I found one of these while medal detecting in central Florida two weeks ago. I was wondering if you were able to find more info on it. For those of us in the hobby finding a piece of history that has been forgotten by most people is an awesome feeling. I am attaching photos of the medal. Thank you for your time.

Thanks again for publishing my query on Athena/Minerva. My e-mail address is jsallay@comcast.net, not sallay@comcast.net, so either the readers with suggestions will get e-mails bouncing back or possibly some unsuspecting Comcast subscriber will be learning more than they ever wanted to know about Athena!

The law cited by Huntoon says nothing about postage currency. It says that postage and other stamps (presumably meaning revenue stamps) may be received for dues to the US not exceeding $5, and would be exchanged for US notes in amounts exceeding $5. Not a word there about postage currency. Is there some other statute that defines postage currency in a way that would make it "other stamps?"

Believe it or not, this act was used by Treasury to proceed with postage currency, and even award the contracts to the same bank note company that was making the stamps.

Well, if they considered the postage currency to be stamps, they would be justified in doing so - maybe that's exactly why it was called postage currency in the beginning.

It sounds fascinating and Johnson should consider publishing this. A blog or website at least as a doorway to a Google Documents archive is easy enough. I do offer a quibble. "...world economics has advanced so far to make the cent and nickel obsolete coins of commerce because of their low value." Actually, world economics has devolved so far as to make government moneys even more degraded than they were. I am often taken aback by the inroads not made by Austrian economics in numismatics which is easily the largest unregulated money market in the world. That aside, Johnson's expertise is solid enough that his proposals should be insightful and practical. I look forward to them.