As this list is mailed, I am leaving for my annual winter buying trip to Europe. Accommodations should be readily available as tourist traffic is down now that Europe has been officially designated Lybia's vacation paradise and proving grounds. I was fortunate not to have not been injured when I witnessed the 1977 Munich terrorist bombing from entirely too close a vantage point but it left me with a vivid mental image of the impact of this cultural anarchy.

Terrorism is by no means a 20th Century development. "Mad bombers" with nebulous and real grudges against existing political and financial powers became a fixture with the advent of the Industrial Revolution but I believe they are in fact proof of the success of Western culture and ethics, for terrorism can only have an impact in a culture where human life and the rights of the individual have value. We note the lack of interest in Lybian excursion cruises to Cambodia and North Korea and for that matter we haven't heard of any hostage crisis at the annual Mongolian People's Yak Wrestling Festival. You can't score any points threatening lives that are an asset to the state but worthless as individuals.

One may ask what this has to do with collecting foreign coins and medals and the answer is: everything! This culture, where human life and liberty are so dear that they are apt targets for political blackmail, is the same culture where the ability and desire is instilled in the private individual to contemplate history and art through the collection and study of tangible artifacts, bringing him a personal awareness of his place in the world, the transience of the individual and the permanence of knowledge and beauty.

The collector is the custodian of the pageant of coins and medals that attest to the passing of the great and infamous, of battles and plagues, building the new and destroying the old and almost all displaying symbols of hope for assistance from some representation of the Supreme Being. We hope that today's collectors appreciate the long tradition of collecting of which they are a part, and their right to participate.