LOOSE CHANGE: MARCH 22, 2020

Charles Barkley Selling 1996 Olympic Gold Medal

Chris Mullin and Charles Barkley, 1992

Charles Barkley is cleaning out his house in order to build homes for others.

Earlier this month, the NBA Hall of Famer and sports commentator, 57, announced that he intends to clear his stock of athletic memorabilia for auction, with the proceeds going toward constructing affordable housing in his hometown of Leeds, Alabama.

According to CNN, Barkley is selling his 1996 Olympic gold medal (he also earned one in the 1992 games, which he's saving for his daughter to keep), his 1993 NBA MVP trophy, among other accolades and items from his storied career.

To read the complete article, see:
Charles Barkley Auctioning Olympic Gold Medal to Build Affordable Housing in His Alabama Hometown (https://people.com/sports/charles-barkley-auctioning-olympic-gold-medal-to-build-affordable-housing-in-his-alabama-hometown/)

Murder in the Bookshop

Cruise the tables at antiquarian book fairs and the name Carolyn Wells is bound to catch your eye sooner or later, likely on a garish paperback with a title like The Radio Studio Murder or The Roll-Top Desk Mystery. Little known today, Wells wrote as many as 167 books, of which approximately 82 are mysteries, beginning at the turn of twentieth century and continuing into the early 1940s.

One of her most famous is Murder in the Bookshop (1936), which was revived by London's Detective Club Crime Classics series in 2018 and will be available in the U.S. this month via HarperCollins. Featuring her beloved detective, Fleming Stone, who stars in 61 of her novels, its popularity probably has less to do with what Curtis Evans in the introduction to the new edition calls "the resurgence of popular interest in vintage mystery fiction," and more to do with how well Wells knew this insular world. She was a die-hard book collector whose "outstanding" collection of early Walt Whitman editions was donated to the Library of Congress upon her death in 1942.

A delicious anecdote relayed by octogenarian book collector Edward Naumburg, Jr., in 1987 bears this out. He recalls a time in the early thirties when he visited At the Sign of the Sparrow, the rare bookshop of New York City's Alfred Goldsmith, who happened at the time to be on the phone with Wells. She had called to ask about a good getaway technique for one of her characters. Goldsmith answered, "Let him jump out of the backroom window into the yard." When he hung up, he boasted to his client that the author is writing a mystery about a bookshop, "and she's visualizing this store for the killing."

It wasn't bluster. By that time, Wells and Goldsmith were old friends. When she decided, nearly two decades before, on a whim spurred by two collector friends, to expend her ample bank account buying rare Whitman editions, she relied on Goldsmith to guide her acquisitions. In her 1937 memoir, The Rest of My Life, she refers to book collecting as a "wild fancy" and breezily recounts buying two copies of every book she wanted, as well as signed copies, manuscripts, photos, letters, and postcards; she yearned for a lock of the poet's hair, but never got one. "I know of no Whitman item that I do not possess," she eventually concluded.

To read the complete article, see:
CAROLYN WELLS, IN THE LIBRARY, WITH A REVOLVER (https://crimereads.com/carolyn-wells-in-the-library-with-a-revolver/)

U.S. Mint Runs Out of Silver Coins

The U.S. Mint has temporarily run out of silver bullion coins after selling 2.3 million coins in the past week and a half.

The surge nearly triples February's sales and is up from 850,000 coins in the same month last year.

West Point, where the coins are minted, is working to produce more coins, according to Mint spokesman Michael White.

Mr. White didn't give a reason for the increase in sales, but it is possible buyers are worried about the new coronavirus.

To read the complete article (subscription required), see:
U.S. Mint Runs Out of Silver Coins as Demand Surges (https://www.wsj.com/livecoverage/coronavirus/card/u4qjZDrkGuuPLxl29J38)

A Bank in Midtown Is Cleaned Out of $100 Bills

As the stock market was having its worst day in 30 years on Thursday, customers at a Bank of America branch in Midtown Manhattan, the financial heart of New York, were lining up to take cash out of their accounts — sometimes tens of thousands of dollars at a time.

So many people sought huge sums that the bank branch, at 52nd Street and Park Avenue, temporarily ran out of $100 bills to fulfill large withdrawals, according to three people familiar with the branch's operations. The shortage hit after a rash of requests for as much as $50,000, said two people who witnessed the rush.

The problem was limited to large bills — the bank's A.T.M.s stayed stocked and customers with routine transactions were still able to take out cash. By Friday morning, the bank had refilled its supply of big bills, two of the people said.

But the desire for cash persisted: A teller at a JPMorgan Chase branch across the street said on Friday that there had been a "nonstop" stream of customers stockpiling cash over the past two days.

To read the complete article, see:
A Bank in Midtown Is Cleaned Out of $100 Bills (https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/14/business/coronavirus-cash-shortage-bank.html)

Peter Huntoon writes:

Paper Money Shunned For Fear of Virus

A growing number of businesses and individuals worldwide have stopped using banknotes in fear that physical currency, handled by tens of thousands of people over their useful life, could be a vector for the spreading coronavirus.

Public officials and health experts have said that the risk of transferring the virus person-to-person through the use of banknotes is small. But that has not stopped businesses from refusing to accept currency and some countries from urging their citizens to stop using banknotes altogether.

To read the complete article, see:
Filthy lucre: Paper money shunned for fear of virus spread (https://apnews.com/167186097f44116220b757abebb49be3)

Show us the money -- unless its cash!

That's the sentiment a growing number of businesses around the world have adopted as fear grows over the spread of COVID-19.

Despite assurances from public health officials, some retailers are banning banknotes.

Julie Fischer, a professor at the Center for Global Health Science and Society at Georgetown University, says while there may be traces of the virus lingering on paper bills, it is unlikely virus particles will return to the air, or aerosolize, once on a surface.

Despite the reassurance, some people just aren't ready to risk it.

In South Korea, which has been more successful in stemming the outbreak, the country's central bank took all banknotes out of circulation for two weeks or, in some cases, burned paper money.

The National Bank of Poland said Thursday that "Polish banknotes are subjected to a quarantine" and are therefore safe to use in cash transactions.

To read the complete article, see:
Businesses banning banknotes, asking customers to use credit, debit cards (https://www.foxnews.com/world/businesses-banning-banknotes-asking-customers-to-use-credit-debit-cards)

To read another article, see:
Filthy lucre: Paper money shunned for fear of virus spread (https://www.timesofisrael.com/filthy-lucre-paper-money-shunned-for-fear-of-virus-spread/)

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