The E-Sylum:  Volume 7, Number 49, December 5, 2004, Article 14

RADIOACTIVE NUMISMATICA?

Ken Berger writes: " The article about paper preservation
was interesting. I found an even more interesting one, 
although it is not related to numismatics. In the 28 November 2004 
issue of PARADE, there's an article about Madame Curie. 
The article stated that " ... Madame Curie's workbooks, letters 
and personal diary - which had been banned for more than 
half a century -were being released. Some of these documents 
had been sealed because they still bore traces of radioactivity. Until
the recent past, when Marie Curie's physicist granddaughter 
decontaminated most of these papers, anyone who wanted to read 
a Curie document at the Biblioteque Nationale had to sign a 
medical release."  Besides the still available neutron-irradiated dimes of
the 1950s & 1960s, does anyone know of any numismatic-
related items which are unavailable because of radioactivity?"

[There was a recent news story about an Asian banknote
confiscated because it was found to be radioactive.
I had trouble getting to the web site a search engine referred 
me to, and didn't publish the piece. Perhaps one of our readers 
and locate the reference for us.
-Editor]

  Wayne Homren, Editor

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