"About two years ago, just after the ANA World's Fair of Money in Denver, Maria Fanning issued a call to NBS members to submit articles for The Asylum. At the same time, Wayne noted in The E-Sylum that there had not been a single Numismatic Literature exhibit on display at that year's World's Fair of Money, and he further noted that this was an ongoing problem. As it happens, I enjoy writing. As it happens, I also enjoy putting on numismatic exhibits. So I thought, what the heck, why not kill two birds with one stone? I decided to write an article for The Asylum which I would then turn into an exhibit for the ANA. Maria published the article in the Spring 2018 Asylum as "Buy the Book for the Coin: Books for the Byzantine Coin Collector," and I displayed the exhibit at the ANA as (more simply) "Buy the Book for the Coin."

"So... at last month's World's Fair of Money, the exhibit received the Aaron Feldman Memorial Award for First Place in the Class "Numismatic Literature," and on the very same day the NBS gave the article the Jack Collins Award for Best Article by a First Time Author (and a really cool award it is). What a deal! Especially because I was not expecting either award.

"Anyway, I wanted to thank Maria for the inspiration to write the article, and Wayne, for the inspiration to create the exhibit. Those of us who write on numismatic topics and/or create numismatic exhibits (mostly) do not do it for the sake of winning awards – we do it for the satisfaction and enjoyment of researching something, learning something we did not know, and then sharing it with other like-minded folks; winning an award for that is just icing on a very tasty cake."