Dick Doty's new book, Pictures From a Distant Country: Seeing America Through Old Paper Money, was selected for a feature in the Wall Street Journal this weekend, with several colorful illustrations. If you subscribe to the Journal, check out Saturday's “Review” section!

I’m sure you’ll agree: if any of our colleagues deserves national recognition for his work, it’s Dick Doty. In Pictures From a Distant Country he’s created a wonderful volume, beautifully illustrated, with his famously entertaining way of telling a story. Pictures should easily leap the gap that too often divides “numismatic books” from “mainstream American history books.” As a publisher I’m always looking for manuscripts with that potential --- it’s a way we can expand the hobby community.

Garrett's Senate race was news to me. A reference can be found here: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_W._Garrett_(diplomat)

Whitehead-Hoag bought the patent for this kind of political button in the 1890s and in short order (meaning 1896) it was doing a large business in the stuff. Garrett's campaign can probably be dated to an exact year from the exact form of the printed inner disc on the pinback side.

I found nothing about J. W. Garrett running for office, but in his book about the Garrett collection, Dave Bowers writes that Garrett entered the diplomatic service in 1901. He served in the Hague, Berlin, and Rome. His first ministerial post was in Venezuela from 1910 to 1911, then three years as minister in Argentina. At the outbreak of World War I he was appointed as a special agent of the State Department to assist Myron T. Herrick, the U. S. Ambassador to France. In 1917 he was named minister to the Netherlands and Luxembourg. In 1918 he became chairman of a special diplomatic mission to Berne, Switzerland, where the treaty with Germany regarding prisoners of war was signed on November 11, 1918.

After the war he returned to Baltimore and served as secretary general of the Conference on the Limitation of Armament in Washington, 1921 to 1922. President Hoover appointed him as American ambassador to Rome in 1929, a position he retained until 1933. During these years, he had the opportunity to observe the dictatorship of Mussolini. Upon his departure he was given the Grand Cross of St. Maurice and St. Lazarus, the highest order conferred on anyone except royalty by the king of Italy. Again, these are the words of Dave Bowers. This is the closest thing I could find to any political activity by John Work Garrett.

John Work Garrett never ran as a candidate for U.S. Senate. In 1922 he ran for the Republican party nomination to run for Senator from Maryland. The nomination went to incumbent Joseph France who lost in the general election. In January 2013 a somewhat rusty campaign pin for Garrett sold for $45.08.

The “Hammer Price” per the Stack’s prices realized for Lot 1112 in the 1993 Reed Hawn Sale was $475.00. There was a 10% buyer’s fee charged in addition to the hammer price, thus Bob paid $522.50 plus any postage and / or handling Stack’s may have charged at this time.

I ordered my Five-Star Generals set during the opening hour, and had them within a week, so I got mine out to look at the variable frosting that James Bucki wrote about. Sure enough, the differences on the reverse of the dollar are easily seen. At 4x or 5x, the lamp looks a bit yellow. One thing they were not able to do was leave the open areas of the crest on the lamp showing the lamp's degree of frost - those areas share the less-vivid frost of the rest of the crest. On the reverse of the half dollar, where that crest is the whole design, they easily were able to leave the open areas alone, showing the mirror finish of the rest of the fields.

I had no trouble at all placing the order for this set and the Girl Scout dollar, a Montford Point Marines medal, and a roll of the McKinley dollars. Either the mint has gotten their website fixed, or there was not much ordering pressure for these coins. I suspect the latter.

I could not believe the designs of the 5-Star Army Generals Coins! All of the generals were handpicked by General Marshall, and he should be on the gold coin and not General MacArthur! General MacArthur should have been court-martialed for his disastarous defense of the Philippines! And he was relieved by President Truman for not following orders! If he did not like the orders, he should have resigned. Was there any input from World War II and Korean War historians?

On the other coins, General Eisenhower should be in the superior position and paired with General Bradley because the latter was Ike's subordinate. And MacArthur should be with the General Arnold on a coin, and the latter in the superior position. General Arnold's air force did more to force Japan to surrender than General MacArthur!

I know a VERY active collector of General MacArthur memorabilia and often find new items for his collection. I will continue to look for new pieces for him so he will be shoc

When the Mint sells these concave/convex baseball coins, they ought to offer a handle (at an extra cost, of course) so that it could be used as a spoon---perfect for eating at a ball game.