I fear the E-Sylum might have been hacked by the likes of Anthony Weiner or Bob Filner (our mayor here in San Diego). using the name "Editor." That's the only explanation I can think of for the "addadictomy" reference in the latest issue.

Earlier this year, a meteor the size of a bus slammed into the Russian city of Chelyabinsk with the force of 20 atom bombs

It didn't SLAM into the freakin' city, it was an airburst, ohhhh and how BIG ISSSSSSSSSSSS an atom bomb?????

The people of Chelyabinsk were extraordinarily lucky - the detonation occurred at approximately 20-40 miles up with an estimated blast of 500 kilotons. If this had occurred 4-5 miles above it would have obliterated the city with hundreds of thousands dead. The problem with saying "atom bomb" is they can range from a few kilotons to the monster TSAR BOMBA of 50 MEGATONS the Russians detonated in the early sixties.

During its entire thirty-five year production from 1854 until 1889 only about 16,300 three dollar gold pieces were produced in total (compared, for example, with the nearly 600,000 Quarter Eagles struck in Philadelphia in 1854 alone).

I can't imagine where this number came from: per the Red Book, the 1854 alone has a mintage of 138,618, and there are seven other dates with mintages above 16,300 each. (I will leave to someone else with more time on their hands to total the entire mintage.)

The picture of the 1967 ANA auction catalog brought back memories to me. The 1913 Liberty nickel purchased by Aubrey Bebee was lot 2214. Of course that item was way, way out of my league, but I have always thought I came as close to it as I could, being the winning bidder on the previous lot, 2213, a 1912-S nickel.