Nice issue. Concerning the Breen book on half cents, neither Jim Ruddy nor I wanted to be authors, but I did take Walter’s notes and organize them.

He wanted to be anonymous as he was having his (usual) problems with John J. Ford (Walter always had problems with those who hired him) and did not want JJF to fire him. At the time JJF was trying to build Ford Numismatic Publications (which had published Penny Whimsy) but was not getting very far.

Much more could be said, of course, but the bottom line is that while I was author in a slight way, it really was Walter’s study.

The number one finest set of all time of United States half cents from 1793 to 1857 will be displayed for the first time in public at the June 2013 Long Beach Coin, Stamp & Sports Collectibles Expo.

The Missouri Cabinet Collection is the greatest collection of U.S. half cents ever assembled. It has a grade point average of 63.786 and is the all-time finest set in the PCGS Set Registry™. It was assembled over a period of more than 40 years by R. Tettenhorst with collaboration between him and the Eric P. Newman Numismatic Education Society in St. Louis," explained Cassi East, President of the Long Beach Expo.

"This is the only collection of half cents ever formed that contains every variety of half cent struck for circulation and the only collection to contain every variety of half cent struck only in proof."

Public hours are Thursday and Friday, June 6 and 7, 2013, from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m., and Saturday, June 8, from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.

I enjoyed the comments of Howard Daniel on Fakes. So I thought it would be worthwhile to add my two cents pertaining to eBay. A dead giveaway that something is not right is the statement "from my grandfather's estate" (never from my father's estate). Other sticking points are that the seller may list only 2-3 numismatic items among a list of 100 other items, the statement "judge from the scans, the condition", "sold as is, no refund given".

Several years ago, a person listed a mule of a Comita Americana medal for several hundred dollars. I indicated that this was a fake after consulting with an authority on these medals and that it should be withdrawn from eBay. Also, I notified eBay: no action was taken by either party and the medal sold. Several times I have taken on the basis of scans of US Mint presidential medals. They appeared to be the dark bronze of earlier mintages but turned out to be the golden bronze from the 1970s. Apparently the seller deliberately darkened the images.

The second part of the Holger Dombrowski library was auctioned off on May 22nd by WAG online.