I received the specially bound presentation copy of the Asylum 25-Volume Index today. It made quite a regal gift and was a major surprise! The Harcourt Bindery did a great job from the impressive hard cover to the beautiful marbled endpapers. It reminded me of Forrest Daniel's article, "Paper Marbling in Numismatics." (This certainly is the best example of marbled paper that I own.)

I am most appreciative of this gift and the thought behind it and extend my gratitude to all those concerned with its production.

"Having collected Confederate currency for 50 plus years while relying on the Criswell books, I was thrilled when Pierre Fricke brought out his monumental CSA work in 2005 and now I am just as pleased with his latest 2008 field edition. By carrying this important new book with me to any show or auction, I will have all the information that I require for any collecting decision. Well done, Pierre."

A Collector's Guide to the 1907 Jamestown Exposition, Virginia's only worlds fair!

Hundreds of 1907 Jamestown Exposition items described, pictured in color and valued, with many additional useful tips and features for collectors and dealers, from a veteran collector/dealer in exposition memorabilia. Also includes listings for collectibles from the 1957 Jamestown Festival.

Emperors and assassins, owls and turtles, gods and goddesses, brave heroes and villainous rogues--all of these and more await you among the 100 Greatest Ancient Coins. In this beautifully illustrated book, Harlan J. Berk, one of America's best-known ancient-coin dealers, takes you on a personal guided tour of the numismatic antiquities of Greece, Rome, the Byzantine Empire, and other parts of the ancient world. Coffee-table-size, 144 pages, full color, with enlarged photographs and stories for every coin.

Thanks are also due to the members of my advisory committee, who helped me to pick the candidate coins for the voting. They are Rob Freeman, Frank Kovacs, Victor England, Arturo Russo, Alan Walker, and Simon Bendall. If you can think of another 100 coins that could have been in this book, I am with you all the way, but we aren't rewriting the British Museum Catalog.

My last words are these: learn as much as you can about the area of ancient coins you plan to collect, and have a strong relationship with a very good dealer of your choosing whom you are constantly testing. As a dealer who has been in the business for more than 40 years, I can tell you that a really focused collector will know as much as, and sometimes more than, a very good dealer in the collector's chosen area of specialization.

Im finally getting caught up from my travels of a very busy summer. I picked up two copies of George Selgins book Good Money from Scott & Lisa Loos at the ANA Convention and am in the process of reading it. I can tell you it is not a boring tome on economics but rather a ticket back in time to visit the period of the Industrial Revolution. We take for granted the availability of a steady source of currency to fuel our economy; some would say we have too much fuel.

As a Conder Token dealer and collector this book really makes these lovely bits of copper come alive from their birth till now. In view of how many tokens were produced, we can thank the likes of Boulton, Watt, and Wilkinson to name a few for some of the best coins, oops, tokens ever produced.

I have not as yet completed the book which has already given a lot of itself. Thanks, George Selgin for your hard work in making it a lovely read.

George Selgin sent me a copy of Good Money. It is simply a marvelous read. I'd recommend it to anyone!

Im another of those in the crowd to watch you receive your well deserved Burnett Anderson Memorial Award for the ANA. I was a back bencher way back at table number 27. There were a lot of folks standing and applauding your work. Thanks for doing what you do.

Walt Ostromecki is a current ANA Governor re-elected last year. Im sure he would be very sad to hear that he had been again taken off the board.

An era has come to an end. C.M. "Niel" Nielsen of Salt Lake City, UT, died peacefully the evening of Aug. 10, in his sleep at the age of 86. He was the world's foremost scholar in the area of Philippine guerrilla currency, having amassed a marvelous reference collection and literally thousands of selected duplicates as he researched these notes. Collectors may remember him from his attendance at earlier Memphis paper money shows, where he would sit in the bar all day long while individuals, including yours truly, would come up to him and discuss various things.

As a member of the merchant marine Niel was able to visit the Philippines at least 30 times. During those visits he accomplished some great research from first-hand sources on all aspects of the complex issues of guerrilla currency during World War II. I had heard of him before my 1974 book was to be published, and we had some correspondence about several specific items before publication, but his schedule did not allow for any substantive contact until much later, long after the book came out. At first he was quite critical of the book, but later on we became good friends and his criticism became a lot less strident. I found his information to be without parallel in the field, and I asked him to provide the data that has appeared for a while in the Philippine section of the Standard Catalog Specialized Issues (Vol. I).

He had much more information, especially on local issues, but since I was not actively working on the subject I did not pursue it with any degree of intensity.

I mentioned Ray Czahor earlier. He went to Salt Lake City this year and negotiated the purchase of Niel's entire holding of guerrilla currency, including all reference pieces and boxes of duplicates. I had the distinct pleasure of being able to see it all just after the ANA convention in Baltimore, and there are some really great and important pieces in this holding.

Ray and I went through it all, and we decided that in fact there was enough unpublished material at hand that we would like to try and update my 1974 publication if possible. It will be a long and slow process and we will keep you informed as to our progress from time to time.

I was sad to read Neil Shafers report of the death of C.M. Niel Nielsen. Niel was many things. To me the most important was that he was a GREAT collector. He was also a great researcher, possibly the greatest. In addition to the great research that Neil Shafer described C.M. doing in the Philippines, C. M. did great research in Washington and other places. Much of the research that he did in Washington was at the National Archives. I believe that many of the documents that he reviewed (and in many cases copied there) have not seen light since C.M. looked at them.

Unfortunately, CM was also secretive about most of the research. He intended to publish his results, but the years stretched to decades and now the fruit of most of his work is lost. It is great that Neil and Ray will be able to glean information from CMs collection.

Neil mentioned that CM was a merchant seaman. If you look in the early Toy books in the 1960s, you will see that A Seaman was a contributor. I did not learn for many years that A. Seaman was C. M. Nielsen.

The opening sentence, "The Lydians minted the first coins in 10 BC " is incorrect. I believe Lydian Lions were produced around 600 BC. 10 BC would be right around the date of the first coin toss. I know this because I've got the very first coin that was used and it's dated 10 BC.

The link below may be of some interest. Note the section labeled "Coin Flipping" and then to the Acknowledgements page for Help with Coin Pictures. http://www.random.org/

In the course of developing a database of error half cents, Ive discovered a statistical anomaly for the year 1825. There appear to be far too many error 1825s, and the errors are of types that involve the feeding and ejection mechanisms for the presses. This could result from a number of things. The Mint hadnt coined any half cents for 14 years, and the machinery might have needed to be recalibrated, they might have installed or been testing new equipment, those responsible for culling out the mistakes might have been asleep at the switch, etc.

Does anyone know of a similar high proportion of errors for other series in 1825? Or, does anyone know of any mechanical or personnel issue(s) that might explain my findings? Please email responses to me at halfcent@mac.com. Thanks for any assistance you can provide.

"Artistic Illustrations" compares hand drawn picture illustrations in numismatic books to the actual coin that the illustration is meant to portray. When an artist creates a coin illustration by hand the opportunity for individual expression presents itself. Obciously some illustrations are better than others. Since the exhibit is about numismatic books, I have selected just one illustration from each book. The actual coin in the illustration is exhibited. How dies it compare? Did the artist do the coin justice or perhaps even improve it? Look them over and see for yourself.

Hensler and Frey were two nineteenth Century Swiss authors. Hennseler's catalogs on the works of Swiss sculptor Antoine Bovy made many references to Frey's work, a goldmine of useful numismatic information. This is the story of these two books.

This group of historical and commemorative medals, commonly called The City of London Medals, constitutes a series struck by the Corporation of London to celebrate the accomplishment of their most notable public works, or to commemorate events of national and civic importance. The medals were issued from 1831 to the present time. Most of the City of London medals were struck in numbers between 350 and 450. In general, the medals are considered to be among the finest works of medallic art of the 19th century, as they were executed by some of the most accomplished medalists of the period.

Regarding the Bank of England and the coin shortage of 1797, one wag wrote: The bank to make their dollars pass stamped the head of a fool on the neck of an ass. Others remarked: Here are two kings together not worth a crown. Spanish milled dollars of Charles III and Charles IV with the diminutive George III oval punch were to pass for 4 shillings, 9 pence, or three pence short of an English Crown.



The George III punch, in use since 1784, is reminiscent of the London Goldsmiths duty mark used on jewelry and plate to denote a fee per ounce of precious metal had been paid the Inland Revenue. Goldsmiths presides over the elaborate Trial of the Pyx to certify to a jury coinage of the realm has proper gold and silver content. It makes sense that they would apply the mark. Besides dollars, this mark is scarce on Spanish half dollars and rare on smaller denominations.

By 1804 the countermarked dollars were being counterfeited, and the George III punch is said to have been used in more modern times to make fantasy pieces for collectors. Regarding this one shilling, two pence, farthing piece do any readers know how to tell the genuine from the fantasy?

A Civil War relic hunter who was killed in an explosion in February had been cleaning a cannonball when a spark ignited black powder, a federal investigation concluded yesterday.

Sam White, 53, was working on the nine-inch naval cannonball in the driveway of his home with a wire-brush grinder, which ignited the internal powder, exploding the shell, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives said. No other injuries were reported in the Feb. 18 explosion.

The explosion sent a one- to two-pound section of the shell hurtling from the Chester subdivision where White lived and through the roof of a house a quarter-mile away.

White, a respected, widely known member of the Civil War relic hunting community, was using the grinder to clean residue from the shell, which dated to the 1850s or 1860s.

"The Cleveland Plain Dealer had this update on the Jackson Ohio firm sorting cents in anticipation of melting them for metal content. (Last E-Sylum story: vol 10, no 45, art 20)."

What happens if you take the front of one animal and attach it to the back of another? Maybe mix in parts of some more? Some odd-looking creatures can be found in the art of more than one ancient culture, right back to the 7th century BCE. The Greeks were pretty good at this sort of mixture, and quite a few appeared on Greek and Roman coins.