WAYNE'S NUMISMATIC DIARY: JANUARY 23, 2022

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V25 2022 INDEX E-SYLUM ARCHIVE

The E-Sylum: Volume 25, Number 4, January 23, 2022, Article 30

Tuesday January 18th was the monthly meeting of my Northern Virginia numismatic social group, Nummis Nova. I was co-host with our newest regular member Daryl Haynor. We chose Pazzo Pomodoro, an Italian restaurant in Vienna.

I was the second to arrive and took a seat across from Tom Kays. Before long we were joined by Robert Hoppensteadt, Wayne Herndon, Chris Neuzil, Roger Burdette, Steve Bishop and Julian Leidman. Daryl had returned from the FUN show with a case of COVID and couldn't attend. Regulars Dave Schenkman and Eric Schena were absent as well. We weren't the only club meeting there for dinner - a man came up to our table and asked if we were with the model railroading group.

I passed around several items as exhibits, including a consecutive pair of $10 Star notes I'd found at an ATM. Most of my material, as usual, was numismatic literature. I shared a binder filled with several recent additions to my ephemera collection, mostly from a recent purchase from Howard Engel at Richard Stockley Books in Canada.

Numismatic Pamphlets and Other Ephemera
Here are some of the ephemeral items I displayed, including pamphlets on Canadian coinage and Alaskan parchment scrip.

This 1933 Double Eagle souvenir card arrived too late for the meeting, an eBay purchase from Fred Weinberg. Nice companion for the 1933 gold proclamation poster I bought from him earlier.

Friedberg Book Printing Block
Building on the E-Sylum topic from last week of printing blocks used to illustrate coin books, Tom Kays brought an ink-stained wood and copper printing block with the obverse of a Twenty Dollar Federal Reserve Bank Note, Series of 1918, featuring the head of Grover Cleveland. Tom provided these images and background.

"I brought the matching, 1953 first edition of Paper Money of the United States – A Complete Illustrated Guide with Valuations by Robert Friedberg, published by the Coin and Currency Publishing Institute of New York, which listed the note at a book value of three times face value for a very fine example, comparable to scarce date gold coins back then. The printed image appears on page 94 of the book and is cataloged as design No. 131, applicable to issues from 1915 to 1918. The reverse of the note shows land, sea, and air transportation.

The actual notes were ‘saddle blanket size' while the printing plate is reduced in size to five inches wide by two inches tall, no doubt necessary to avoid trouble with the potential for counterfeiting. The detail in the printing plate is quite fine and it raises the question of how such exact and detailed engravings on copper were done back in 1953, before the invention of computers and dot-matrix printers."

Steve's Morgans and Medals
Steve Bishop brought several Morgan dollar acquisitions (including a 1884-CC and 1891) and a nice Columbian Exposition bicycle medal.

Group Photos
As noted earlier, I'm a terrible photographer. This first cameo shot of our table isn't bad, but I caught Steve mid-bite. And in the second shot with everyone posing, I managed to catch Tom mid-blink looking like he's napping. Were I any good at Photoshop I'd combine the two, but readers will just have to use their imaginations.

From left, clockwise: Tom Kays, Robert Hoppensteadt, Chris Neizil, Roger Burdette, Steve Bishop, Julian Leidman, Wayne Herndon, and my empty chair.

I thought the food was marvelous, and everyone's selections looked great. We gorged on appetizers as well, including garlic bread, fried mozzarella and white pizza. The wine wasn't bad either, but as always, the main attraction was the conversation and numismatic fellowship. 'Til next time, all.