WAYNE'S NUMISMATIC DIARY: APRIL 21, 2024

On Tuesday April 16, 2024 I hurried out of the office to head toward Alexandria for the monthly dinner meeting of my Northern Virginia Numismatic Social group, Nummis Nova. Our special guests for the evening were my old friend and E-Sylum contributor Kavan Ratnatunga and his wife Lidwina. They'd travelled to the U.S. from Sri Lanka to view the total eclipse in Dallas, and were now in the Washington, D.C. area visiting friends. They had been touristing in D.C. for a couple of days when I picked them up outside the Alexandria Old Town Metro Station.

It was great to see Kavan again over thirty years since we'd met at meetings of the Pittsburgh Numismatic Society on the campus of the University of Pittsburgh. Kavan was an astrophysicist at nearby Carnegie Mellon University, working with data from the Hubble Space Telescope. Traveling the globe to experience a celestial phenomena is perfectly in character. Here's the photo he posted on Facebook of the Total Solar Eclipse on 2024 April 8th, taken from south west of Dallas, TX.

Robert Hoppensteadt was our host at 815 Southside, one of our regular haunts. We arrived and took seats near Tom Kays and Mike Packard. Before long Julian Leidman sat next to me. Other attendees included Eric Schena, Dave Schenkman, Mike Markowitz, Jon Radel, and Lorne LaVertu. Tom Kays took a nice group photo - here's his writeup.

Tom's April 2024 Nummis Nova Dinner Notes

 

These two most southern of attendees were Wayne's honored guests. Dr. Kavan Ratnatunga and his wife travelled all the way from Sri Lanka (formerly Ceylon) off the southern tip of India to see the total eclipse of the sun in the U.S. last week. Kavan was a regular attendee of the Pittsburgh Numismatic Society when working for Carnegie Mellon University; he helped engineer and repair the Hubble Space Telescope, and maintains a website featuring over 1400 ancient, legally circulated, colonial and modern coins of Sri Lanka in the Lakdiva Coin Collection seen at https://lakdiva.org.lk.

Ceylon (Sri Lanka) traded in coins since ancient times starting in the third century BCE, when Indo-Roman bronzes circulated alongside local, punch-marked coins. Later Indian influence and Lakdiva sovereignty in the seventh century brought a wide variety of monies of account by medieval times. They experienced a Portuguese colonial period in the early 1500s and then a Dutch occupation in the 1670s, leading to long distance administration from the Batavian Republic in the 1700s. Portuguese vessels and then Dutch East Indiamen regularly bound to and from Ceylon for tea would sail around the tip of India, sometimes encountering typhoons and lee shores, only to spill their cargos and coin treasures at unexpected places. The science fiction writer Arthur C. Clarke moved to Sri Lanka in 1956 to take advantage of year-round scuba diving and in 1961 helped discover a shipwreck treasure of thousands of 1701-dated silver rupees. Kavan spoke about this treasure, legal treasure trove laws and questionable practices to export and sell portions of the treasure to Donald Trump for his Taj Mahal Casino.

Sri Lanka has imposed strict export bans on archeological artifacts and coins that are one hundred years old or more, which makes collecting coins from Sri Lanka subject too much red tape regarding declarations, chain of ownership, and proven provenance.

We note again that Nummis Nova dinners bring a wide berth of numismatic curiosities to discuss from anywhere and ‘any when' that coins and currency circulated. Seen at table were:

• A silver, 1826 Erie Canal Completion Medal (HK-1000) in PCGS Specimen Proof 63;
• A 1901-dated, bronze medal of William McKinley from Anaconda Hill, Silver Bow Co., Butte, Montana in NGC MS-63, designed by Tiffany & Co., formerly from the John J. Ford Jr., Collection;
• A fine and scarce bronze from Coele-Syria showing the bust of Otacilia Severa proclaimed Augusta from 244 – 249 AD with the Heliopolis (City of the Sun) temple on the reverse;
• Another fine bronze with city view of Moesia Inferior, Marcianopolis under Gordian III from 238 – 244AD;
• A gold Tremissis of Constans II from Ravenna in the Byzantine Empire from 641 – 668 AD;
• A deep-framed wooden case of assorted old silver coins big and bright enough to be seen under ambient lighting in a fine restaurant including Ecus and Demi-Ecus, Crowns and Half Crowns, Dollars and Half Dollars, Pieces-of-eight and Four Reales, with Siege Pieces and Proclamation Medals dating from 1598 to 1846;

 

 

• An 1855 Prussian One Thaler Note with fine obverse and reverse Medal cartouches;
• An 1861 Prussian Treasury Bill with motto Gott Mit Uns with coat of arms for Ein Thaler Courant in nice shape;
• A scarce, 1841 Farmers Bank of Virginia (Lynchburg Branch) Thirty Dollar Note;
• A French, Siege of Lyon, Fifty Sous note with paper seal of fasces and cannons;
• A token Good for one vote against the fee system by Citizen's Party Candidate W. F. Robertson, for Commissioner of Revenue from Norfolk, Virgina;
• A die for One Dollar tokens redeemable at the New River and Pocahontas Stores (Not Transferable)
• Both an 1859 and an 1864, Augustus B. Sage, Catalogue of Coins, Medals, and Tokens including rare books, autographs, and pattern pieces on exhibition at D.F. McGilray & Co., Tremont Street in Boston;
• A Price List of United States Fractional Currency (All clean and new) First through Fifth Issues, (offered at from two to four times face value) as well as Colonial and Continental Notes and Confederate Notes, etc.;
• Tony Carlotto's book, The Copper Coins of Vermont, and those bearing the Vermont Name issued by C4 in 1998;
• A. Delmonte's multilingual book, The Silver Benelux – Crowns, Half Crowns, Quarter Crowns, and Siege Pieces struck in the Territories of the former Northern and Southern Netherlands, 1967.

Best of all, our dinners were so super-sized that many of us have grand, leftover lunches to reheat the next day, at least those of us wise enough not to try and eat an entire southern entree in one sitting after those sweet potato biscuit appetizers with apple butter and peach-pepper chutney.

More Photos
Thanks, Tom! Here are some of my photos from the evening.

 
Kavan Ratnatunga and Tom Kays Examine Coins

 
Lidwina and Kavan Ratnatunga Examine the Menu

 
Mike Markowitz, Dave Schenkman and Eric Schena

 
Mike Packard, Julian Leidman, Jon Radel, Robert Hoppensteadt

 
Lidwina and Kavan Ratnatunga

I don't know when we'll ever have members or guests who travelled so far for a meeting!

Books and Other Publications
Kavan kindly gifted me a copy of his book on Sri Lanka banknotes, and Mike Markowitz gave me a printed copy of his new review for CoinWeek of the new 3rd edition of the 100 Greatest Ancient Coins.

 

Wayne's Ephemera
As E-Sylum readers know, I recently consigned the bulk of my numismatic library to Kolbe & Fanning. But old habits die hard, and I couldn't resist the opportunity to start again with some interesting numismatic ephemera. Here's what I brought to the meeting, most of which had never graced my ephemera collection before.

 
1859 Augustus Sage Catalog No. 1; 1863 sale catalog

 
1864 sale catalog, Steigerwalt Fixed Price List No. 17

 
R. W. Mercer Fixed Price List

 
1862 Cogan sale of the Wiggin Collection

Robert's Ancients
Robert Hoppensteadt writes:

 

SYRIA, Coele-Syria. Heliopolis. Otacilia Severa. Augusta, AD 244-249. Æ (28mm, 20.77 g, 7h). Draped bust right, wearing stephane, set on crescent / Temple of Jupiter Optimus Maximus Heliopolitanus viewed in perspective; grain ear to right. (CNG feature auction 90 lot 1114)

 

MOESIA INFERIOR, Marcianopolis. Gordian III. AD 238-244. Æ Pentassarion (27mm, 11.82 g, 12h). Menophilus, legatus consularis. Laureate and draped bust of Gordian III right vis-à-vis draped bust of Serapis left, wearing calathus / City-view seen from aerial perspective: city wall of thirteen towers, two of which flank arched gate; arched colonnade along interior of back wall; inside, temple precinct composed of tetrastyle temple façade with colonnaded wings on either side and lighted altar in precinct center. (CNG feature auction 88 lot 701)

I never got around to collecting these myself, but I've always enjoyed ancient coins illustrating buildings. Thanks.

Eric's Banknotes
Eric Schena brought some great world banknotes and provided these images. Thanks.

 
1793 Siege of Lyon note

 
1841 Farmers Bank of Virginia $30 banknote

 
1855 Sacon One Thaler Note

 
1861 Prussian Treasury Bill

 

 

After dinner Julian was able to drive Kavan and Lidwina to where they're staying in Silver Spring, MD. When I called Kavan the next afternoon he was standing in Julian's shop talking coins.

An outstanding night of world-spanning numisamtic fellowship. Safe travels to all.

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