Welcome to The E-Sylum: Volume 6, Number 8, February 23, 2003:
an electronic publication of the Numismatic Bibliomania Society.
Copyright (c) 2003, The Numismatic Bibliomania Society.


CANADIAN BIBLIOGRAPHY NEARS COMPLETION

  Darryl Atchison writes: "I am very pleased to announce that
  work on our new Bibliography of Canadian Numismatics is
  nearly 100% finished.  Our intention is to release the text to
  the public this July at the C.N.A. convention in Windsor,
  Ontario.

  In order to get a general sense of how many copies we will
  need to print as well as to determine the print costs, I would
  appreciate if any E-Sylum members would notify me if they
  would be interested in purchasing a copy of  the text.  Our
  plan is to take pre-orders starting in mid-March but no-one
  needs to order now.  The text will be a good quality,
  hardbound, stitch bound, two-volume, illustrated publication
  of over 1,000 pages in length.

  We expect the cover price to be somewhere between 85-125
  Canadian dollars (or approximately 60 - 90 US dollars) for the
  set based on current exchange  rates.  However, we cannot
  lock down a figure until we have a general sense of a minimum
  number we would require.  We intend to print enough copies to
  fill the pre-orders as well as a small overrun.

  Our text covers every field of Canadian numismatics including
  coins, tokens, all classifications of medals, paper currency,
  banking, minting, security printing, counterfeits and counterfeiting,

  auction catalogues, collectors, societies and associations as
  well as other information which may be of interest to a collector
  or researcher interested in Canadian numismatics.

  If you think that you would be interested in purchasing a copy
  please let me know as quickly as possible.  My email address is
  canbiblio@julaine.ca

  Please copy your email to ragreene@telus.net and
  gbel@nb.sympatico.ca.  Obviously the more people that are
  interested the cheaper we can produce the copies.

  Even if you have assisted us in the past and expressed an
  interest verbally, I would appreciate an email so that we
  tabulate a rough count.  Again, I am not asking anyone to order
  now nor is this a commitment to purchase.  But, please do not
  email us if you would not be genuinely interested.

  If you think you know someone who would be interested
  please pass this  message on to them.  All we require is your
  full name and a brief message that you would be interested.

  I would like to thank those of you who have assisted us over
  the past eight and a half years and hope to hear from you."


DIGITAL HISTORIA NUMORUM

  E-Sylum readers might be interested in an online version of
  Barclay Head's "Historia Numorum" being created by Ed
  Snible.

  "The Historia Numorum, one of the greatest works on ancient
  Greek and Roman Provincial coins, has entered the public
  domain. In a very real sense you now own the book. Until
  now you've had no way to read it unless you were lucky
  enough to own a copy or your local library kept it.

  That's why I've created a project to put the HN on the
  internet. The project page is http://www.snible.org/coins/hn/.

  Over 200 pages of the HN have already been uploaded.
  However, these pages are incomplete. They contain many
  typos and OCR errors.  There are few hyperlinks.
  Converting scanned pages into text is hard work, especially
  if the text is full of pictures, tables, Greek, and monograms.
  It took over 20 hours to get the first 200 pages online, even
  in this rough state. I expect it will take much more to create
  a clean edition."


DIGITAL ARCHIVE

  In response to last week's item about the Library of Congress'
  plan to archive much of the Internet, Kavan Ratnatunga writes:
  "A 120 Terabyte archive of the Internet was put online in Oct
  2001 in the WayBack Machine. http://www.archive.org/ .
  It archives with a delay of about 6 months.  Google maintains a
  cache of the current Internet, and archives with a delay of about
  1 month. In a recent talk at CMU I was told Google operates
  with with a system of 15000 computers with 2000 Terabyte of
  storage. So anything put online with simple HTML not hidden
  behind database queries will probably be preserved. Personal
  disk files are a different story.  So I suggest putting online
  anything worth preserving and sharing with others."


SHELDON'S PHOTO PROJECT

  David Fanning writes: "I was reading an article on the Atlantic
  Monthly online about Yale's "Sex Week," when, oddly enough,
  the author started talking about William Sheldon.

  [Sheldon is the author of "Early American Cents", the classic
  reference in the field.  His photo project has been discussed
  previously in The E-Sylum  (Volume 3, Number 47, November
  12, 2000, among other references) -Editor]

 Fanning goes on: "I knew about Sheldon's research, but I was
 interested in seeing how this person described it:

  "...But nudity does figure in another remarkable Yale scandal,
  one in which I was both exposed and exposer, so to speak,
  which took place a few blocks north of Skull and Bones, at
  the Payne Whitney Gymnasium.

  "This was 'The Great Ivy League Nude Posture-Photo Scandal.'
  Yale was not alone in being victimized by the posture-photo
  scandal: just about every Ivy League and Seven Sisters school
  from the 1930s to the 1960s was inveigled into allowing photos
  of nude or lingerie-clad freshmen to be taken and then
  transferred to the 'research archives' of a megalomaniac
  pseudo-scientist, W. H. Sheldon. Sheldon believed that the
  secret of all human character and fate could be reduced to a
  three-digit number derived from various 'postural relationships'
  (the photos were taken with metal pins affixed to the spine to
  define the arc of curvature). I was the reporter who discovered,
  in 1995, that all these nude photos of America's elite--tens of
  thousands of them, anyway--were available for viewing by
  'qualified researchers' in an obscure archive of the Smithsonian
  Institution.

  "I don't know if this can be classified as a sex scandal, exactly,
  but it demonstrates the tendency of a certain strain of academic
  to find a way to abstract from an actual body to a body of
  mathematical relationships--to pure number rather than impure
  flesh, if possible."

  You can read the entire article at:
  http://www.theatlantic.com/issues/2003/01/rosenbaum.htm

  You've got to watch those coin fellas, huh?"


MORE ON CHITS

  Bob Fritsch writes: "Chits were in nearly daily use in the Navy
  throughout my long career.  On the monetary side, we had
  pay chits so we could get paid every couple of weeks.  It was
  basically a voucher where the payee would fill in name, rank,
  serial number, and pay amount (read from a large list posted
  outside the disbursing office.)  Cash was paid out and any
  foreign exchange, depending on where we were at any given
  time, was done at the same time.

  Chits were also important for gaining permission to do
  something out of the daily routine.  Leave chits were most
  important for a sailor to get permission to go on leave and to
  have official documentation that he was in a leave status.
  Special request chits were used to gain myriad permissions,
  from reenlistment to getting off watch to getting married
  (yes, you had to get the Navy's permission to do that also!).
  These chits needed signatures from the entire chain of
  command, including supervisor, division chief, division officer,
  department head, and in many cases, executive officer and
  commanding officer.

  Supply chits were used to draw material from the supply
  system.  It was a fairly complicated process that entailed
  signatures from a person usually reluctant to spend the money
  even if the need was evident.  It would then go into the vast
  supply system where the requisitioned item would appear
  in the indeterminent future.

  These were the major types of chits I can remember, but I
  am sure there were many more."

  Bill Spengler writes: "As an old "South Asia hand" (seven
  years with the Foreign Service in Pakistan and many in and
  out of India) I have greatly enjoyed the discussion of the
  origin and meaning of the Anglo-Indian term "chit".  Permit
  me to add my own perspective on this common little term
  which originated in the Subcontinent in a slightly different
  form, was abbreviated and adapted by colonial visitors,
  and brought back to the homeland to enter the English
  language like so many other Indian words (of which
  thousands are listed in Webster):

  Mike Metras' experience with "chits" in Eritrea testifies to
  how far the term has traveled from India via the military.
  Ron Haller-Williams has provided interesting etymology
  and practical definitions of the word but only from
  secondary, English language sources.  Here is what the
  vernaculars say (vernaculars in the plural because the term is
  common to Hindi, Urdu, Punjabi and a host of other South
  Asian tongues though, as Ron notes, it can be traced back
  to Sanskrit.)

  My dictionary of the Hindi language (Bhargava's "Standard
  Illustrated Dictionary", Banaras 1946), with words rendered in
  the Devanagari script, records "chit" only as a feminine noun
  meaning "the soul, intuition, knowledge of God" -- but as
  "chiT" (with a terminal retroflex "t" formed by flipping the
  tongue from the rear of the roof of the mouth forward) it is a
  different noun connoting "a rag, a scrap, a chit (of paper), a
  slip, a note".  How's that for defining something in terms of
  itself!  The latter, however, is only an abbreviation for, even
  a slang version of, the standard word "chiTTHI" (with a
  double retroflex "t" and "th" followed by a long "i") defined
  as "a note, letter, favour, bilet, document, an order".  This,
  then, is unquestionably the root from which "chit" is derived.

  As for Urdu, according to John T. Platts' "A Dictionary of
  Urdu, Classical Hindi and English", OUP London 1974, the
  word "chit" in Perso-Arabic script (with a dot below the "t"
  to indicate retroflex) translates "a bit, piece, chip; a scrap, a
  rag", much as in Hindi. But Urdu's "chitthI" (with two retroflex
  "t's"), defined as "a letter, a note; a certificate, testimonial; a
  note of hand, promissory note, bill, draft; an order; a pass",
  is even closer to the meaning and use of the military "chit"
  which Mike and Ron have described.

  There are two amusing sources in English on "Anglo-Indian
  colloquial words and phrases".  The Glossary called "Hobson-
  Jobson" by Col. Henry Yule and A. C. Burnell, London
  1886, observes under "CHIT, CHITTY":

    "n. A letter or note; also a certificate given to a servant,
    or the like; a pass...[derivations from Hindi and Marathi]
    from Sanskrit "chitra" meaning 'marked'..."  There follow
    several examples of the word in actual historical context
    including, from 1829, "He wanted a 'chithee' or note,
    for this is the most note-writing country under heaven".

  Nigel B. Hankin's parody of "Hobson-Jobson", whimsically
  entitled "Hanklyn-Janklin", New Delhi 1992, has this under
  "CHIT/CHITTY":

         "n.  An anglicism from chitti, a letter; meaning an
    informal piece of paper serving as a cash memo, a memo-
    randum, a delivery note, etc.
         "To receive, or give, a good (or bad) chit: a reference
    to a written commendation (or censure), or a favourable
    (or unfavourable) report.  A clean chit: the equivalent of
    an unblemished report."

  Like others, I used the term "chit" routinely in the Subcontinent
  from the 50s up to now, for such purposes as letters of
  reference for household servants (they were always called
  "chits"), social notes, receipts for purchases or things left for
  repair (alternatively known by the English loanword "rah-seeds")
  and, of course, running tabs at the club bar.  Vicariously, the
  term sometimes raised eyebrows when mistaken in conversation
  for its vulgar near-homonym."


GLEANINGS FROM "NUMISMATIST"

  The 2nd issue of the new-format "Numismatist" (February,
  2003)  has hit the streets, the the American Numismatic
  Association's monthly publication has a number of items of
  interest to bibliophiles and researchers.  Here are a few that
  caught your Editor's eye:

  Listed in Nancy Green's "ANA Library Additions" column is
  a book I wasn't aware of:  "The Norris, Gregg and Norris
  Coin and the Gold Rush of '49" by George Hull, Published by
  Ye Galleon Press.   No publication date is given, but
  Amazon shows it as May, 2002.   Can any of our readers
  tell us more about the book or where to order a copy?

  David Sklow's "Historian's Diary" column discusses "The
  Mystery of the January 1894 Cover," an imprint variant of
  The Numismatist.  One example of the cover bears the
  imprint of "Detroit Free Press," while all other examples
  show ""'Press' Steam Ptg Co., Waterloo, Indiana."  Dave
  wrote:  "..I did contact the Detroit Free Press and asked
  if they had any records from 1894.  When he stopped
  laughing, a staff member informed me that the company's
  bookkeeping did not extend quite that far back.  If any
  reader has a January 1894 issue of The Numismatist,
  please examine the front cover to see what company is
  listed as the printer and let me know what you find."
  Dave's email address is sdsklow@aol.com.
  [My bound set unfortunately does not include the covers
  for the 1894 volume.  -Editor]

  Under "Association News & Notes" is an announcement
  of the 2003 "Outstanding Club Publications Awards."
  See http://www.money.org/clubpub.html.
  "Publications must have been issued on a regular basis---
  monthly, quarterly or otherwise.  The competition is divided
  into three categories: Specialty Clubs, Regional Clubs and
  Local Clubs."

  Michael E. Marotta's "Internet Connections" column
  referenced Bruce Morelan's web pages with background
  information on the U.S. Trade Dollar:
  http://www.tradedollarnut.com/Home%20Page/Introduction.htm

  [Call me goofy, but I tend to read many publications
  from back to front - often the best little tidbits are found
  far in the back, like the footnotes to corporate financial
  statements...

  Anyway, great job on the issue - it looks super.   You
  know,  I was one of several bibliophiles who complained
  about a proposed format change prior to the 100th volume
  of The Numismatist, preferring that any such change wait until
  the 101st volume began.  The change was delayed, but the
  101st volume came and went with no format change.  Now
  that the transition has finally been made, I'll go on record
  agreeing that the change indeed allows for many
  improvements in readability and presentation.  -Editor]


CEYLON RIX DOLLAR REPLICA INFO SOUGHT

  Kavan Ratnatunga writes: "I am researching a Gold gilt,
  oversize, high grade replica of the 1821 Ceylon Rix Dollar
  I won on eBay today -- it is claimed to have been struck by
  the British Royal Mint in the late 1960's.  I have made a web
  page for it.  Could someone on The E-sylum help identify it?
  http://serendib.org/coins/fantasy/1821_ceylon_medal.html"


CD ON DIME-SIZE COINS

  E-Sylum subscriber Gary Lewis writes: "Roger deWadt Lane
  of Hollywood, Florida has recently put out a CD called
  "Modern Dime Size Silver Coins of the World".  Enjoy your
  trip around the World viewing some of the coins during the
  over 150 years from Queen Victoria to Netherlands Antilles
  in 1970 which ends this series of Silver Coins.  You can get
  more information about this new CD from Roger Lane at PO
  Box 81-3732, Hollywood, Fl 33081-3732 or on his cell phone
  at  954-557-8946."


KITTANNING MEDAL DOCUMENTS

  While looking up other things I came across some original
  documents relating to the Kittanning medal, in web pages
  on the history of Armstrong County, PA.  It is thought to
  be the earliest American medal.  The following background
  information comes from the Harry Bass collection web site:

  "Kittanning was an Indian village on the banks of the Allegheny
  River, located 45 miles from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, which
  was burned during the French and Indian War.  According to
  Betts, each of the commissioned British officers involved in
  the affair was awarded one of these medals struck in silver.
  Edward Duffield, a Philadelphia watchmaker, is credited with
  having prepared these dies.., which have survived and are
  housed at the Philadelphia Mint, according to Betts."

  The following text is excerpted from the "Historical Sketch of
  Armstrong County."   See the web page for more information.
  http://www.pa-roots.com/~armstrong/smithproject/history/chap1b.html

  "Description of the medal sent to Col. Armstrong:

  Occasion.  In honor of the late Col. Armstrong, of Carlisle,
  Pennsylvania, for destroying Kittanning Indian towns.

  Device. An officer followed by two soldiers; the officer
  pointing to a soldier shooting from behind a tree and an Indian
  prostrate before him. In the background Indian houses are seen
  in flames.

  Legend.  Kittanning destroyed by Col. Armstrong, September,
  1756.

  Reverse Device. The arms of the corporation of Philadelphia,
  consisting of four devices: On the right a ship under full sail; on
  the left a pair of scales equally balanced;  in the right, above the
  ship, a wheat sheaf; on the left, two hands locked.

  Legend.  The gift of the corporation of the city of Philadelphia."

  To Col. John Armstrong:

  Sir:  The corporation of the city of Philadelphia greatly approve
  your conduct and public spirit in the late expedition against the
  town of Kittanning, and are highly pleased with the signal proofs
  of courage and personal bravery given by you and the officers
  under your command in demolishing that place. I am, therefore,
  ordered to return you and them the thanks of the Board for the
  eminent service you have thereby done your country.  I am also
  ordered by the corporation to present you, out of their small
  public stock, with a piece of plate and silver medal, and each of
  your officers with a medal and a small sum of money, to be
  disposed of in a manner most agreeable to them; which the
  Board desire you will accept as a testimony of the regard they
  have for your merit. Signed by order,

  January 5, 1757. ATWOOD SHUTE, Mayor."

  A 1963 presentation by Dr. R. J. Hudson to the Western
  Pennsylvania Numismatic Society is also available on the web at:
  http://www.coinlibrary.com/wpns/club_wpns_pr_kittanning.htm


ARTICLE: CURATORS BUYING ONLINE

  A February 18th Associated Press article noted that museum
  curators are making the most of the Internet as a way to locate
  difficult-to-find items to fill out their collections.

  "Forget musty, dusty museum storerooms. Curators nowadays
   are digital archeologists, digging deep into the Internet for a
  touch of humanity to warm the cold slate of history.

  Using online auction searches, Bruce Johnson, a buyer for the
  Indiana Historical Society, found love letters written nearly
  100 years ago between an Indiana farmer and his girlfriend.
  He also uncovered photographs of Confederate prisoners of
  war at a camp in Indianapolis.

  "The thing that always amazes me is that this is the only way
  that I could have possibly found these particular kinds of items,"
  Johnson said.

  "There is a person in the world who is collecting just about
  anything you can think of," Endelman said. "It's just the trick
  of finding it."

  http://apnews.excite.com/article/20030218/D7P907U00.html


FEATURED WEB PAGE

  This week's featured web page is from The Newton Project,
  an online compilation of Isaac Newton's manuscripts.  The page
  lists "Overseas Mints and Coinage Mint Papers, The Public
  Record Office, Kew."   Sample record:

  "18 August 1698.  Mint to Treasury. Clerical hand.  Firm
  rejection of a proposal to erect a Mint for silver coinage in
  Dublin.  Ireland 'is and ought to be inferior to this Kingdom,
  and subservient to it's interests'. Such a measure would be
  to the advantage of Irish and detriment of British trade, and
  might ultimately lead to Irish secession."

     http://www.newtonproject.ic.ac.uk/catalogue/C01-08.htm



  Wayne Homren
  Numismatic Bibliomania Society