Welcome to The E-Sylum: Volume 3, Number 54, December 31, 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: NBS member Tom
Oristian of Virginia. Welcome aboard! This brings our
subscriber count to 358.
[The actual count is probably four fewer, as we've been
getting some bounced email messages in recent weeks.
We'll adjust the count after a review early in the new year.
-Editor]
ASYLUM AT THE PRINTER
The 2000 No. 4 issue of The Asylum is at the printer;
unfortunately, their skeleton holiday staff was not able to
complete it before the end of the year. But it should be
in the mail to paid-up NBS members very shortly.
ON TO ORLANDO
Next week's E-Sylum will not come out on Sunday as usual;
Your Editor will be on the road in Orlando, FL. Time and
submissions permitting, the issue will come out on Friday the
5th; if not, we'll skip a week and catch up on the 14th.
There will be a regional meeting of the Numismatic Bibliomania
Society at the F.U.N. Show in Orlando, Florida, at 11:00am on
Saturday, January 6, 2001. Our speaker is Mike Ellis, former
President of CONECA and editor of the fourth edition of "The
Cherrypicker's Guide to Rare Die Varieties." His topic is
"The Proliferation of Recent Numismatic Literature on the
Subject of Varieties and Errors."
Numismatic & Philatelic Arts of Santa Fe seems to be the only
numismatic literature dealer scheduled to set up at the show.
Art Rubino writes: "We will have about 20,000 rare, out of print,
used and new numismatic, philatelic, history, and rare collectibles
books, coin trays and book preservation supplies on sale at the
show."
I'll look forward to seeing some of you at the show on
Saturday. I'll be spending the following week vacationing
with my family.
NOTES FROM GAIL BAKER
ANA Education Director Gail Baker writes: "The U.S. Mint pops
up in the most unlikely places! I recently purchased "Travels in
Philadelphia" by Christopher Morley (David McKay Company,
publishers) circa 1920. It has a happy little chapter titled "At The
Mint." He talks about the operations and about producing coinage
from other countries including Peru, Argentina and "a big order of
the queer coins of Siam, which have a hole in the middle, like
Chinese money." Interesting...
On another subject - Jacob Perkins. While touring the offices at
the Franklin Institute, I came across an oil painting of Jacob Perkins.
It is unlike the only other picture I have ever seen of him. Guess I
should not have been so surprised to see his picture - but I was.
Dick Johnson recently wrote about a 3-part series of articles
which ran in the weekly newspaper "Philadelphia Dispatch",
January 23 and 30, 1853 and February 6, 1853, headlined "The
Way Coins Are Made, A Rare Visit to The United States Mint"
Where could one find this article? I would very much like a copy!"
DYE'S COIN ENCYCLOPEDIA QUESTION
Last year ( Volume 2, Number 52 December 26, 1999:)
Jørgen Sømod of Denmark asked: "Can you tell me what the
opinion was, when Dye's Coin Encyclopaedia, Philadelphia
1883, turned up?"
He is still interested in the subject - can anyone point us to
contemporary references to Dye's book? What did people
think of it at the time?
MARKETING HOOEY OF THE YEAR
I'm sure Joel Orosz would have a more colorful name for it,
but recent ads by the "California Gold Marketing Group"
really take the cake for overblown hooplah. Picturing The
Louvre, The Smithsonian, and The Hermitage, it asks:
"What do the following world-class museums have in common?"
Picturing Virgil Brand, Louis Eliasberg, Lorin Parmelee,
Robert Garrett, and The Norwebs, it asks "What do the
following world-class collectors have in common?"
The answer? "None of them ever owned an original gold
ingot from the California Gold Rush recovered from the S.S.
Central America!"
That would have been quite a feat, given that the S.S.
Central America was sitting at the bottom of the ocean
for the entire time these collections were being formed.
The same statement could be made for the 2000
Sacagawea dollar, which was equally unavailable until
this year.
SUBSCRIBER PROFILE: PAUL WITHERS
Author and numismatic literature dealer Paul Withers posts
the following information on his web site
(http://www.galatacoins.demon.co.uk/):
"Since I gave up teaching 26 years ago we have been full-time
dealers in coins and numismatic books. Another main activity
is writing. We have just published A Catalogue of British
Copper Tokens 1811-20. We have also written British
Coin-Weights, A Corpus’; Lions, Ships and Angels -
Coin-weights found in Britain, and A Catalogue of the Collection
of Coins, Tokens, Dies, etc., in the Assay Office, Birmingham.
Currently we are researching european coin-weights, lead
weights, the halfpence and farthings of Edward I to Charles I -
and simmering on the back burner are several other works
which are too far into the future to even think about at present.
Our house, a former pub, built before Colombus set sail, is
stuffed with our ever-growing personal library of around 4500
numismatic books. We moved here, to the wilds of Mid-Wales,
seven years ago, to get away from urban nastiness.
I am a fellow of the Royal Numismatic Society and a member
of the British Numismatic Society. I am membership secretary
of the Oriental Numismatic Society. My wife is a member of the
British Art Medal Society. We are interested in almost the
entire spectrum of numismatics from ancient to modern. We
collect: coins of India, coin-weights of the world, weights and
scales, 19th-century copper tokens, brothel tokens, numismatic
books, books on cookery and engraved glass measures."
VOCABULARY WORD: PARANUMISMATICA
We discussed numismatic word definitions several issues ago.
Mr. Withers' web site uses a word your American-bred Editor
hadn't seen before: paranumismatica. In context: "World
Paranumismatica - Tokens, Countermarks and the like from
around the globe."
A web search turned up 25 pages using the term, one defining
it as the "British term for exonumia" I'm sure Paul would prefer
a definition along the lines of "Exonomia: American term for
paranumismatica"
PERKINS: STEAMED OR NO?
Eric P. Newman was being punny when he submitted the
following: "As to Dave Bowers' interesting comment in the
December 24 Bulletin that Jacob Perkins was "highly
esteemed" in Newburyport and might have made or used
a Boulton & Watt type steam coining press I surmise that
Perkins was not that "highly esteamed" and neither was the
U.S.Mint."
COL. E. H. R. GREEN PHOTO FOUND ONLINE
NBS member W. David Perkins writes: "I came across this
website today with a photo of Col. E.H.R. Green. I have
been researching Col. Green for around 10 years (as he
owned a large number of early United States silver dollars
1794-1803). I don't recall seeing a photo of him before.
I'll have to check my copy of "The Day they Shook the
Plum Tree" which is at home - it may have a photo, too."
http://www.terrellheritagesociety.org/texas%20midland%20railway%20car.htm
[Notes: The web page describes a railway car owned by the
Terrell Heritage Society of Terrell, Texas. The page states:
"Col. E. H. R. Green was the son of Hetty Green, who was
known to be the richest woman in the world at the time of her
death. He was active in politics in Texas and maintained his
voting residence in Texas by leaving a suit of clothes and one
of his wooden legs in a rented room in one of fine residences
of Terrell. Col. Green also maintained the main offices of the
Texas Midland Railway, in Terrell.
[The] photo (exact date unknown) shows Col. E.H.R. Green,
President; W.P. Allen, Vice-president; and L.W. Wells,
General manager, Texas Midland Railroad. Note the comical
gesture made by Col. Green above Mr. Allen's head."
Below are a few web sites with more information on
Hetty Green:
http://www.mafh.org/fh/1996/55-1.html
http://www.virtualvermont.com/history/hgreen.html
http://www.rixsan.com/nbvisit/attract/hettymus.htm
-Editor]
NEW YEAR'S RESOLUTIONS
It's been a great year for The E-Sylum and the Numismatic
Bibliomania Society. We ended 1999 with a subscriber
count of 265; at the end of 2000 we have over 350 readers.
The NBS membership roster contains nearly 300 members.
Please resolve to help your society in one or more ways
this year. Small contributions from just a handful of members
can make the difference between an average year and an
outstanding one. Please consider contributing in one of the
following ways:
1. Write an article for our print journal, The Asylum.
Any topic in the realm of numismatic literature is
fair game. I'm sure every one of you has an interesting
story or two to share.
2. Participate in The E-Sylum; write a thoughtful
response, or submit an interesting research question.
Start a new topic related to your favorite area of
numismatic literature.
3. Promote the NBS and The E-Sylum; Tell your collecting
friends about us, even if they don't actively collect
numismatic literature. We welcome experts and novices
alike.
4. Give a presentation at a regional or national meeting
of NBS.
5. Serve as an officer. Elections are coming up this year.
Any one of the present Officers and Board Members
can confirm that service is not an onerous task; with the
availability of email, society business has been carried on
throughout the year with relative ease. We particularly
encourage our overseas friends to consider becoming
more active in the Society.
6. Coordinate a special project for NBS. This could be
any task in which you take a special interest, such as
compiling bibliographies, putting literature or bibliographies
on our web site, or reprinting classic works in numismatic
literature.
An organization such as ours lives and dies by the contributions
of its volunteer members. Please make this a year where you
resolve to give something of yourself to make your
organization the best it can possibly be.
Happy New Year!
FEATURED WEB SITE
Roman emperor Vespasian (Titus Flavius Vespasianus)
ruled from 69 AD til his death in 79 AD. One famous
Vespatian quote is "Pecunia non olet" -- literally, "Money
has no smell."
Vespasian was replying to Titus's objection to his tax on
public lavatories; holding a coin to Titus's nose and being
told it didn't smell, he replied, 'Atque e lotio est'
("Yes, that's made from urine")
When fatally ill, Vespatian is reported to have said:
"Vae, puto deus fio" -- "Woe is me, I think I am becoming
a god."
(Taken from Suetonius' Lives of the Caesars, as quoted in
The Oxford Dictionary of Quotations, (c) Oxford University
Press 1999)
The "Non Olet" quote is featured in an online exhibit
at the web site of the Kunsthistorisches Museum in
Vienna, Austria:
http://www.khm.at/khm/staticE/page1357.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)
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