LOOSE CHANGE: JULY 12, 2020

The World's Ultimate Civilian Awards

From simple stars to elaborate medallions, here are 12 of the world's ultimate civilian awards in all of their splendor.

To read the complete article, see:
Our Highest Honor: Top Medals From Countries Around The World (https://www.rferl.org/a/the-top-civilian-medals-of-the-world/30659335.html)

Queen Elizabeth's Banknote Portraits
Ron Guth writes:

To read the complete article, see:
Queen Elizabeth's face timeline in money note (https://www.reddit.com/r/oddlysatisfying/comments/
gykgrp/queen_elizabeths_face_timeline_in_money_note/)

Collecting Paper Napkins

Pablo Hoffman writes:

It's the Icelandic predilection for museums, for turning private collections into public displays—evident in places such as Petra's Stone Collection, Sigurgeir's Bird Museum, the Icelandic Phallological Museum, and the toy museums in Akureyri, Borgarnes, and Grudafjördur, or the transportation collections, which can be found in the north and west and south. Iceland is a land of museums. It has a genius for them, in all sorts and forms.

As I researched my book, The Museum of Whales You Will Never See, I sat down with many collectors, curators, and directors to ask about the origins of their museums. I heard the same progression so often that I came to recognize its stages. Someone, almost accidentally, has a collection. The neighbors drop by to see. Then a community group makes an appointment. The newspaper writes something up, maybe the television news, too. And then more people come. Strangers. Tourists. Until you have to do something with all that interest, all those people dropping by. Indeed, the pattern happened often enough—private collections becoming public by degrees—that I began to think that the next one could be predicted.

So I started asking every Icelander I met: Where is there a collection big enough, known enough, visited enough, that it is in one of those stages, maybe getting close, about to tip into being a museum of its own?

There were surprisingly few leads. Almost nothing. Then in Heimaey, an island off an island, after a few calls, I was taking off my shoes to walk into a private home. In the living room: drawers and drawers of paper napkins. On the loveseat and the sofa, piles of binders overflowing with yet more napkins. The collection began in 1955. Napkins with dates printed on them went back at least to 1962. A confirmation in 1979. The end of school in 1993. A wedding in 2001. Among the napkins were a scallop-edged floral from when the collector was five years old, another in a duck pattern that matched her sister-in-law's tablecloth years ago, others from Lykil Hotel or Pizza Hut or the Military Air Transport Service of the U.S. Air Force. Flowers and fruits and angels and farms and Disney characters and Santa Claus: maybe 14,000 of them in all.

To read the complete article, see:
Why Doesn't Iceland Have a Museum of Napkins? (https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/iceland-museums-napkins)

Europe's Great Libraries

As we've had to postpone our travels because of the pandemic, I believe a weekly dose of travel dreaming can be good medicine. Here's a reminder of the fun that awaits us in Europe at the other end of this crisis.

For travelers with an interest in the evolution of Western culture, a stop at one of Europe's grand libraries is an unforgettable experience. Many of them offer the chance to connect with books and documents that changed the course of history — while basking in impressive, ornate interiors that reflect the tremendous importance of books in earlier centuries.

One of the oldest libraries in Europe is the Bodleian Library at England's Oxford University. Opened in 1602, it incorporates the older Duke Humfrey's Library from the 15th century. In those days, libraries were placed above classrooms for maximum sunlight and minimum moisture. Books were considered so precious that many were actually chained to a desk. Today this historic library is a world of creaky old shelves of books dating to the Middle Ages, stacked neatly under a beautifully painted wooden ceiling. The space is so atmospheric, it served as Hogwarts' library in the Harry Potter films. (Duke Humfrey's Library is viewable only on a popular guided tour — book in advance.)

The Weston Library, a more modern wing of the Bodleian, welcomes visitors to enjoy a gallery showcasing a changing selection of its most precious items, including a Shakespeare First Folio (18 plays from 1623), an original score of Handel's Messiah (written in 1741), and several original versions of the 1215 Magna Carta — the first legal document to set limits on a ruler's power and the basis of many modern constitutions.

To read the complete article, see:
Visiting Europe's Great Libraries (https://www.luxurytraveladvisor.com/europe/visiting-europe-s-great-libraries)

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