A second edition of the 1986 classic The Neighborhood Mint: Dahlonega in the Age of Jackson has been produced by Al Adams at Gold Rush Gallery, Inc. The new edition of the work by Sylvia Gailey Head and Elizabeth W. Etheridge includes new color photographs of coins produced at the Dahlonega Mint and the recently discovered photograph of the Dahlonega Mint.

The mint never served the purpose for which it was created. Although it coined more than $6 million in gold in its twenty-three year history, this was hardly enough to alleviate the nation's chronic shortage of coins... Gold rarely circulated in the area. It was much too valuable for that. The gold produced at the mint disappeared from the community almost as soon as it was issued. The people of Dahlonega used silver coins when they could get them, but most of the time they had only shinplasters, paper bank notes of uncertain value...

The Dahlonega Branch Mint cost far more to run than its meager production of gold coins warranted. It survived for almost a quarter century not because it was efficient or served any really useful purpose but because it was politically popular.

The Byers book is first and foremost a picture book, but what pictures! These are indeed spectacular error coins, all wonderfully photographed. Numismatic information is not forgotten, though - each chapter has a brief but accurate description of how each type of error is created. Each photographed coin is accompanied by a paragraph of information.

The coin images look great on my computer screen, but I'll be curious to see how actually they look in print. As we've seen with other recently published coin books, the quality of the actual printed images can vary a great deal.

In summary, I enjoyed Byers' book and think both casual and advanced numismatists will enjoy it and learn a few things about errors and the minting process.

Whitman Publishing's Guide Book of United States Coins (by R.S. Yeoman, edited by Kenneth Bressett, now in its 63rd edition) is available for the first time in a large-print format. The new option measures 8.5 x 11 inches, with a glossy softcover and spiral binding.

"The new Large Print Edition Red Book is 45% larger than the regular edition," said Whitman publisher Dennis Tucker. "It has bold, easy-to-read print, and every photograph is enlarged in high detail. The book includes all the content of the regular edition¡ªevery price, mintage, and specification, and all the historical background text."

I haven't seen a copy of this edition yet, but it sounds like a great idea. My own eyes aren't what they used to be, and bigger print is always better. I'm glad to know that the images are larger in this edition, too. I wonder if this is what the size of the book would have been anyway if the publisher hadn't kept with the original page size while year after year cramming more and more great information into the annual guide. -Editor

A Harvard Library copy of Dye's Coin Encyclopedia of 1883 has been digitized by Google, but they stop at page 1127 in the middle of the quarter dollar section, at least that is where my computer stopped downloading after about 47 megs in PDF. This is an impressive work published posthumously, which must have been started back in the 1860s.

The rise of money in world cultures at the beginning is really great and the detail in the colonial section rivals recent scholarly publications regarding 1749 half pence of the H.M.S. Dolphin, the various Machin's Mills including how the press became ballast on the ship Newburgh, and street addresses of the colonial mints.

Was this the first compilation of such information or does it rest on the laurels of earlier numismatic research? The back half surveys modern world coins circa 1880 and for fifty years prior, which I know was already investigated and reported by folks at the Mint on a periodic basis, such as the extended report of 1827 and subsequent years. Steel engravings of the mint buildings including Charlotte and Dahlonega also appear in back.

What information was first published in this Encyclopedia? Does anyone have the back few pages with the bibliography?

I knew Larry Stevens casually and had him photograph the Indian Head Double Eagle and the Amazonian Gold pattern set when I purchased them in 1979. Fine fellow, excellent photographer!! I hope that he did not suffer in the end.

Several subscribers have come forth to offer their assistance in providing me with some of the auction catalogs and other numismatic literature for my Carson City coin research projects. I just wanted to express my appreciation for their efforts and for you posting my "want list" on The E-Sylum.

On another note, I have attached a press release about the Carson City coin symposium that our club (Carson City Coin Collectors of America) is sponsoring at this year's ANA World's Fair of Money in Los Angeles. I realize that there's a conflict schedule with the C4OA symposium and the NBS meeting, but I thought your subscribers might want to hear about our symposium anyway.

I hope Lou got to see the other side where the mint mark might be. The first two date digits are 16 ruling out 1700 or later. Six pence are small and thin and this one has a good century of wear such that I think it was deposited in the bank of Mother Earth closer to the War of 1812, making it not the earliest coin to hit the sod in old Cape Cod.

Pound/shillings/pence continued in use as money of account in New England to about 1835. It was not cricket to export gold and silver coin of the realm in large quantities for commercial purposes, but in service to His Majesty, it could and did walk away in small amounts with soldiers and sailors. Such coins were seen in America and Canada but did not dominate daily commerce with a preponderance of numbers.

Back in January the owner of the item e-mailed me stating he had a Plantations Token in pewter and asked me to confirm his attribution. I identified the item as a William III sixpence from his photos and asked if it was silver or pewter, since pewter specimens were counterfeits but have been found in America and in England. The reply was that after further analysis it was determined that the coin was silver.

Apparently the local historian was asked about the find. Much of what he says is incorrect. In fact, I recently wrote a long article in the St. Patrick's COAC volume discussing all of the coins in circulation in British America from the earliest settlements to ca. 1660 (just before the St. Pat's arrived in NJ) and several English coins were included in the documents and have been recovered in controlled archaeological digs.

So, to some degree English coinage was found in America, and during the first half of the 18th century William III silver did circulate (both regal and counterfeit). It certainly was not as common as Spanish-American silver but it would not be unknown by any means! By the way, that specific coin could have been deposited at any point during the 18th century (or possibly even later!).

1759 edition of Father Abraham's Almanack by Abraham Weatherwise of Philadelphia lists the English sixpence coin (6d) as one of the items that circulate. And obviously, the table was limited to coins that would turn up with some frequency.