The E-Sylum:  Volume 6, Number 39, September 28, 2003, Article 5

R. C. BELL AND SAMUEL'S BAZAAR, EXCHANGE AND MART

   Harold Welch writes: "In the Sept. 22, 2003 edition of the
   E-Sylum, Alan Davisson sites R. C. Bell's plagiarism of R. T.
   Samuel in his series of six British token books.  While there is
   certainly truth to the charge, let's not too harshly condemn Bell.
   In his first work, Commercial Coins, Bell identifies Samuel and
   describes his series of articles in The Bazaar, Exchange and
   Mart.  In appendix II of the book he provides a four-page
   biography of Samuel.   Until the publication of Commercial
   Coins no one even knew the identity of the author of the Bazaar
   articles

   (I have written an in-depth piece describing prior efforts to
   identify the author and how Bell eventually discovered his
   identity - which will appear in the fall, 2003 issue of The
   Conder Token Collector's Club Journal).

   If it were not for Bell bringing Samuel and the Bazaar articles
   to light, they would remain unknown to all but a very few
   extremely advanced token collectors.  In the indexes to his
   six works, Samuel is cited 36 times, and in all six bibliographies.
   In addition, he provides additional biographies of Samuel in
   volumes two and three.  These are not the actions of a
   plagiarist, but merely indicate a lapse in rigid attribution.  We
   should be grateful to Dr. Bell for bringing Samuel to our
   attention.  If it were not for Bell,  I would have never heard
   of Samuel and would never have had the pleasure of
   republishing (with Alan Davisson) the complete set of
   Bazaar articles.

  Wayne Homren, Editor

	coinbooks.org Web

The Numismatic Bibliomania Society is a non-profit organization 
promoting numismatic literature. See our web site at coinbooks.org.

To submit items for publication in The E-Sylum, write to the Editor 
at this address: whomren@coinlibrary.com

To subscribe go to: https://my.binhost.com/lists/listinfo/esylum