One of your readers in last week's issue lamented the demise of auction formats of years past where the presence of famous collectors bidding strategies and methods brought excitement to the room. As a seller at auction, the Internet has, in my opinion, been the greatest addition to the auction format. Knowledgeable buyers now do not have to travel, an expensive proposition, to have access to every significant auction anywhere in the world. Buyers have a hard, if not impossible, time "ripping" an item when buyers are now global. This is much fairer to sellers and I welcome the Internet and the continued advances we will enjoy because of technology.

In response to Martin Purdy's observation of the excessive zeros on the listing for Greece P135 in the Standard Catalog of World Paper Money: in the 13th edition the error is still there. Tarassouleas' book on Greek notes does not transliterate the denominations - it simply illustrates each note and expects the reader to read them. But the book on WWII Greek emissions published by the Mining Credit Corporation Scientific Section, without apparent byline, gives the denominations of P234 and P235 as 10,000,000,000 and 100,000,000,000 drachmai. The KP publication has an extra cluster of zeros for the second note (which we westerners would read as 100 trillion drachmai).

The latter of the Greek books, incidentally, is a bibliophile's delight - all the notes are illustrated with real notes tipped into the book (25 total). I don't know what the print run was, but apparently they ran out of the 10 July 1941 100 drachmai note - that one shows up in dealer junk boxes as a black and white halftone marked "facsimile" on the left face. I am told that some copies of the book have that reproduction inserted where the real note was supposed to appear.

I adore the Pinches medal that has been written about the past two weeks. Someplace in my unaccessioned purchases, buried now since I moved from Seattle, is a Pinches reproduction of the Pistrucci Waterloo medal. I had thought it was fairly recent - later than 1969. Apparently not, unless the Franklin Mint continued to use the Pinches name for a while after acquiring the firm. What a shame that they declined to serve clients the way Pinches had. They could still be in the medal-making business.

Rick Sage commented that the "shot" coins and tokens were all from the 19th Century, but the penny with an unreadable date is of George V, so it can't be any earlier than 1911. The first two numerals of the date are, in fact, readable as 19, though I couldn't make out the second two.

I read a note that you wrote about the stand alone jewelry that was created from the Salvador Dali Easter Plate in the 1970s. You said you had bought your wife one. My grandfather bought two, one for my mom and one for my grandmother, and I was wondering where I might find more information about them.

"In response to Dick Johnson's report on Salvador Dail as a medallist, he also designed a sterling silver Easter plate for the Lincoln Mint, in the mid-'70s if memory serves. It had an abstract crucifix and an egg near the bottom edge. The crucifix design was also struck as a stand-alone piece of jewelry, one of which I gave to my wife. She left it in a motel room about 1984, and I have been searching for a replacement ever since. Anyone know where one is?"

I'm spending the winter in Europe, and the last two weeks have been REAL winter - cold and snow. While at an antique gallery I noticed two chairs that would look great if they were in my library.

I saw my name mentioned in last week's issue in connection with Frank Van Zandt. I did replace him as an officer in the Bibliomania Society. During the transition I had to call him several times. As we talked about numismatic literature, I think he was surprised at my knowledge of dealers, auction sales and auction catalogs.

After that he started to call me every now and then. While an interesting person to talk to, these calls were never short, lasting between an hour to an hour and a half. He often mentioned what seemed to be almost daily calls to George Kolbe. I thought to myself that if those calls were as lengthy as the ones to me, I don't know how George got any work done.

I think the most tell-tale sign of the coins being fakes (besides their obvious appearance) is that the article never states that the traveling coin buyers actually bought the coins!

On the subject of fake coins posing as real, thought readers would get a kick out of this one, in an NGC holder certifying it as authentic, despite being clearly marked "COPY" at the top. This coin sold on 2/6/2012 in eBay listing as item number 200707578059. Caveat emptor!! I guess that for the folks at NGC stamping a coin "COPY" constitutes "environmental damage"!

About the Super Bowl coin toss medal, I noticed that after the referee flipped the piece he did not pick it up. I didn't keep watching to see who did. That's the one that's supposed to go to the Hall of Fame.