Visit our NBS Sponsors

About Us The Numismatic Bibliomania Society is a non-profit association devoted to the study and enjoyment of numismatic literature. For more information please see our web site at coinbooks.org Subscriptions Those wishing to become new E-Sylum subscribers (or wishing to Unsubscribe) can go to the following web page link Membership There is a membership application available on the web site Membership Application To join, print the application and return it with your check to the address printed on the application. Print/Digital membership is $40 to addresses in the U.S., and $60 elsewhere. A digital-only membership is available for $25. For those without web access, write to: Jeff Dickerson, Treasurer Numismatic Bibliomania Society P. O. Box 578, Weatherford, TX 76086 Asylum For Asylum mailing address changes and other membership questions, contact Jeff at this email address: treasurer@coinbooks.org Submissions To submit items for publication in The E-Sylum, write to the Editor at this address: whomren@gmail.com BUY THE BOOK BEFORE THE COIN Sale Calendar June 15, 2024 Kolbe & Fanning Watch here for updates!

 

Content presented in The E-Sylum is not necessarily researched or independently fact-checked, and views expressed do not necessarily represent those of the Numismatic Bibliomania Society.

WAYNE'S WORDS: THE E-SYLUM APRIL 28, 2024

New subscribers this week include: Pamela Herrick, Curator of Gilroy Roberts Collection at Community College of Philadelphia; Welcome aboard! We now have 7,271 subscribers.

Thank you for reading The E-Sylum. If you enjoy it, please send me the email addresses of friends you think may enjoy it as well and I'll send them a subscription. Contact me at whomren@gmail.com anytime regarding your subscription, or questions, comments or suggestions about our content.

This week we open with a numismatic literature fixed price list, three new books, a periodical issue, a book review, updates from the Newman Numismatic Portal, and more.

Other topics this week include gold coinage of the Low Countries, money artist J.S.G. Boggs, die making in the U.S., planchets, numismatic exhibitions at banks, the Groux collection, fixed price and auction offerings, Olympic medals, coin and book counterfeiters, and the Rochester Numismatic Association.

To learn more about Dr. Christopher Challis, the formation of Canadian money, the 100 greatest ancient coins, Greek banknotes, Spanish money in the Eastern European colonies, a 50-year button search, 2025 silver American Liberty designs, the protesting nymph, a 400-year-old gold bar, the Art Directors Club medal, J.N.T. Levick, the old receipt weirdo and Verminus, the god of cattle worms, read on. Have a great week, everyone!

Wayne Homren
Editor, The E-Sylum

 

CHRISTOPHER CHALLIS NUMISMATIC LIBRARY

Ken Spelman - Short List 31

Here is the next in an occasional series of short-lists. Coinage History - Books from the Library of Dr Christopher Challis.

Dr C. Challis (1939-2021), was a leading specialist in Tudor coinage and mint operations, and wrote The Tudor Coinage – 1978, A New History of the Royal Mint (Ed.) - 1992, and published many papers. He edited the British Numismatic Journal for many years.

Read more here

 

NEW BOOK: GOLD COINAGE OF THE LOW COUNTRIES

This book gives a complete overview of all the gold coins and special issues in gold produced on the territory of present-day Belgium, Luxembourg and The Netherlands and Overseas territories, from the Celts to 2022.

A description on 2000 illustrated gold coin types, including special issues as patterns and off-metal strikes, with details of their obverse, reverse, edge, weight, fineness and rarity, and prices per date for different grades.

440 pages (29,7 x 21.0 cm),
fully illustrated in color, hardboard cover.
ISBN 978-1-7356598-1-7

 

Read more here

NEW BOOK: COLONIALISM'S CURRENCY

Colonialism's Currency
Money, State, and First Nations in Canada, 1820-1950
By Brian Gettler

Money, often portrayed as a straightforward representation of market value, is also a political force, a technology for remaking space and population. This was especially true in nineteenth- and twentieth-century Canada, where money - in many forms - provided an effective means of disseminating colonial social values, laying claim to national space, and disciplining colonized peoples.

Read more here

BANKNOTE BOOK GREECE CHAPTER PUBLISHED

Read more here

 

PERIODICAL: NUMISMATIQUE ASIATIQUE NO. 49

EDITORIAL

Numismatique ibérique
Iberian numismatics

SPECIAL NUMBER
SPANISH COINS IN THE EAST INDIES

La circulation de l'argent espagnol dans les colonies européennes d'Orient
The circulation of Spanish money in the Eastern European colonies
by Pedro Damián Cano Borrego

Contremarques chinoises sur monnaies espagnoles
Chinese countermarks on Spanish coins
by José Antonio de la Fuente

Read more here

BOOK REVIEW: 100 GREATEST ANCIENT COINS, 3RD ED.

Whitman Publishing produces a series of “100 Greatest” coin books, including classic U.S., modern U.S., modern World, U.S. Errors, Canadian coins and tokens, and Women on Coins. Harlan Berk was the perfect author to tackle the challenge of selecting and documenting the 100 Greatest Ancient Coins. In 2008, Berk published the 131-page first edition of this richly illustrated large-format book. A revised second edition of 138 pages appeared in 2019. The first two editions sold out. This new third edition runs to 152 pages with much new content.

The choice of the “100 greatest ancient coins” and their ranking was based on a survey of museum curators, classical scholars, dealers, and collectors. There was a high degree of consensus among the experts. Rather more than 100 individual coins are pictured and described, because some of the categories, such as “Coinage of Croesus” (#9) and “Athens tetradrachm” (#38) include multiple types. Thirty-eight of the coins are Roman; six are Byzantine; and the rest could be loosely categorized as “Greek”, including Phoenician, Carthaginian, and Judean issues.

Read more here

VIDEO: WHY BOGGS? WHY NOW?

Wayne Homren Speaks on J. S. G. Boggs

Our E-Sylum editor Wayne Homren presented on April 3 at Washington University in St. Louis on the performance artist J. S. G. Boggs (1955-2017). Boggs was well known for exchanging obvious imitations of paper money for goods and services. His work was equally pursued by collectors and law enforcement, which remained perpetually vexed in its effort to convict an artist who never represented his work as legal tender. Wayne’s talk was held in conjunction with the current numismatic exhibit at Washington University, Coins Across Time: Ancient to American Numismatics. This exhibit, in the Newman Tower portion of Olin Library, runs through July 7.

Read more here

VIDEO: HISTORY OF DIE MAKING IN THE U.S.

Read more here

NOTES FROM E-SYLUM READERS: APRIL 28, 2024

On Eponymous Numismatic Classifications
Len Augsburger of the Newman Numismatic Portal writes:

Newman 36. Foreword to America’s Foreign Coins: An Illustrated Standard Catalogue with Valuation of Foreign Coins with Legal Tender Status in the United States, 1793-1857, by Oscar D. Schilke and Raphael E. Solomon, IX-X. New York: The Coin and Currency Institute, Inc., 1964.

Newman opens by remarking on how inconceivable it is that it took the United States Mint 67 years — from 1793 until 1857 — to replace foreign coinage in circulation with United States coinage. He underscores that, prior to the American Revolution, what little gold and silver that circulated in the American colonies consisted of foreign, not British, coinage. The adoption of the Spanish silver dollar as the U.S. coinage unit after the Revolution was hoped to be a temporary expedient, with the switch over to a decimal system of American coinage hoped to be accomplished soon, but unforeseen problems and unexpected developments kept foreign coinage in circulation for three generations. Newman closes by reminding the reader that this book does not cover the minor coinage that never attained legal tender status: everything ranging from English halfpence (genuine and counterfeit) to American state coinages to Nova Constellatio coppers and Fugio cents.

Newman accepted Schilke and Solomon’s offer to write a preface in correspondence dated May 10, 1962. In a follow up letter on May 23, Newman weighed in on eponymous numismatic classifications: “I believe it is immodest for you to refer to ‘S. S.’ numbers in your own book. That is for others do to.” Newman practiced what he preached. He did not introduce “Newman” nomenclature in his work on Fugios (1949), Continental dollars (1952) American Plantations tokens (1955), or Virginia coppers (1956). However, numismatists today commonly use the “Newman” term when referring to die varieties within these series. Schilke and Solomon took Newman’s advice, and the final version included only numbered (and not named) varieties.

To read the earlier E-Sylum article, see:
OSCAR GOTTLIEB SCHILKE (1903-1965) (https://www.coinbooks.org/v27/esylum_v27n16a13.html)

Read more here

2025 AMERICAN LIBERTY DESIGNS

Wayne Pearson writes:

Read more here

 

VOCABULARY TERM: PLANCHET

Planchet. A round metal disk (or other shape) made for striking into a coin or medal. The term blank is widely used in the metalworking field. Planchet is only used for coins and medals. Likewise, the word flan is French for a coin or medal blank. A planchet is the end product of the rolling and BLANKING operation. It produces a piece of metal of the proper composition, weight, thickness (and diameter if round). Further to make a blank into a planchet requires treatment of the edge[RWB1].

Read more here

 

NUMISMATIC EXHIBITIONS AT U.S. BANKS

I realized this week that I had written several articles about coin exhibitions at banks. I also realized how common these have been. This week I will offer a review and some additional comments.

Coin clubs have often presented coin exhibits for banks during National Coin Week. I offer someone else the opportunity to catalog those. I would not be surprised it there have been more than a thousand.

Read more here

THE INFAMOUS GROUX COLLECTION

Groux came to America in the 1840s and established himself as a self-proclaimed language teacher and a professor of numismatics. An advertisement that regularly appeared in the Washington (D.C.) Sentinel reads: “Modern Languages – D.E. Groux, a native of France, teacher of modern languages, especially French, Spanish, and German. Translations made with correctness and punctuality. Professor of Numesmatics [sic], for the classification and explanation of medals and coins.”

Groux’s personal collection of ancient through modern coins and medals was heralded as one of the finest, particularly by its owner, whose overly generous valuations thereof were readily accepted in the general press.

Read more here

ATLAS NUMISMATICS SELECTIONS: APRIL 28, 2024

1078301 | GREEK. THRACE. Island of Thasos. Struck circa 435-400 BC. AR Stater. NGC AU? (About Uncirculated ?) Strike 5/5 Surface 3/5 Fine Style. 8.80gm. Satyr advancing right, carrying off protesting nymph / Quadripartite incuse square. Le Rider, Thasiennes 6; HGC 6, 334.

Given the star designation by NGC for exceptional eye appeal.

Ex Millennia Collection - Goldberg Auction 46 (31 May 2006) Lot 26.
$6,950

Read more here

SEDWICK OFFERS FIVE POUND ATOCHA GOLD BAR

When the Spanish treasure galleon Nuestra Señora de Atocha sank in 1622 off what is now Key West, Florida, she took down untold treasures in gold and silver. And now a particularly famous piece of treasure from the wreck is crossing the auction block.

One of the largest gold bars ever recovered from a Spanish colonial shipwreck is up for sale on May 7th in an auction conducted by Daniel Frank Sedwick, LLC in Winter Park, Florida.

Read more here

NOONAN'S OFFERS OLYMPIC MEDALS

The medals and ephemera awarded to Guy Butler, winner of four Olympic medals including a Gold at the 1920 Games are to be sold at Noonans Mayfair in their auction of Historical Medals on Thursday, May 9, 2024. Bell was Britain’s most bemedalled Olympic athlete of all time, a distinction shared since 1984 with Sebastian Coe, Christine Ohuruogu and Mo Farah. Ranging from International including those from the 1920, 1924 and 1928 Olympic Games and regional medals to trophies to blazers, the collection is being sold by his four grandchildren and is expected to fetch £15,000-20,000.

As Peter Preston-Morley commented: “We are very pleased to be selling this collection – just two months before the 2024 Olympic Games will be held in Paris. Guy Butler was a truly outstanding athlete who not only won more Olympic medals that any other British Athlete until 1984 when he was caught up by Sebastian Coe! This wasn’t his only feat, he even outran the legendary Harold Abrahams and came third to Eric Liddell, other heroes of the 1924 Olympics, whose feats were celebrated in the 1981 blockbuster film Chariots of Fire.”

Read more here

BANKNOTES OF THE DEUTSCH-ASIATISCHE BANK

Like other European nations, Germany tried to expand its presence in the Far East in the second half of the 19th century. In China, Germany took part in the Shanghai International Settlement, an enclave in Shanghai from which European governments were allowed to trade. It was here that in 1889 the Deutsch-Asiatische Bank was founded. It had been in the making for the previous decade, but its establishment had been delayed several times. According to Maximilian Müller-Jabusch in his 50-year history of the bank, the main reason for the initial setup of the bank was to finance railroad construction; when the bank got up and running it became more focused on trade financing. Regardless, it played an important role in the development of railroads in China through its banking. Even though Germany lost its colonies at the conclusion of World War I, the bank continued operating in a much-reduced capacity and was eventually merged with Deutsche Bank in the late 1980s.

Read more here

 

NUMISMATIC NUGGETS: APRIL 28, 2024

The Parisii Quarter Stater

Northeast Gaul, The Parisii, Quarter Stater, c. 60-40 BC, BN 7796 R.Northeast Gaul, The Parisii, Quarter Stater, c. 60-40 BC, Traité de numismatique celtique (J-B. Colbert de Beaulieu), Classe V, fig. 21, BN 7796, LT 7796/7798, SLM 273, 1,54 g - highly detailed, immacuately centered and thus one of the best known examples of this extremely rare and important piece of Celtic art and Parisian history.

Already by the end of the 3rd cent BC, a settlement built on the Île de la Cité was inhabited by a Gallic tribe known as the Parisii. Julius Caesar wrote in "Commentarii de Bello Gallico" that the inhabitants would rather burn their town - which Caesar called Luteciam Parisiorum (Lutetia of the Parisii) - than surrender it to the Romans.

To read the complete lot description, see:
Northeast Gaul, The Parisii, Quarter Stater, c. 60-40 BC, BN 7796 (https://www.bonhams.com/auction/30401/lot/204/northeast-gaul-the-parisii-quarter-stater-c-60-40-bc-bn-7796/)

Read more here

 

SWEDISH ISLAND SILVER BRACTEATE HOARD

Swedish archaeologists recently uncovered a 12th century grave during an archaeological dig – and found buried treasure along with it.

The Jönköping County Museum announced the find in a Mar. 27 press release that was translated from Swedish to English. The discovery happened during an excavation of a grave in an old church in Visingsö, a Swedish island.

The coins were found in the grave of a man that experts believed was between 20 and 25 years old when he died. The pieces of metal were produced between 1150 and 1180.

Read more here

EURO COIN COUNTERFEITERS CAUGHT

On Wednesday, German press agency dpa reported that Spain's National Police had busted a money counterfeiting ring that had allegedly been putting fake €2 coins into circulation all across Europe. With the help of the pan-EU police organization Europol, the Spanish authorities were reportedly able to uncover a counterfeit workshop in the central city of Toledo that they described as "the most important in Europe over the past 10 years."

The ring reportedly brought nearly 500,000 coins "of high quality" onto the European market. Ten individuals, all Chinese nationals, were reportedly arrested. Spain's National Police said they had been investigating the case for six years, and described the investigations as "extremely difficult and drawn out, not least because of the secretive nature of the organization, and also the near impossibility of being able to follow a trail, which is characteristic for forged coins."

Read more here

 

EURO BOOK COUNTERFEITERS CAUGHT

Works by Russian literary greats such as Alexander Pushkin and Nikolai Gogol were substituted with valueless counterfeits from European libraries.

European authorities say they have rounded up a criminal gang who stole rare antique books worth €2.5 million from libraries across Europe.

In a press release, Europol announced they had arrested nine Georgian nationals in Georgia and Lithuania who are thought to have collaborated in the plot, in which at least 170 books were stolen.

Read more here

BOY REBUILDS SHREDDED 10,000 YEN BILL

A Japanese boy allegedly spent three weeks piecing back together a 10,000 yen bill like a jigsaw puzzle after it had been accidentally put through a paper shredder.

Japanese Twitter user ‘Tomo’ recently completed one of the hardest puzzles he’s ever done – putting back together a 10,000 yen ($65) bill that had been shredded into thousands of pieces. Apparently, his father accidentally shredded an old envelope at work after forgetting that he had put a 10,000 yen bill in it months ago. Realizing his mistake, the man decided to use his mistake as a challenging project for his son. He took home the entire shredder waste basket and told his son that if he could piece together the shredded bill and exchange it for a new one at the bank, he could keep it. It was a daunting project for even the most avid jigsaw puzzle enthusiast, but one the boy gladly accepted.

Read more here

LOOSE CHANGE: APRIL 28, 2024

The J.N.T. Levick Collection

His collection was sold in parcels starting in 1859. Levick built a major token collection focusing on the issues of America’s eastern states, which comprised about 4,000-5,000 pieces (probably second to Groh’s 5,000+-piece collection)—owned a nearly uncirculated example of the 1792 Birch cent (Judd-3) with a plain edge. This coin was sold at Cogan’s 1859 Sale ...

Civil War Veteran; served in New York Volunteers and commissioned a Captain. Proposed publication of a monthly journal – which became the American Journal of Numismatics. Inducted into the ANA Numismatic Hall of Fame in 2018.

To read the complete article, see:
Joseph Napoleon Tricot “J.N.T.” Levick : Coin Collector Profile (https://coinweek.com/joseph-napoleon-tricot-j-n-t-levick-coin-collector-profile/)

Read more here

 

FEATURED WEBSITE: ROCHESTER NUMISMATIC ASSOCIATION

This week's Featured Website is the Rochester Numismatic Association.

http://www.rochesternumismaticassociation.org/