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AN EXPLOSION OF NUMISMATIC BOOKSWe love to alert readers to new numismatic books. And a new publication of a long-lost manuscript from a long-dead numismatic author would be a sensation, like the score of a Chopin waltz recently discovered in the Morgan library. 
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A recent look at used book site AbeBooks.com turned up not one, but dozens of books attributed to Eric P. Newman, who passed in 2017 at the age of 106. 
These likely don't exist physically, but would be printed on demand from online sources. This practice is nothing new, but now the "stock image" book covers seem to have AI-generated images. I suspect the number of available new and "used" copies of each are made up too, and that the various sellers like "californiabooks.com" don't exist either. They don't seem to list the number of pages, physical size or other standard bibliographic details. It's deceptive marketing, although I'm curious about the quality of the product. At under $20 apiece for most softcovers, I've spent more on lunch, and there may be some value for some buyers who want a physical copy to mark up or put bookmarks in. This latest batch-o-books stems from the ongoing effort by the Newman Numismatic Portal to digitize Eric's files. But it's not just Eric's work being "published" - these digital-to-physical books have been available for some time from countless authors dead and alive. Only the crappy AI-generated covers are new. Newman Portal Project Coordinator Len Augsburger writes: "For example, see entries on Abebooks related to National Archives material we have scanned: https://www.abebooks.com/servlet/SearchResults?cm_sp=SearchF-_-topnav-_-Results&kn=national%20archives%20record%20group%20104&sts=t
"I've actually purchased a few of these myself, when it was useful to have a hardcopy of something. I view it as an inexpensive print-on-demand adjunct to Internet Archive and other repositories such as HathiTrust."
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Wayne Homren, Editor The Numismatic Bibliomania Society is a non-profit organization promoting numismatic literature. See our web site at coinbooks.org. To submit items for publication in The E-Sylum, write to the Editor at this address: whomren@gmail.com To subscribe go to: https://my.binhost.com/lists/listinfo/esylum All Rights Reserved. NBS Home Page Contact the NBS webmaster 
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