"Would you mind explaining the origin of using the name Asylum (and E-Sylum)?"

"About the 1883 no cent nickels -my understanding from some news article buried deep in my library is that the nickels were not all released in 1883 as the fraud issue of gold plating them became apparent. They were held in the treasury until 1933 when gold coins were withdrawn. When released in 1933 or 1934 they were an instant anomaly to the public in an era of buffalo nickels, and saved. Hence, many high grade examples."

"In reading about St. George in your latest issue, it's possibly worth noting that his appearance on the sovereign in 1817 was the first real person not a royal to appear on a British coin. (Dismissing the unreleased Cromwell crown of the 17th century, which was English, rather than British). The first non-royal person on a British stamp waited until 1964, with William Shakespeare."

On one point there was later public controversy, the doubling of the T of BRITT in the inscription on the obverse. Here the classical scholarship of the chancellor himself [William E. Gladstone] had saved the Mint from error, but lesser minds failed to understand the application of the Latin rule that the final consonant of an abbreviation should be doubled when necessary to indicate the plural.

"A recent issue had a chat about thickness of the Red Book. I don't buy one every year. I wanted to suggest that people check the actual page count, not issue thickness. A printer might use a slightly thinner paper stock which makes a book thinner while still having full content.

"I know the publisher of a camera price guide who says some readers are concerned when an issue is thinner than the previous one. So he continued with thick paper that made it a bigger and heavier book, clumsy to carry around and costly for each book that gets mailed. He used the term "bible paper" in the conversation."

"Mr. Graver is correct, of course: the kind of paper used in a book will affect the thickness of the spine. It's something we're constantly attuned to, and an important factor in Whitman book designs. (We request templates from our printers for laying out our covers; spine width is a major part of the equation.)

"We choose paper with an eye toward quality and visual appeal. We want good color saturation and tonal contrast, and obviously it would be distracting if images or text bled through to the other side of the leaf.

"For the 2021 edition of the Red Book we chose 50# Influence Matte, which has a ppi of 714. (Matte paper generally provides the greatest longevity, compared to glossy or coated-matte papers.) We strive for consistency with the paper, for the sake of consistent spine widths, but we also stay flexible in our paper supply, in order to be able to add pages while maintaining high quality.

"The Red Book's page count has never gone down. In recent years it's been increasing. Today it's 464 pages plus endpapers and a bound business-reply card. Grabbing a random volume off my shelf: the 2014 edition was 448 pages plus endpapers and a card."

"My mother-in-law died in August of last year — her $1200 stimulus check just arrived.

The envelope tells the recipient to check the box marked "deceased" if the person is no longer living and send it back. Mom died last August in the Los Angeles area at age 94. Her name was on the check, followed by DECD, a government code for the word Deceased — so the government knew she was not alive in 2020.

How many other errors such as this are happening nationally is unknown."

"I am hoping that one our readers might have an unwanted copy of The Colonial Newsletter on disc up to issue 103. I have the disc from 104 to the final issue already. I know it's on the Newman Portal but I don't always have access to the internet. So, if I have it on CD, I can read it anywhere."