"Ron Guth's project to identify Eliasberg coins and reunite them with their provenance is most interesting and, at least to me, important. Those of us for whom provenance and scholarship are significant seem to be in the minority in numismatics these days.

"It is not surprising that important coins from such collections have been separated from their provenances. I have no doubt that gradeflation and greed are the two overlapping reasons. Everybody knows that 65 is a higher number than 63, right? So, obviously any MS65 coin must be better than any MS63. Why would an auction house admit that their magnificent MS65 gem was once considered a lowly MS63? More money is to be made off a gem UNC than a mere choice UNC, even when they are the exact same piece.

"It's sad that numismatics has become an industry more than a hobby, and the number on the little piece of paper in the plastic is more important than that round, metal thing packaged with it."

"We rarely discuss grades or prices - there are plenty of other places to read that. Our readers and I don't need PMG to tell us it's a nice note - the image was enough."

"With your reply you lofted yourself to a numismatic pinnacle in my eyes!"

Well, thanks. We of course have nothing against third-party grading, it's just that we generally avoid topics of grade and price in The E-Sylum to focus instead on the history behind numismatics, to include art, economics, politics and personalities. Like Bill Eckberg, we prefer provenance and scholarship.

And when we illustrate numismatic items we generally crop out slabs and grades. People can always go to the excerpted article or auction lot to see those - we just prefer pictures of coins over pictures of slabs. One example is the press release for World Banknote Auctions elsewhere in this issue. Rather than show side-by-side images of slabbed notes (where the notes themselves appear small), we show one side of each note full screen. These are beautiful artworks, and something is lost when they're reduced in size.

Which leads me to a related topic and a pet idea of mine, which I think the recent Van Gogh Immersive Experience illustrates well. The beautiful artwork of numismatics deserves a similar treatment. Walking into a coin show should be an equally immersive experience - imagine billboard-sized projections of high resolution photos of coins and paper money. Wouldn't that be a marvelous first impression and a lasting memory? -Editor

"There are a couple pieces on the TokenCatalog site, and two Anillo restrikes.

"I believe these are the same dies as the brass piece illustrated. These are believed to be related to the Eddie Cantor "Strike Me Pink" tokens. But this was already figured out."

Thanks! Here are the images and links. -Editor

"Dave Bower's new book on quarter eagles reminds me of a quote I believe once came from him, that 75% of the value of all US coins ever minted were double eagles from 1849 to 1933. It still amazes me how Dave can write so many books and keep doing so."

"The last two E-Sylums mentioned the Fernand David collection with reference to the upcoming Gadoury auction this coming March 12, 2022. I have had an interest in the collection for many years but agree with other writers that information about the collector is hard to come by. I made a slide presentation last year at our local coin club. Today I assembled the slides into a pdf for those interested in the collection. If you follow the slides for lot 112 you will find an interesting turn."

Very interesting - recommended reading. -Editor