LOOSE CHANGE: JULY 18, 2021

To watch the video, see:
Interview with Master Engraver Ron Landis (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h8Fv6RfiRVc)

I've read thousands of books to my daughter over the past few years (starting even before she could walk or talk). So far I've found a few kids' books that have coins, stamps, and similar collectibles as plot elements. There are even some with coins as a main theme. (I'm talking about literary books here, as opposed to reference works or collector guides.)

One important piece of advice I would give any aspiring author: Make sure you get your facts right. Numismatics is a complex subject—so complex that even broad, apparently simple statements should be double-checked by a numismatist. (Among adult writers, I love Stephen King, but he often gets coin-related details wrong in his horror stories—sometimes amazingly wrong! Like the four-and-a-half-ounce double eagles in his short story Word Processor of the Gods, in Skeleton Crew.

To read the complete article, see:
Notes Published: More on children's books and coin collecting (https://news.coinupdate.com/notes-published-more-on-childrens-books-and-coin-collecting/)

German federal court on Tuesday rejected the appeal of two defendants who had been jailed for stealing a massive gold coin from Berlin's Bode Museum.

The court in the city of Leipzig concluded that there were no "legal errors to the disadvantage of the defendants" in their February 2020 sentencing and, as such, their prison terms were found to be legally binding.

In total, three men were convicted of stealing the coin. Two defendants, aged 23 and 21, were tried as juveniles and were handed four and a half years in prison. The third convicted defendant, a 21-year-old, was sentenced to three years and four months.

To read the complete article, see:
Berlin gold coin heist defendants lose appeal (https://www.dw.com/en/berlin-gold-coin-heist-defendants-lose-appeal/a-58254269)

A year and a half ago, I found myself in an archive room at the London School of Economics, staring at 150-year-old documents complete with swirly handwriting and a red-wax seal. My mind flicked back to a few weeks earlier, when I'd gotten one of my occasional nosebleeds, and I had a random yet horrifying thought: What if my nose starts bleeding on one of these irreplaceable pages? What would happen if I ruined them?

I had the chance to discuss my fears at my next research stop, the Centre for Research Collections at the University of Edinburgh's main library. When a smoke alarm interrupted my silent, solitary scholarship, another researcher invited me to her office for a cup of tea. The alarm got us talking about archival damage, and when I shared my nosebleed anxieties, she told me that a friend of hers had once sneezed on an illuminated manuscript. As the friend instinctively began wiping, the ink smudged. The more they wiped, the worse it got; the scene was practically the same nightmare that had been depicted on the old British TV show Mr. Bean.

To read the complete article, see:
An Archivist Sneezes on a Priceless Document. Then What? (https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/an-archivist-sneezes-on-a-priceless-document-then-what/ar-AAM7knM)

	NBS (coinbooks.org) Web