The fake t-drachm from Susa would not, hopefully, fool a four-year-old. As for Dr Bastien, I knew him; he worked with the SI collection. He was the best, and he'll be sorely missed.

Don't look now, but Bill Rosenblum is offering one of those Mercator map medals in his 10 June sale, lot 183. I told him to put 20x magnification on it and see if it is engraved or cast.

Regarding the British Library digitising project, the article uses the abbreviation "m" many times. This is confusing (me), surely m is metres. If they mean millions I think they should use M. Whatever was intended, using abbreviations without defining them is pretty lazy writing. I would have expected better from the BBC!

The trip back East was good. We had to go down to Rhode Island for a wedding. Since almost all screw presses I have seen on eBay are in RI, I arranged to see some in hopes of purchasing one large enough to do my 1 oz. gold token.

Unfortunately, the largest they had was not large enough for my 1 oz. So, I purchased a small one just because. It should get here in a couple of weeks. I told my wife I wanted to put it in the living room, but she did not find that amusing. I believe it is a #2, stands about 6 feet tall on its table, and weighs in at about 700 pounds. I thought it would make an interesting nut cracker - put it at the end of the couch with a bowl of walnuts.