WAYNE'S NUMISMATIC DIARY: JULY 13, 2014

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V17 2014 INDEX E-SYLUM ARCHIVE

The E-Sylum: Volume 17, Number 29, July 13, 2014, Article 15

Tuesday, July 8. 2014 was the monthly meeting of my northern Virginia numismatic social group, Nummis Nova. I arrived early to find some of our members milling about on the sidewalk outside of Sisters Thai in Fairfax, VA. Turns out the restaurant had lost their power and was closed. After some quick re-planning by our host Mike Packard, we soon reconvened a mile down the road at Piero's Corner, a nice Italian restaurant.

Piero's had plenty of parking and a separate room for our noisy crew. The lighting was dim, and wasn't helped by the gathering storm clouds outside. There was a severe thunderstorm warning in effect. But it didn't dampen our spirits or enthusiasm for numismatics.

Besides Mike and myself, attendees included Ron Abler, Ton Kays, Gene Brandenburg, Dave Schenkman, Eric Schena, Steve BIshop, Lenny Goldberg, Roger Burdette, Joe Levine and Jon Radel.

At the recent Baltimore show I'd attended a talk by Rob Galiette and Dave Bowers on their new book on U.S. Liberty Head $20 Double Eagles. Audience members were given a free copy of the book. Since I already had one, Dave suggested giving it to one of my fellow dinner regulars. Great idea! My first order of business was to offer the book to Roger Burdette, and as it turned out, he didn't have a copy of it yet. He does now!

I passed around a few recent acquisitions in numismatic literature, including the latest issue of ANS Magazine and the books on American Red Cross items and WWII Paper Money of Nazi Germany.

I'd also brought an old pocket watch belonging to a friend at work. It had belonged to his father. I had asked Gene to look it over for him and perhaps recommend a repairman. Gene soon had the watch correctly set, ticking, and keeping good time. He showed me how to remove the watch face and find a little hidden knob for setting the time (and I showed my friend's wife when she picked it up from me Wednesday). It may need a slight adjustment, but basically worked. Gene's advice: if it ain't broke don't fix it; and even if it is broke, still don’t fix it. Thanks!

Of course, I need to also thank Gene for generously sharing his red wine. So thanks!

I had no numismatic items to share, but here are a few reports from other attendees, starting with Dave Schenkman, who writes:

In keeping with the patriotic theme, I brought a couple of ad notes.

Since the meeting theme was patriotic items, I brought a James Wolff, Petersburg, VA token muled with the “Long May It Wave” flag reverse die. I brought the token in five metals: brass, copper, German silver, silver, and tin (white metal) This die combination is rare in any metal; to the best of my knowledge it is unique in silver. The piece came from John Ford, who acquired it with the F.C.C. Boyd collection. The copper one came from George Fuld; I got the other three from Max Schwartz when I purchased his collection of 19th century VA tokens.

Dave recounted a cute story about how coin deals were made in the Good Old Days:

In 1973, when Max Schwartz and I agreed on a price for his collection of 19th century Virginia tokens, he sent them all to me for inspection and included a letter saying, “now David, we’ve never met and I know nothing about your financial situation, but here’s my offer. You can pay me $25 a month, and if either of us dies before you finish, the debt is considered paid. Then he added, as if an afterthought, “this is an especially good deal for you, David; I’m 75 years old.”

It doesn’t get much more old-school than that!

While not theme-related strictly speaking, it is a neat piece of local history. I recently picked up a gold medal awarded to the Valley Creamery of Penn Laird in Rockingham County, Virginia for first prize in creamery butter. It was awarded by the Virginia Dairy Products Association at their fair/convention in Alexandria in January 18-19, 1938. The creamery only made butter and eventually had four dairy operations in and around Harrisonburg. It is a rather nifty piece of Americana that I picked up dirt cheap - was all of $30, which isn't bad considering it's 10k gold.

Thanks, guys. It was another great meeting. I wasn't expecting to have much else numismatic to report this week, because I was going on vacation with my family. We left home at 3am Friday to beat traffic out of the Washington, D.C. area. It worked - there was nary a car near us for miles. By 6AM we were already in North Carolina. Our destination was Orlando, Florida, but we broke up the trip with a stop in Savannah, GA.

While in Savannah we decided to try something new. Since our daughter Hannah is in Girl Scouts, we visited the home of Girl Scout Founder Juliette Low. It was an enjoyable tour of a fascinating mansion, and I would recommend it to anyone visiting the area.

In one of the parlors, on display in a bookcase was the Presidential Medal of freedom awarded to Low by President Barack Obama in 2012.

On the way out, I spotted an elongated cent machine, and for 76 cents (three quarters and a shiny new penny), Hannah made a souvenir of her visit to go along with the badge she'd just earned for visiting the home. The visit was the highlight of her day, and our collective vacation was off to a great start.

We arrived in Orlando yesterday afternoon, and hit Universal Studios today. It was great fun, but tiring. Have a great week, everyone.