"I found the article on the Gold Dollar Saloon in Buffalo, NY interesting. On page 106 of my hard rubber token catalog is a token from the Silver Dollar Saloon, with Wegefarth's name on the reverse. Wegefarth also issued brass tokens, which are listed in Wright.

"I took a quick look at the 2015 article. The authors commented that the Gold Dollar Saloon and the Silver Dollar Saloon were competitors, but later in the article he say that Gus Wegefarth owned the Gold Dollar; Wegefarth obviously owned the Silver Dollar also, since his name is on the hard rubber token."

Thanks. Too bad we'll probably never know the fate of the displayed coins. -Editor

"The piece on Lorenzo Hatch in last week's E-Sylum stated that the two portraits on the back of the $2 Educational note were engraved by Lorenzo Hatch. That is not the case. The portrait of Fulton was engraved by Charles Burt, and the portrait of Morse was engraved by Charles Schlecht. That information comes from the Bureau of Engraving and Printing. Gene Hessler also had the Burt and Schlecht attributions in his Comprehensive Catalog which I believe is still being published. The portraits of Grant and Sheridan on the back of the $5 Educational note were engraved by Hatch. Unfortunately Wikipedia carries the incorrect information about the portraits on the $2 note, and I suspect other sources have picked up that same information.

"Lorenzo Hatch is a particular research interest of mine. I wrote an article for the American Numismatic Society ANS Magazine, 2012 issue 4, entitled "Artistic Perfection is Security: The U.S. Work of Lorenzo J. Hatch," which lists the Hatch BEP portraits that were used on U.S. currency: Garfield, Manning, Sheridan, and Grant. He did many other portraits for the BEP but those were the only ones used on U.S. paper money. While Hatch's work at the Bureau was excellent, it was mostly portraits, and his most interesting work by far was the work done for the International Bank Note Company from 1889-1908, mostly vignettes for stocks and bonds. In many cases he did the artwork and the engraving for those vignettes."

Thanks for setting things straight. -Editor

"An excellent general reference on this topic is William G. Anderson, The Price of Liberty: The Public Debt of the American Revolution (Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1983). It has an extensive history of the Revolutionary War debt and how it was repaid. As for documents, it covers both debt certificates of the United States and those of the individual states, including Vermont, with extensive illustrations and rarity ratings. It also has an index and bibliography. There is a useful explanation of the difference between a certificate of debt and a bill of credit, both of which are numismatic items collected by colonial and confederation-era American specialists.

"Your illustration is not a debt certificate, but a receipt for two of them. Receipts are specifically excluded from Anderson's coverage, along with warrants, drafts on the treasury and vouchers. He says: Vouchers and receipts are not certificates of debt, while pay warrants and treasury drafts, although often issued for the same purpose as certificates, e.g., settlement of accounts, are excluded because they were usually settled immediately and did not become part of the public debt."

Thanks. I had the book handy and made these scans. -Editor

"If anybody likes stories about the PanAm Clippers, I can highly recommend one about the "real" Clipper (the Boeing B-314) piloted by Captain Robert Ford, trapped in the Pacific by the outbreak of World War II, and what happened to it. No spoilers, just read "The Long Way Home" by Ed Dover — a true story and a thrilling read."

Craig Sholley passed along a couple more examples of bronzed copper pieces from Stack's Bowers sales. Thanks! -Editor

"The January issue of The Numismatist contained an announcement (p. 23) that the famous Hawaii Five-O specimen of the 1913 Liberty Head Nickel was recently sold by Stack's Bowers for more than $4 million. This specimen is also known as the Olsen-Hydeman specimen. I believe it was when World-Wide Coin Investments purchased the coin from Abe Kosoff in 1972 that they announced (in Coin World or Numismatic News?) the availability of a free 35mm color photographic slide of the coin. As a 12-year old budding collector in 1972, I was fascinated by this coin and requested a copy of the slide. I still have it and am wondering how many others still have one of these. Here are photos of each side of the slide."

Cool - thanks. Does anyone else have one of these? -Editor