August 10th, about 9-9:30am, Mr. Herkowitz will lead a
group of interested bibliophiles and collectors on a trip to
a churchyard about 45 miles from the Philadelphia convention
center. The group will pay their respects at the final resting
place of Browning, and hear an advance reading of Herkowitz'
forthcoming article detailing his research.
Browning was a long-running numismatic mystery. In his
1992 book "American Numismatic Literature". Charles
Davis wrote: "The author is one of the most invisible
personages of American numismatics, leaving no personal
trace of the history of this work, which some feel was
completed long before its 1925 publication by Wayte
Raymond."
Mr. Herkowitz can be reached at the convention by paging
him to the Message Center, or keeping an eye out for him
at Charles Davis' table. The trip is open to all interested
parties.
STOCKLEY INVENTORY ONLINE
Numismatic literature dealer Richard Stockley of Quebec,
Canada announces that his inventory is now available
online at this address:
http://www.abebooks.com/home/stockleysbooks/
LET'S SEE THEM TRY TO SLAB THAT!
Dick Johnson writes: "Please! No more of those awful definitions
of coin, medal, token, jeton. Namely:
MEDAL: CoinNews (UK) define the term in their 2000
Yearbook as "A piece of metal bearing devices or given as
an award.
This is atrocious! Half the objects made in the last 150 years
by hundreds of metalworkers worldwide, like Scovill (brass
manufacturer, Waterbury) -- including nail-heads, lady's
compact covers to manhole covers -- would fit this definition."
I THOUGHT I COLLECTED OBSCURE STUFF
The August 2000 issue of the TAMS Journal, official
publication of the Token and Medal Society, contains
an ad by Denis Loring seeking tokens or medals depicting
a manatee. Now that's specialization! I've seen dolphins
on coins, but can't recall a manatee appearing anywhere.
Several years ago, your editor developed a code phrase
for obscure numismatic specialties. Whenever I had
trouble making someone understand why I like numismatic
ephemera, I'd explain that "it's sort of like collecting die
varieties of Lithuanian subway tokens." "Oh, OK," they'd
say, thinking to themselves, "I get it - this guy's a nut".
You got it.
CONFEDERATE PAPER WORKS ON LINE
NBS Board member Larry Mitchell reports: "The following
scarce works on the paper money of the Confederacy
recently were digitized as part of the University of North
Carolina (Chapel Hill) project, "Documenting the American
South":
"Cato" on Constitutional "Money" and Legal Tender.
In Twelve Numbers from the Charleston Mercury"
(1862):
http://metalab.unc.edu/docsouth/witherst/witherst.html
"Facts and Suggestions Relative to Finance & Currency
Addressed to the President of the Confederate States"
(1864):
http://metalab.unc.edu/docsouth/greend/green.html
"Remarks on the Manufacture of Bank Notes, and Other
Promises to Pay. Addressed to the Bankers of the
Southern Confederacy" (1864):
http://metalab.unc.edu/docsouth/banknote/banknote.html
"[Open Letter to the Banks Concerning the Act of
Congress to Reduce the Currency]" (1864):
http://metalab.unc.edu/docsouth/treasury/treasury.html
Quoting from "Remarks", p5: "It was in the midst of our grand
struggle for independence that Franklin found time, from his
lightning-catching, mail-carrying, diplomatizing and printing, to
engrave, en amateur, a set, or several sets, of plates for the
Continental money; and his work, much of which is still in
existence, shows nothing more than the coarse, ill-drawn
practice of the time, easily and frequently counterfeited,
lessening in such proportion the value of what was legally
issued."
ASYLUM ISSUES SOUGHT
NBS member R. S. Thompson wishes to trade Vol I, Nos
3 & 4 of The Asylum for a Vol I, No 1. He can be reached
at this address: P.O. Box 1332, Summit, NJ 07901.
MORE ON "FIRST" CDS
John F. Bergman writes: "I don't know if it is the first CD,
but I have one for the Muenzen & Medaillenhandlung Stuttgart,
Stefan Sonntag sale of 23 Feb. 1999: Gold aus Baden-
Wuerttemberg; 1000 Muenzen und Medaillen aus der
Sammlung Hermann. The CD features all the text plus
illustrations in b/w and color, as does the hardbound catalog."
BLAKE & AGNELL GOLD BAR
Robert D. Leonard writes: "Regarding the comment of John W.
Adams on the "Blake & Agnell" gold bar that "there are rebuttals
to all the points he makes," there are several other things wrong
with this bar as well. In Coin World for August 7, 2000, p. 153,
Bob Evans, curator of the SS Central America treasure, reports
"regardless of the size or shape of the bars, each [including the
Blake & Co. bars made in 1857 or 1856] is stamped with the
same five pieces of information, albeit not in the same location:
the name and/or identifying stamps of the manufacturer, the serial
number, the weight in fine troy ounces, the purity in parts per
thousand, and the dollar value based at $20.67 per ounce of
fine gold."
The $23.30 "Blake & Agnell" bar dated 1855
(1) lacks a serial number;
(2) gives purity in carats, not parts per thousand;
(3) has a dollar value based on only $20.33 per ounce
of fine gold; and
(4) adds a superfluous date (not one bar in the entire cargo
of the Central America is dated).
Furthermore, Evans reports that all the Central America bars
have one or two assay chips; the "Blake & Agnell" $23.30
bar has no assay chip. Really, it is time to stop making
excuses for this bar.
In view of Mr. Adams' reference to the libel suit filed by
Stack's and John Ford, it must be emphasized that, at the
time Mr. Ford acquired this bar, the technology necessary
to perform the fineness testing carried out by Michael
Hodder did not exist, the "Agnell" spelling error was
unrecognized, and the Central America bars were under
8,500 feet of water. Condemning this bar based on later
knowledge is not intended to reflect badly on Mr. Ford's
or Stack's actions at the time. That said, I hope that study
of the authenticity of this or any other individual numismatic
object can be carried out free of fear that publication of an
adverse finding will make the author the target of a lawsuit."
FIRST PUBLISHED STUDY OF LARGE CENTS
E-Sylum subscriber Jim Neiswinter published an article
of interest to U.S. bibliophiles in the July 15, 2000 issue of
Penny Wise, the official publication of Early American
Coppers, Inc: "The First Published Study of Large Cents,
by "A.S." (1859)". "I now believe that the first study of
U.S. cents appeared in the March 1, 1859 edition of the
Boston Evening Transcript. The article, titled "About
Cents," provided the first classification for the large cent
series with particular attention paid to 1793." Copies of
the article, along with copies of subsequent articles on
the subject, are included.
ANS COLONIAL EXHIBIT CATALOGUE REPRINTED
The August, 2000 issue of The Colonial Newsletter,
published by The American Numismatic Society, includes
a reprint of the 44-page colonial coinage section of the
fabled "Exhibition of United States and Colonial Coins"
held at the ANS January 17 to February 18, 1914.
"The list of notable exhibitors who contributed their
collections reads like a numismatic Who's Who...
Never before, or since, have so many pristine specimens
been on public display all in one place."
AN IGNOMINIOUS END FOR RUBLES
A front-page article in the July 26, 2000 issue of The Wall
Street Journal reported on the disposition of obsolete
ruble notes in Russia. "When Russia's financial markets
buckled in August 1998, and the ruble collapsed, Mr.
Nikiforov [of the Ulyanovsk Roofing Material Factory]
had a brainchild. Already wrestling with severe shortages
of old cloth and wastepaper, his basic raw materials,
he proposed an unorthodox way to mop up Russia's
excess money supply.
We'd already tried wood chips and even straw, but to
no avail, " say Mr. Nikiforov. "We found that bank notes
worked much better." A ton of rubles costs less than $15,
not even a third as much as scrap paper.
Not only do rubles help plug leaky roofs, he says they also
eventually could revolutionize personal hygiene. He shows
off certificates from the health ministry and epidemiological
control department certifying that bank notes pose no
health hazard as toilet paper.
Toilet tissue made of rubles - known in the trade as MBS,
a Russian acronym for "Special Waste Paper" - would be
"a bit rough" and not particularly absorbent, he says, but
it would be cheap.
"Marx and Lenin predicted we wouldn't need gold and
would one day make toilets out of it," says Valery
Perfilov, director of a dusty complex of museums in
the center of town dedicated to Lenin. "We don't have
golden toilets yet, but we have roofs covered with
money. Who knows what might happen next?""
FEATURED WEB SITE
This week's featured web site is produced by Cameron
Kiefer, and up-and-coming young numismatist from
the San Joaquin Valley in California.
http://members.mindinfo.com/mst3000/kieferscoins/
Featured on the site are links to Kiefer's essays, including
"American Coinage During the Reign of Norton I of
California: The Only Emperor of the United States".
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)
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