The E-Sylum:  Volume 10, Number 25, June 24, 2007, Article 21

NOTES ON THE TYPOGRAPHIC SYMBOL FOR COIN REVERSE

Two weeks ago week Ed Snible asked: "Perhaps E-Sylum readers can help
me locate the name and origin of a typographic symbol meaning 'coin
reverse'. The symbol usually looks like mismatched parenthesis: )("

Alan Luedeking writes: "I may be wrong, but I believe I have seen
the typographical symbol Rx that is normally used for pharmaceutical
prescriptions used to denote the reverse of a coin. This interlinked
Rx symbol can be obtained by holding down the ALT key on your keyboard
while typing the numbers 8478. When you release the ALT key, the
character ? appears."

Karl Moulton writes: "So as not to have E-Sylum readers ever having
been stumped, the )( symbol for the reverse used in the 1880 Yale coin
collection periodical comes from Professor Fisk P. Brewer, an early
collector who helped establish the Yale coin collection in the late
1850's.  He was born to missionary parents in 1832 in what is now
called Izmir, Turkey, and grew up seeing ancient coins all the time.
When his family returned to the U.S., he eventually enrolled and
graduated with distinction from Yale in 1852.

"He served as a tutor at that institution from 1855 through 1858.
He wrote several publications about the foreign coins in the Yale
collection in the mid 1860's, using the same publisher in New Haven,
Conn. as was listed for his 1880 periodical.  Early on, he was interested
in coin collecting, as this writer has Prof. Brewer's personal annotated
copy of an early Bangs Brother's broadside listing a foreign coin sale
held in October 1856 in NYC.

"Brewer was also instrumental in helping to establish the American
Association of Numismatist's, along with Robert Morris in the 1870's.
Brewer was, at the time, the Professor of Ancient Languages and Literature
at the University of South Carolina.  That AAN organization, which Dr.
George Heath later used as a model for the ANA, was dedicated to the
study and collecting of Ancient Greek and Roman coinage.  Apparently,
the symbol that Brewer used for the reverse - )( - had been seen in
earlier foreign coin sales prior to 1850.  As with the AAN, it never
caught on with American cataloguers.  Brewer eventually moved to Iowa
in 1877 and taught at Grinnell College until 1883."

[Many thanks to Karl for this background on Brewer and his use of the
symbol, but we still don't know if it has a name.  We could also use
information on its origins or specific references to any earlier coin
books or catalogs using the symbol.  -Editor]

 TYPOGRAPHIC SYMBOL FOR COIN REVERSE
 esylum_v10n23a17.html

  Wayne Homren, Editor

	coinbooks.org Web

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