The E-Sylum:  Volume 9, Number 29, July 16, 2006, Article 17

ANA SUMMER SEMINAR COURSE REVIEW: EARLY AMERICAN COINS AND PAPER MONEY

John Agre attended the recent course on Early American Coins
and Paper Money at the American Numismatic Association summer
seminar, and published a nice report on his web site:

"Classes were offered on a slew of numismatic topics, from the
esoteric (Shipwrecks), to the mainstream (Coin Grading) to the
sublime (Early American Coins and Paper Money). Of course I
chose the latter, taught by John Kraljevich, Director of
Numismatic Research for ANR, and Erik Goldstein, Curator of
'Mechanical Arts' and Numismatics at the Colonial Williamsburg
Foundation.

As much as I consider myself to be well versed on the subject
at hand, I knew there was significantly more to learn and I
was not disappointed. John and Erik put the early American series
into sharp historical focus while flexing their astonishingly
well-developed Trivial Pursuit muscles. They variously cited
the signature of Jacob Graff on a January, 1779 issue of Colonial
Currency and identified him as the man who leased Thomas Jefferson
a room in Philadelphia in 1776 so he'd have a quiet place to write,
illustrated and demonstrated the process by which Pine Tree
Shillings were struck and how various errors and clash marks
endemic to the coinage were created, and then outlined why the
Washington Ugly Head is almost certainly not an issue struck
during the colonial period.

And, to ensure that the class didn't become too dry, they
interspersed the detailed explanations with frequent loud
raspberries to signify which issues really do not belong in
the Redbook based on the criteria that they didn't circulate
in the colonies, or are of questionable authenticity, or
weren't actually money. Here's a hint: The Rhode Island Ship
Medal is a medal. MEDAL. M-E-D-A-L. Not a coin."

To read the complete article, see: Full Story

  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