This batch includes some notes I was unable to include last week. -Editor

"I decided to see if I could figure this one out. I believe it was issued by William Robinson Hunter (W.R.H.) (1857-1915) and his wife Edith Norman Hunter (E.N.H.) (1863-1949) and must have been related to a party they had that day.

I found this blurb reported in Providence, R.I. Evening Bulletin on July 6, 1897: "Mr. and Mrs. William R. Hunter held a fete at their place, "Sunnyfield Farm," in Middletown yesterday, which was largely attended.""

Thanks! Great sleuthing! -Editor

On a related note, the December 2021 issue of the Love Token Society's Love Letter newsletter edited by Carol Bastable referenced an interesting engraved 1799 Bust Dollar. With permission, we're republishing the item here. Thanks! -Editor

Study the handsome inscription on this 1799 Draped Bust Dollar. I was the sole bidder in an eBay auction not long ago. It was listed as ‘engraved', not a ‘love token', so I suspect many in that target audience were missed. I did a little genealogy search and found one William F. Bradley born 1857, died 1939 in Queens, New York, listed as single, perhaps never married. H.D. Henderickson was harder to locate. The surname is spelled in such a way as to suggest it might be a first or second-generation Swedish immigrant. I know it's a long shot, but I found an H. Henderickson born 1858 in Sweden, who lived in Polk County, Minnesota.

I shared this with our resident genealogy sleuth Julia Casey. Here are her thoughts. Thanks. -Editor

"My guess for an attribution of this piece is William Bradley (1852-1924), who was well-known in the New York City environs in the early 20th century. Bradley's obituary as published by the Glens Falls (NY) Post-Star details portions of his rags to riches to rags life story. Bradley was the son of Irish immigrants and established the Bradley Contracting Company with his brother, James. This company excavated some of the first subways and important tunnels in the NYC area. Bradley, also invested in champion trotting horses and had an expansive stable called Ardmaer Farms in New Jersey. The location of this farm is the present community of Bradley Gardens in Somerset County.

"I could not directly connect Bradley to a H.D. Henderickson, but I have a couple candidates to be this individual. Henry Denise Hendrickson (1832-1890) of Holmdel, New Jersey bred and raced trotting horses in the 1850s and perhaps beyond. In his youth Bradley may have had some association to Hendrickson based on his love of trotters. In addition, Hendrickson had a son, Henry D. Hendrickson, Jr. (1872-1913) who was born in Holmdel but moved to New York City. The 1905 New York State census shows that he lived in Manhattan and was employed as a truck driver or teamster. This H.D. Hendrickson could very well have been employed by Bradley's excavating company, but I have yet to make a firm connection.

"I don't believe we should be held strictly to the engraved Henderickson spelling, as such an error could easily be made."

"I found this extra interesting because I grew up on a standardbred horse farm! I spent hours and hours of my youth studying these horses and their pedigrees."

Thanks, everyone! -Editor

"I was delighted at the E-Sylum treatment of the Daniel W. Valentine Medal of the New York Numismatic Club. He was a prominent early member of NYNC, which had planned to publish his definitive work of Fractional Currency. Although such matters would never have been publicly discussed, Club officers were aware that this worthy dentist was living in reduced circumstances late in his life and made him an honorary member largely to obviate paying dues.

"His definitive fractional currency book was published through the generosity of member F.C.C. Boyd. Valentine's in-depth study of U.S. Half Dimes was published in 1937, immediately before its author's death. In it, he avoided any references to rarity and value which he feared would aid dealers in setting retail prices... I wonder what he would have thought of slabbing!

"David T. Alexander
Past President NYNC"

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"I have not written for a while, however on a snow bound day I decided to spend the time in my library. Wow. Four hours went by so fast I could believe it!

"One item I looked at was W E Woodward's "D" sale held on Jan. 22 & 23, 1879. Woodward always claimed that he assisted Joel Munsell of Albany in cataloging this sale. I believe that Munsell cataloged the rare historical books, and WEW the coins & medals.

"However in finding references to this sale I could not find any listings under Woodward or Munsell names. Finally I found the sale listed under the Libbie auction house.

"This made me wonder... For early catalogers, what determines how they are listed, the cataloger, or the auction house? What do our readers think? My copy of the Woodward "D" sale is in a bound volume of Woodward sales that came from the Armand Champa library."

In many cases it's easy to determine the cataloguer and the auction house. Sometimes, only one or the other is apparent. Printed bibliographies are limited in space, so the author generally chooses just one as the primary ordering scheme. Most numismatic auction bibliographies list sales by cataloguer, and that's generally a good thing. But not all, and that can sometimes be helpful. I found Lorraine Durst's book United States Numismatic Auction Catalogs: A Bibliography useful because it lists the sales by auction house. When I was researching the early history of the Western Pennsylvania Numismatic Society this arrangement helpfully showed together all of the numismatic sales held in Pittsburgh, and the cataloguers were all WPNS members. -Editor

"Recent posts on the Fernand David sale brought a good memory to me. I have a copy of the Schulman 1930 sale. I showed it to my very good friend, the late Phil Carrigan. He got quite excited over the rare American coins and medals described therein. Later he was able to obtain a copy for his own collection. I am sure that there would be some interesting stories of how those rare American items got to Europe in the 19th century."

"I just finished watching an old episode of Banacek (To Steal a King) where a coin dealer deposits a priceless collection in a hotel vault, which is later stolen.

"It caused me to remember several other of my favorite shows (detective/drama) where numismatics was part of the plot. These were:

"Hart to Hart – To Coin a Hart - a rare coin dealer is killed during a robbery

"Perry Mason – The Case of the Wooden Nickels involving counterfeit but rare Confederate coins

"Perry Mason – The Case of the Captain's Coins

"Matlock – The Thief. The episode shows a $20 St. Gaudens double eagle and a 1936 proof set

"Hawaii Five-O - "The $100,000 Nickel with a 1913 Liberty nickel."

In the great-minds-think-alike department, within an hour of receiving Howard's email I received another on the same topic from Robert Leuver, former Director of the Bureau of Engraving and Printing and also a former Executive Director of the American Numismatic Association. -Editor

"2022 PRIME VIDEO TV SERIES ONE (6 or 7 episodes), REACHER, February 2022

"My wife, Hilda, and I watched this short series the week of February 7, 2022.

"Counterfeiting US currency was the theme. It was a gripping and enjoyable series

"TV series exposed in second episode that the theme was counterfeiting of US paper money/currency. Multiple murders, etc. A Georgia Corp in Markum, Georgia, was involved in counterfeiting. In episode next to last, the counterfeiting was explained in detail. Acquire one dollar US banknotes, wash them in a special solution to remove ink; then carefully dry. iron blank paper (75% cotton, 5% flax actually), wherein you have genuine US paper currency stock, and then print $100 banknotes on both sides. Use an old (dated) note series as that series would not have current anti counterfeiting devices (color, printed strip imbedded in paper, color changing image, etc.).

"The technical difficulty is the millions of $1 notes that had to be harvested, and the millions of $100 banknotes printed and sent to distributor in Venezuela. Otherwise, the theme was genuine and intriguing."

And this week I came across this description of a Seinfeld episode: "... while Estelle tries to get George to take a civil service test, Frank rambles on about his silver dollar collection." -Editor

"I recently discovered a Medal that reads MADE FROM THE U DEUTSCHLAND BALLAST BALTIMORE, JULY 9TH 1916 on the front of the oval silver medal. Also on the front within the center is a vessel with the sun setting on the left side. On the back of this medal is the inscription FROM THE FIRST TRANSATLANTIC TRIP FOR THE BENEFIT OF THE PRISONERS OF WAR IN SIBERIA. The dimensions of the medal are one (1) inch right to left (width) by one and one-half (1 1/2) inches from top to bottom. The medal is attached to a black leather strap that is approximately three and three-quarters (3 3/4) inches long by one-half (1/2)inch wide.

"The medal appears to have been made by the Interboro Medal and Badge Manufacturing Co. of New York City. The medal appears to be stamped or inscribed on the front lower right area with Interboro M&B CO.

"I have only been able to research limited information regarding this medal and have not seen anything on the internet that resembles this WW1 medal."

Interesting. Can anyone help? -Editor

This one really made my day. Thanks to Wayne Pearson for passing this along! -Editor

"To increase public acceptance of a new coin style, the Mint experimented with preserving aspects of the prior design in the new one. Here's a rare "Winged Roosevelt" pattern."