As I understand the NC designation for large cents, it applies only to the early date die pairs (1793-1814) which were numbered sequentially from 1 to 295 by William Sheldon, leaving no room for new discoveries. NC then originally meant "not catalogued" and the first such discovery coin for a given date was given a designation such as 1793 NC-1.

Since these same coins had escaped detection for a century and a half, they were de facto in such short supply that collectors, desiring "complete" sets of large cents could define "complete" as being all 295 of the varieties that Sheldon had catalogued, while considering all the NCs as being "non-collectible." Newcomb, by contrast, started the numbering over with each change of date, thereby avoiding the "NC" dilemma.

As far as Civil War tokens go, I'm pleased that WI 510D will soon be NC (in this case, non-contemporary), but I'm equally afraid that WI 510J will remain NC (non-collectible, as in FBMR - forever beyond my reach).

To complicate matters further, there already is an NC designation used for Civil War tokens. It stands for "non-contemporary" - i.e., tokens that were struck either before 1860 or after 1864, outside the period of the Civil War. See the Fulds' U.S. Civil War Store Cards, Second Edition, 1985, pp. 589-599.

We all survived, with varying degrees of inconvenience! I live two miles away from the office, so my commute home on Tuesday was a “mere” 20 minutes. Our CFO, meanwhile, took 25 hours to get home. Office closed on Wednesday. . . skeleton crew on Thursday. . . and pretty much back up and running on Friday!

Fans of the zombie-apocalypse TV series “The Walking Dead” (filmed here in Atlanta) were struck by I-85’s resemblance to the show, with traffic stopped and cars abandoned.

I was given the book, "The Best American Magazine Writing 2013" as a Christmas gift. Within it is the story by Chris Jones "The Big Book" for Esquire Magazine. There is nothing numismatic about the article, however, I believe it will interest bibliophiles. It is the story of Pulitzer Prize winning author Robert Caro, his amazing research and writing mechanics, his continuing opus about Lyndon Johnson, the world of big-time publishing and how it has changed over the course of 30 plus years he has been writing the Johnson saga, and the making of books then and now.

Mention of Don Taxay in connection with George Kolbe's article in The Numismatist reminded me of a television show I caught a week or two ago. The series Mysteries at the Museum did a segment on the 1913 Liberty Head nickel held by the ANA Museum and the story behind the five known coins. It was riddled with minor errors, which seems to be typical of the series and others like that take a Gee Whiz approach to history, but one goof in particular made me smile. A scene depicting Taxay's discovery of some valuable clue in 1963 depicted him as a bearded scholar in his sixties, though Taxay was clean shaven and about 30 at the time! I suppose that's dramatic license.

This is a response to your recent numismatic quiz. Oh wait, it was not presented in the form of a quiz.

This is a response to your unstated question. What year was the Sphinx Society membership list dated Sunday, September 11?

The Society was formed in 1960. After that year, Sunday, September 11, occurred in the years 1966, 1977, 1983, 1994, 2005 and 2011. I looked up Ray Byrne who died in 1981. That reduced the possibilities to 1966 and 1977. Next I looked up Howard Gibbs who died in 1970. That pretty much limits the membership list to September 11, 1966.

While doing my research, I came across the postcard showing Gibbs in front of the Sphinx. The postcard was sent to another member of the Sphinx Society. Emerson Smith. Their membership in the Sphinx Society was not mentioned when the postcard was shown in The E-Sylum.

I have just seen Darryl Atchison's piece at the end of which you ask if any official replacement VCs have crossed the auction block. I know of at least one, that to Thomas Byrne, 21st Lancers. This was offered for sale by Spink in London in the Nineties. As the price for official replacements are significantly lower than that for originals I have been trying to buy one for the last 12 years but have not seen any on the market.

Darryl says in the article that he does not know how the official replacement VCs are marked to distinguish them from the originals. In the case of official replacement VCs the edge of the lower arm of the cross is inscribed "Duplicate".

There are something I would like to add.

1 Lai See is a Cantonese name( pronunciation ) which used in Hongkong, but in mainland China, by standard Madarin, it should be prounouced as Ya Sui (压岁)。

2 Ya（压）means "press down". "kick out". Sui(岁) here used as a homonym of Sui(祟). which is an small devil annoying the children. So Ya Sui money is originally used as the gift money by the elders to the youngsters, helping them to get rid of the devil. Of course, Sui(岁) is also meaning a year/or the end of a year.

3 This custom is very wide spread in whole China. But the money need not to be crisp new. Good-as new and well-kept banknotes are all right. It is something like the Santa Claus brought the gifts to children at Christmas day.