I have a question for E-Sylum readers. Is there a way to determine if a coin book (or ANY book for that matter) was originally published with a dust jacket? This question has vexed me for some time.

I see you have made mention of the love tokens for convicts being transported to Australia; the March/April issue of the TAMS Journal includes a detailed paper I wrote on a convict sent to Bermuda to build the naval dockyard. I would expect it to be the most comprehensive study of a convict and his family ever published.

I've been examining every half dollar that comes my way on the poker table. Today I received a 2014 clad half dollar.

For those who might not know, Lady Lavery, Hazel Jenner, a painter, was from Chicago. In 1898, at 17, during a European trip Hazel met John Lavery, a widower, and romance blossomed. Mrs. Jenner rushed her daughter away and pushed her into marriage with a Dr. Trudeau, who died within a few years. Hazel Jenner returned to Europe in 1910 and married John Lavery who was knighted in 1918. Lady Lavery died in 1935 and Sir John Lavery died in 1941.

Sir John wrote the following of his wife: "She had a talent for drawing that was quite remarkable. She was very beautiful and possessed the largest and most heavenly eyes I had ever seen. She wandered about Ireland in a dream finding out that she was really Irish."

For the bank note portrait of his wife Lavery asked for 100 guineas, but received twice the amount. The engraver of this pensive portrait was master engraver John A.C. Harrison (1872-1955).

I enjoyed reading the post on Ben Green. I have collected his sale catalogs for a long time. One of his sales was the first ANA convention auction sale at the 1907 Columbus, Ohio convention. The1907 Oct-Nov issue of The Numismatist reports, "The real fun of the convention was Wednesday night. Dr. Ben Green's far famed auction sale came off, and all the latent hilarity pent up in the members burst forth to make this evening one grand time".

As was mentioned, Green was also one of the founders of the Chicago Numismatic Society. I believe that Green's outgoing personality was the glue that held that society together. After his sudden death in 1914, the society seemed to go slowly into decline. the last report of their meetings that I can find published in The Numismatist's, Meetings of Societies is in the June 1915 issue.