I have a wonderful example of the 1803 Bust Dollar, Small 3, B-3, BB-256, PCGS AU-50. On the back of the slab is an old sticker "197071 Bowers and Merena." Do any of our E-Sylum readers know with which sale this lot corresponds?

I had the most fun lunch hour that lasted 5 hours Thursday. While on vacation in Ft. Lauderdale, I had arranged to meet Jorge Proctor. He is an author and researcher for the area of Spanish American coinage. When I write an article that has any Spanish content, I run it by him to make sure I don't put anything incorrect in print.

I learned so much about Spanish American coinage, the assayers, mint officials, shipwrecks, numismatic literature and much more. He also brought some wonderful things for me to see.

When I bought it in the Jack Collins sale (1980, I believe), I thought it represented the patterns sold to King Farouk. In a way, it was, as a lot of F.C.C. Boyd's patterns did end up with the king.

The Kosoff A-W book had red check marks to represent patterns going from William Woodin to Col. Green to Boyd. The blue check marks are Newcomer to Boyd. (Wayte Raymond sold many of Newcomer's patterns, while B. Max Mehl handled the gold and other issues.)

The Boyd coins were sold in the 1940's World's Greatest Collection sales, but the patterns were a fixed price list.

I have never sat down with the Farouk catalog and tried to figure out which ones, but Boyd had a fabulous pattern collection, of course, so likely many King Farouk coins are from his collection. In the Bowers book on Abe Kosoff, there is a story of how the Indian Head twenty (formerly J1776) was sold to Farouk. Kosoff claimed that Boyd's wife actually owned the coin!

I enjoyed reading the bit about Jerry Schmidt. I’ve known him since his early shop days in downtown Richmond. I used to make frequent buying trips to Richmond, since not only to see Jerry but also Bill Wilkerson, whose shop I had been going to since the early 1960s, both of them gentlemen of the old tradition (Jerry still is; Bill is no longer living). I’ve purchased lots of good coins and tokens in Richmond over the years.

I passed out 25 baggies with wheat cents, elongates from CSNS and woods as well to the first 25 kids old enough to appreciate them. Being generous this year I threw in candy as well and after the 25 were gone I passed out candy to the rest. Next year I will have a large stock of elongates and woods from CSNS and the Illinois Numismatic Association (ILNA).