It is a tale strange to relate, for it recounts how the American public's first look at the second Mint of the United States was observed through a casket—or, more precisely—through The Casket, a now-defunct magazine in Philadelphia. If this isn't peculiar, or perhaps unsettling, enough, The Casket in question was also intimately connected to Edgar Allan Poe. The cast of characters only expands from there, for Benjamin Franklin, William Shakespeare, Emmanuel Joseph Attinelli, plus an early auction sale of medals, and the very first detective story ever published, all play bit roles in this drama most improbable. Never fear, though, for just as in any of the Bard of Avon's productions, the strange and wonderful cast of characters will all be reconciled by the time the final curtain falls.