"Are recipients of Maundy money maundees?!"

"With respect to Michael T. Shutterly's comments regarding the derivation of the word Maundy, I believe that some clarification is needed. He refers to Vulgate Latin as if it is different from regular Latin. Except for one very minor structural difference, Vulgate Latin refers basically to how it was pronounced compared to Classical Latin. (For example, the word Caesar would be pronounced as Kaiser in Classical Latin & Chaysar in Vulgate Latin.)

"Vulgate Latin was the Latin spoken by the common masses of people, whereas Classical Latin was spoken by the upper classes. For obvious reasons, the Latin used by the Catholic Church was Vulgate Latin. Shutterly's example of novum mandatum is written in Latin, not Vulgate Latin nor Classical Latin, just Latin.

"P.S. This difference in pronunciation caused me some problems in my high school Latin 3 class. I had been taught Classical pronunciation whereas my teacher was using Vulgate pronunciation. Since my pronunciation was technically not wrong, my teacher had to accept it."

Thanks, everyone. -Editor

"As mentioned Bernard Rome was an avid entrepreneur, a politician, and an innovator always looking for new ideas and finding new business ideas to work on. Bernie pretty much started off-track betting in the state of New York in 1978 before his Teletrade coin days. In 1986 or 1987 I met Bernie at the annual International show at the World Trade Center in NYC. Yes, the WTC that we all know the fate of a decade and a half later, that's where the show was held at the time. We hit it off right away and I was a regular consignor to his new business venture called Teletrade. Quickly this turned into something much bigger for a collaboration of Northeast and his new company.

"In order to make a splash in the industry Bernie proposed that in addition to Northeast consigning, we also sell the company large quantities of certified coins. We were selling around $100,000 worth of material on a weekly basis. We were working very close with tiny profit margins and Teletrade about broke even on Northeast purchases. This went on for a couple of years until the point came when he basically did not need us anymore. The industry, dealers and collectors caught on to the popularity and success of Teletrade and Northeast no longer made sales to the firm but did remain a consistent consignor for many years.

"It was always kind of comical that near the close of major shows in the late 80's thru mid 90's many dealers could be seen writing up inventory on Teletrade forms and handing them over to the staff and trying to be secretive about the process. For the most part dealers did not want to let it be known that this was a major sources of sales for them.

"Bernie being the businessman that he was, sold the company during the 90's not once but twice. The first time he retained some ownership and the second time he sold out entirely. Bernard Rome was an innovator in numismatics and will long be remembered."

Thanks - great hobby history. -Editor

"I figured out the melody of "I'm the Man That Makes the Money In the Mint and it's now an earworm."