This is my Tom Thumb medalet dated 1846, without the "15 lbs. weight".

As a proud possessor of the Air Force Combat Readiness Medal (which means that I sat in a chair in a "hole in the ground" in central Missouri for a specified amount of time about 30 years ago), I would be among the first to be embarrassed to wear a medal that implied that I could have been shot at when I hadn't been.

Unfortunately, there's a solid bureaucratic reason for medals of this sort to exist: medals give an officer "points" toward promotion and the higher precedence the medal, the more points involved. I wouldn't be surprised if the Distinguished Warfare Medal was created in order to give drone pilots a better chance of becoming the squadron commander of a drone squardron at some point in their future; which, of course, could lead to eagles and/or stars on one's shoulders.

For that matter, you may recall a few years ago there was a bunfight about which awards "real" pilots would continue to be eligible for when assigned to a drone squadron.

While this may be the first time that such a medal has been given precedence over the Purple Heart, it isn't the first time a medal was awarded for bureaucratic reasons. I well recall the first time I was told that Army officers received Bronze Stars as campaign medals during the Vietnam War, that is, it was a routine award upon arrival in the country - without a "V" device, of course.

Another thought on the Frank Lapa gold wire money coins: The 1973 ANA in Boston was the first that I attended and a local coin dealer in Denver had given me a gold wire piece to try to sell for him. I can't remember the price he wanted but the first person I showed it to was Ira Rezak who immediately told me, "it's a Lapa!". If I remember correctly, which is possible but perhaps not probable, Ira told me it was from a ruler who did not issue gold wire coins. Interestingly the guy who has the coin called me two or three weeks ago and the first thing he said, was "do you know of Frank Lapa"?

There was mention of Frank Lapa passing away. Does anyone have any details? I knew him personally as well as his former partner, Ray Yablan, whom he killed while I was living in the Chicago area more than 35 years ago.

I have a complete run of NCIRC. I also have a spare copy of the July 1994 issue, which I could send to the ANS library. There are many photos in the article.

It wasn't exactly clear in the article and some readers may be confused. The Nobel Prize medal auctioned by Rasmussen was awarded to Aage Bohr, the son of Neils Bohr who was also awarded the Nobel Prize but in 1922.

I found the following daguerreotype of Almon Whiting Griswold. Adelaide Griswold (his daughter) was married to the 3rd President of ANA : Augustus Goodyear Heaton (April 28, 1844 – October 11, 1930)

Griswold, Almon Whiting (1833 -1890) Born in Johnstown, Vermont, and educated at Harvard, Almon Whiting Griswold was a lawyer by profession. His library of approximately 7000 volumes was rich in American history, bibliography, English literature, and the classics. There were numerous sales of his books, at Bangs, 14 May 1868, 28 February 1876, and 19 April 1876, while another series of sales were conducted by Leavitt, on 9 January 1878, 8 February 1878, 1 June 1880, and 6 December 1880. The catalogues of the Leavitt’s sales were entitled: “Gems from the library of a bibliomaniac”. There were also private sales of some of the choicer items from Griswold’s library.

A Shakespeare First Folio purchased by Almon W. Griswold was lost with the New York-bound Collins liner Arctic after the steamship collided with the Vesta in fog off Cape Race, Newfoundland, on Sept. 28, 1854.