A couple weeks ago Rob Luton passed along a lot from the October 25, 2022 Bonham's New York sale. The lot consisted of a printed broadside "Framed with small coin". The initial estimate for the document was $10,000 to $20,000. Rob noted the coin's resemblance to a 1792 Half Disme. I corresponded with the auction house as well as Pete Smith and Joel Orosz, co-authors of 1792: Birth of a Nation's Coinage. As it turned out, the coin was indeed a 1792 Half Disme not previously in the census, slabbed and graded VF 35 by NGC. The estimated range for the lot was raised to $20,000 to $30,000. So how much did the dual lot bring? -Editor

"I would say $113,775 is no small sum… I guess the consignor is not going to send me a thank you note as they don't know who I am but I take a little bit of pride, as you should, in their successful sale. Well done."

Thanks again to Rob, Pete and Bonham's for their help getting to the bottom of that "small coin" with no small pricetag in today's market. Great find, and congratulations to the new owner, whom we expect will have the piece reslabbed.

This was one of the more rewarding articles we've published, and one of my all-time favorites, along with the series we did on the coinage of ISIS a few years back (see a new article elsewhere in this issue). E-Sylum readers are the best. Double thanks to Pete Smith for his image analysis and 1792 Half Disme census data. -Editor

"I was interested to see the illustration of Hermon MacNeil's 'Hopi / Prayer for Rain' medal taken from the new book Hermon Atkins MacNeil : American Sculptor in the Broad, Bright Daylight", by James E. Haas. However, the caption seems to muddle it with his award medal for the Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo, 1901, whereas the Hopi medal was issued by the Society of Medallists in 1931, 30 years later. Both are cracking medals and are also illustrated by Barbara A. Baxter in The Beaux-Arts Medal in America, Fig. 5 / no. 106 and no. 354."

Above is the Pan-American Exposition medal; Below is the Hopi Prayer for Rain medal. The confusion may have come from my back-to-back layout. I used the captions embedded in the image files. -Editor

John Feigenbaum of CDN Publishing posted a second video interview with CAC's John Albanese about the firm's pivot to third-party grading. Hobby history happening in real time. Check it out. -Editor