LOOSE CHANGE: DECEMBER 18, 2022

The online auction of items from Forrest Fenn's famed treasure chest closed on Tuesday. In total, the sale generated $1,307,946.

All 476 artifacts in the collection were sold, and a total of 1,643 people placed bids for a piece of the fortune, Heritage Auctions communications director Robert Wilonsky told Outside.

A 549-gram Alaskan gold nugget brought in the most cash, with the highest bidder taking it home for $55,200. The next highest price was for a wax-sealed glass jar purportedly containing Fenn's 20,000-word autobiography, which went for $48,000. In his 2010 memoir The Thrill of the Chase, Fenn wrote that he included the autobiography because maybe the lucky finder would want to know a little about the foolish person who abandoned such an opulent cache.

The sale is yet another wrinkle in the saga sparked by Fenn in 2010, when the late art dealer hid the chest filled with gold and jewels somewhere in the Rocky Mountains. Obsessives searched far and wide in pursuit of the riches, with a 24-line poem as their only clue. One man served time in prison for digging up graves at Yellowstone National Park. Five people died while looking for the cache.

To read the complete article, see:
Forrest Fenn's Treasure Sells for Less than a Condo in This Mountain Town (https://www.outsideonline.com/outdoor-adventure/exploration-survival/forrest-fenn-treasure-sold-online-auction/)

To read the earlier E-Sylum article, see:
FORREST FENN'S TREASURE CHEST OFFERED (https://www.coinbooks.org/v25/esylum_v25n47a18.html)

 

Iconoclasm (image smashing) was very popular within the Byzantine military during the eighth and ninth centuries, but the bulk of the population strongly opposed the Iconoclasts (image smashers). The decree of the Second Council of Nicaea in 787, which declared Iconoclasm to be heretical, was well-received throughout most of the Byzantine Empire. Iconoclasm was a lost cause.

Or so it seemed.

To read the complete article, see:
CoinWeek Ancient Coin Series: Coins of the Iconoclasts, Part II (https://coinweek.com/ancient-coins/coinweek-ancient-coin-series-coins-of-the-iconoclasts-part-ii/)

AS THE CLASSIC FILM CITIZEN KANE opens, Charles Foster Kane lies in bed, alone in the dark clutching a snow globe. Inside the globe is a wooden cabin covered in white. After a minute, Kane whispers one of the most famous lines in film history—just one word—Rosebud. His hand goes limp, and the glass globe falls to the floor and shatters. It's an iconic image—but it is one with some mystery. No one knows for sure who made Kane's snow globe. In the absence of certainty, credit has been given to the Original Snow Globe Factory and the family who gave the world these wintery miniatures.

The story begins around 1900 when Erwin Perzy, a surgical instrument maker in Vienna, Austria, received a request from a doctor for a lightbulb that produced the bright illumination needed for surgery. At first, Perzy thought he could solve the problem with a shoemakers' lamp, a glass globe filled with water that, when placed in front of the lightbulb, amplified and focused the light on the work area. While helpful, the light was too focused on one small spot and thus, not practical for surgery.

To read the complete article, see:
This Family Gave the World the Snow Globe (https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/who-invented-snow-globe)

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