Volume 11, Number 27, July 6, 2008

• WAYNE'S WORDS: THE E-SYLUM JULY 6, 2008
• CUMULATIVE INDEX TO THE ASYLUM, 1980-2007
• UPDATE: 100 GREATEST WORKS OF AMERICAN NUMISMATIC LITERATURE
• REVIEW: NATIONAL COMMEMORATIVE MEDALS OF THE UNITED STATES
• AUTHOR'S UPDATE ON "EARLY UNITED STATES QUARTERS 1796 - 1838"
• NEW BOOK: GUIDE BOOK OF UNITED STATES PAPER MONEY, 2ND EDITION
• AUGSBURGER'S "TREASURE IN THE CELLAR" BOOK AVAILABLE IN THREE FORMATS
• GUIDE BOOK OF SOUTHERN STATES CURRENCY WINS SPMC BOOK AWARD
• WIZARD SUPPLY TO DISTRIBUTE RENAISSANCE OF AMERICAN COINAGE BOOKS
• J. ROY PENNELL, JR. 1924-2008
• AUGUST 2008 ISSUE OF THE COLONIAL NEWSLETTER PUBLISHED
• LATEST PAPER MONEY HIGHLIGHTS RECENT SCHOLARSHIP
• ARTICLE EXPLORES ORIGINS OF FRANKLIN, WASHINGTON AND HUME MEDALS
• QUERY: FREEZING WATER-DAMAGED BOOKS
• MORE ON THE JAMESTOWN, N.D. DOLLAR AND OTHER TERRITORIAL PIECES
• MORE ON THE MUSEUM / COLLECTOR DEBATE
• QUERY: SCRANTON, PA LINCOLN MONUMENT MEDAL SOUGHT
• QUERY: NUMBER OF PLATES IN THE NEWCOMB DELUXE LEATHER EDITION
• MARKETING COMPANY REPRODUCES $100 UNION COIN DESIGN IN SILVER
• TV'S "HISTORY DETECTIVES" EXAMINE COIN SHOT BY ANNIE OAKLEY
• GARRETT 1854 KELLOGG $20 PROOF TO BE DISPLAYED AT BALTIMORE ANA
• UNDER PRESSURE, GERMAN FIRM STOPS BANKNOTE PAPER SALE TO ZIMBABWE
• ROBERT LEUVER ON SECRET BANKNOTE PRINTING OPERATIONS
• BULLET CLUBS: ANOTHER THEORY ON THE ORIGIN OF MILITARY CHALLENGE COINS
• PERFECT CRIME? WHEN IS A FAKE BANKNOTE NOT A FAKE?
• POEM: BOOKS TO THE CEILING BY ARNOLD LOBEL
• FEATURED WEB PAGE: COLD WAR AND INSURGENCY PROPAGANDA BANKNOTES

I've received sixty or so ballots and have about half of them tallied up. All the data is in an Excel spreadsheet so we'll be able to analyze it in different ways. Many of the usual suspects are towards the top of the list. Preliminary results will be available at the American Numismatic Association convention, and the top 100 will be published in a future edition of The Asylum. It's not too late to vote and I will accept ballots until July 15. Also, we will accept ballots with less than 100 entries.

Dick Johnson submitted the following review of William Swoger's new book, National Commemorative Medals of the United States of America Since 1873.

I just wanted to say thank you to all the E-Sylum readers who have already sent payment for the pre-publication offering of my new book, Early United States Quarters 1796 - 1838. The printed signatures should be at the binders this week, with hopefully a small quantity of the finished books being available at the upcoming ANA convention. I also wanted to remind anyone who has been procrastinating in placing their order (and you know who you are!), that after July 15 the price will be raised to the cover price of $89.00 plus postage. Any order postmarked by the 15th of July will be taken at the pre-publication price of $79.00 delivered. Please send all payments to the address listed below: Steve Tompkins
P.O. Box 1946
Sequim, WA 98382

Dennis Tucker of Whitman Publishing forwarded an article from the Whitman Review about one of the latest titles of U.S. paper money. -Editor

Len Augsburger forwarded the following information about his new book. -Editor

The deluxe half leather is pictured above - it looks gorgeous. I bought the regular hardcover version and was very impressed with the format. Printed on archival paper with a beautiful glossy dustjacket, it's a first-class production published by the Maryland Historical Society. -Editor

Dennis Tucker of Whitman Publishing forwarded this announcement about SPMC's Book of the Year award. Congratulations! -Editor

Roger Burdette forwarded the following press release describing a new arrangement with Wayne Herndon's Wizard Coin Supply to distribute Roger's Renaissance of American Coinage books.

John and Nancy Wilson submitted the following note on dealer and author Roy Pennell, Jr, who passed away June 17. -Editor

The Pennell counterfeit detector reprints were made in 1977 and bound in green cloth. They are:

• Gwynne & Day, Descriptive Register of Genuine Bank Notes, 1862
• Hodges, Edward, Hodges' American Bank Note Safeguard

Click on the Title page below, then click "All Sizes" to see a larger image. Look closely and you'll see a note that the original from which the reprint was made was in the Eric P. Newman numismatic library.

Editor Gary Trudgen forwarded this note about the latest issue of The Colonial Newsletter. -Editor

THE BOOK BAZARRE

DAVID SKLOW - FINE NUMISMATIC BOOKS now accepting consignments for our October 4th mail bid auction. Consignments in hand include De Knight's History of the Currency. numismaticbooks@aol.com (719) 302-5686, visit our web site www.finenumismaticbooks.com DAVID F. FANNING NUMISMATIC LITERATURE offers fixed price lists on our Web site at www.fanningbooks.com. In stock: Numismatics in the Age of Grolier by Cunnally, Kagan and Scher. 2001. 8vo., card covers. New. $25 postpaid dfanning@columbus.rr.com

Can someone elaborate on the process of freezing water-damaged books then "drying them in a controlled environment"? There must be more to the process than this.

I haven't had to deal with masses of wet (as opposed to just damp) books, so haven't personally experienced freeze-drying and its results, but I checked the American Institute for Conservation's website, and under their "Caring for your Treasures=> Books," found a fairly straightforward section on freeze drying when I scrolled down to "Emergencies and Minor Disasters": http://aic.stanford.edu/library/online/brochures/books.html Another part of the website had an article by Mary Lou Florian on the need to prevent cross contamination when dealing with wet, moldy objects, which is important to note: it's not as easy as one might think to deal with this stuff.

http://aic.stanford.edu/jaic/articles/jaic39-01-008_4.html

The engraved Morgan dollar discussed last week prompted Alan Weinberg to submit the following. -Editor

I just happened upon your webpage about the tendency of rare items in museum collections to "walk": MUSEUM / COLLECTOR DEBATE RAGES (http://www.coinbooks.org/esylum_v05n46a15.html)

I was an antiquarian book dealer for fifteen years and was initially scandalized by librarians casually selling donated collections of rare material at pennies on the dollar to raise funds for popular fiction, until I realized this syndrome is the rule everywhere, at every level of value.

Unlike most of my colleagues, I could never bring myself to cultivate librarians and volunteers at book sales to take advantage of it. But, I came to understand that it is always going to come with the territory, given the job mobility of librarians and curators, and the fact that the items entrusted to their care, like the neglected property of the "state" in the old soviet block, do not really belong to any one person.

I used to advise collectors who wanted to bequeath their life's efforts to an institution to have their attorneys write an iron clad contract specifying care and feeding of their collections, and endowing a fund to do so, but as you point out, even that will not protect items in a vault from thieves when the new guardian is unknowledgeable, incompetent, or simply does not care.

I think now that giving the collection to an institution is often worse than leaving it to an irresponsible son in law. It is better than hearing the ephemera has all been hauled off to the dump, which I have encountered more frequently than I care to think about.

At least when the son in law sells it off to dealers, it goes back into the collector community, who are the people who care most about preserving it. I now advise collectors to leave their collections to their biggest rival, along with an iron clad contract that he lend it to an institution.

Dick Johnson submitted this query. Is anyone aware of a medal documenting the erection of a now-missing Lincoln monument? -Editor

How many photographic plates should be in the book United States Copper Cents 1816-1857 by Howard Newcomb (Deluxe Leather Edition on Heavy Paper)? I have a copy of the book with 11 plates that end with 1843 - is this copy missing some plates? Thank you very much.

I work at the NNC with Dick and wanted to follow-up with you regarding the $100 Union souvenir. The Smithsonian does co-produce this item with the New York Mint. We worked closely with them to develop the product including packing, storyline and the quality of the item. The NNC receives a portion of the proceeds. As you know, all of the exhibitions, programs and websites we develop must be funded through private means. Revenue from the sale of this product means we have financial help to build a new exhibit --opening here at the American History Museum in Spring 2009.

On occasion the television show "History Detectives" touches on the subject of numismatics. An episode thia week featured an unusual coin, said to be shot by sharpshooter Annie Oakley. Did anyone see the show? -Editor

The only thing I've ever seen quite like this is in the collection of the Carnegie Museum in Pittsburgh. It's an 1878 Robert Lovett medal struck by the Western Pennsylvania Numismatic Society; it was shot by a sharpshooter at the Pittsburgh Exposition of that year. -Editor

The American Numismatic Association publicity machine is in high gear for the upcoming Baltimore convention. A number of publications across the country picked up the story of one of the marquee coins to be exhibited. -Editor.

In Sunday's Baltimore Sun (June 29th) there was an article by a Sun reporter on the Kellogg 1853 $20 proof from the Garrett collection. It's owned by Contursi, and he values it at $3 million -- I think a bit extreme. It will be displayed at Baltimore ANA convention (times and dates given in article)-- in a special five foot cabinet made to resemble the coin cabinets at the U.S. Mint in the nineteenth century, Good public relations!!

Last we discussed the German banknote firm that was being criticized for supplying banknote paper to the regime of Robert Mugabe in Zimbabwe, where mind-boggling inflation has reduced the population to desperate poverty. On Tuesday the Wall Street Journal and other publications put a spotlight on the firm, which announced that it was giving in to the pressure and halting its shipments of banknote paper to the country.

The indignation reached London as well. The firm is also the maker of the card used by millions of public transport riders.

When I was with the BEP from 1979 to 1988, I was privy to many banknote printers that printed paper currency for beleaguered countries. Hey, I like the word "beleaguered," that has to stand for shunned countries. Government, quasi-government and commercial printers often printed banknotes for countries not in the good graces of the U.N. or the United States.

As I traveled to foreign countries I was often invited to visit their banknote printing operations. At times I would see a roped-off area where a tarp of some sorts would cover the half-finished or finished product. As I was trained by BEP printers, I could actually look at the rapidly turning press and actually see what was being printed. I often spied such banknotes. We all knew that the banknotes had to come from somewhere.

I remember that savant of western banknote history, Ed Rochette, regaling me about the war with Mexico c 1915. The U.S. forces allowed a train from Mexico to travel from El Paso to Pueblo, CO, to pick up an order of Mexican banknotes from a banknote printer located there.

It actually was a couple of BEP offset printers that taught me the art of focusing on a stamp whirling by. They did this to check registration. Try that on a slot machine!

An E-Sylum reader forwarded this article about Challenge Coins from a U.S. Marines Okinawa site. The article reviews some of the stories behind the origin of the "coins". One I hadn't heard before involves "bullet clubs". Have any of our readers been involved with one of these clubs?

An E-Sylum reader forwarded the following link to a related article on the Chattanooga Police Chief's Challenge Coin. -Editor

The Independent of London published an article this week detailing a South American scam involving counterfeit banknotes with an interesting twist. -Editor

David Klinger forwarded the following quotation, which should ring true to every bibliophile -Editor

Propaganda becomes extremely important at a time when there is no actual combat by arms. It allows one side to attack the philosophy and beliefs of another, usually at no risk of escalation. For this reason, many millions of leaflets were prepared and disseminated on both sides of the "Iron Curtain", that imaginary wall that divides Europe into East and West and was first mentioned by Winston Churchill in his Westminster College speech of 5 March 1946.

As in many propaganda battles whether political or revolutionary, leaflets in the form of banknotes were produced by both sides. Propaganda leaflets may be avoided by patriotic or frightened citizens of a target country, but anyone will pick up a banknote on the street. That has always been the perfect way to pass insidious propaganda to an unwary reader. The Americans, British, Germans and Russians all used this technique in WWII. Half a decade later in the Korean War the United States once again prepared banknote leaflets.

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