I have been traveling, and am now back in Europe, also somewhat behind in my reading. You do a great job every week, but last week's issue was in my opinion one of the very best. Congratulations!

First of all you did a wonderful job merging my post on John Burton with John Lupia's. Thanks for that.

I enjoyed reading the outpouring of tributes to Eric Newman on his birthday. They were all so well deserved.

The interview with Maurice Storck on his World War II experiences was interesting and also humorous. Anyone who did not open the link and read the whole interview missed a treat. I think those adventures would make a great film. I wish someone would interview him on his memories of the Farouk sale while he is still living. I am sure his experiences in Cairo would be well worth reading.

That got me thinking about the Farouk sale. My catalog is hand priced in pounds - whether British pounds or Egyptian pounds I am not sure. Also the auctioneer, a Mr Lee. I have read that he started the bidding for each lot in Arabic, then would switch to the language of his bidders on that lot, be it French, Spanish, Italian, German, or English. What an interesting person!

Proof positive that we see what we want to see.

Another passing of someone I knew and respected. It was a shock to hear of Benjamin's passing, as he was far too young for something like that to even enter my mind. When I started collecting colonial coins I was the youngest person in the room -- by far! Now that I'm at the half-century mark I see so many more people younger than me and just always thought that they would still be here when I was reaching the Eric Newman age bracket -- and Ben had the makings of being a Newman-level scholar as well.

I met Ben when he was with Civitas Galleries, and we shared a passion for counterfeit coinage, especially Spanish and South American which he collected for a while and then sold. Every item I bought from him was meticulously described and researched, and we had long discussions about counterfeits, coins, collectors and, briefly, cancer. I don't think it crossed my mind that he wouldn't win that battle, and though one is always scared with that kind of a diagnosis, I believe he thought the same. He certainly didn't stop reading, learning and making plans.

Ben was truly one of the good guys in the hobby - not just smart as a collector or fair as a dealer, but a good human being which is often quite a bit rarer. He will be greatly missed by all those who knew him.

Thank you for The E-Sylum and your contributions to The Asylum. Both have been very enjoyable for many years - even though they don't have much about my specialty of "wildmen", mostly on the coins of German states but I diversified to anything with the image.

My collection of the auction catalogs of Fritz Rudolph Kuenker GmbH & Co is from #1 (Feb. 1985) thru about 2010 missing only a few but many including the prices realized.

I offer the catalogs free to anyone if at no cost to me. The American Numismatic Association already has two sets. It will fill about five 10 ream copy paper boxes (19x12x10) and are heavy. I found that those boxes aren't strong enough for postal shipping; maybe with special treatment? Pickup from my home in Anaheim would work well.

If anyone is interested, please advise me within the next two months. If no response, the catalogs will be trashed - which bothers my collector / thrifty soul.

I came across a photo that you posted of the 1929 Reparations Commission in 2010 asking for identification of the people in it. Top row, second from the right is Thomas Nelson Perkins. He was my Great-Grandfather, and is easily recognizable from family photos as well as in news media.

My son might be a lost cause when it comes to interest in history & numismatics, but I am happy to say I run into plenty of serious teenagers and young adults who do have those interests. It seems to me that there are fewer young people casually interested in coins these days. But there are just about as many seriously interested as there always were.

Our hobby is tailor made for the internet. Coins are easy to photograph, study and ship safely through the mail. There is an endless explosion of new information out there, and you no longer need a $20,000 library to access it. And because there is now so much raw data out there from newspapers and old books as we digitize all of human knowledge, there are more discoveries being made and yet to come. ​

My son doesn't know what he is missing.