LOOSE CHANGE: DECEMBER 1, 2024

 

Transparency International has put the issue of corruption on the agenda ahead of the G20 summit in Rio de Janeiro this week, with a guerilla campaign involving a team of paragliders and one of the city's most famous beaches.

Devised by INNOCEAN Berlin, 'Money Gliders' kicked off on Friday 15th November. It saw six paragliders, all printed to look like dollar bills, flying over Rio de Janeiro and landing on Barra da Tijuca Beach on a banner reading "How obvious should corruption be before it's a G20 priority?"

To read the complete article, see:
Giant Bank Notes Float Through Rio de Janeiro to Spotlight Corruption at G20 (https://www.lbbonline.com/news/giant-bank-notes-float-through-rio-de-janeiro-to-spotlight-corruption-at-g20)

Leaving aside private scrip, local issues, and other outliers, the bulk of colonial currency was issued by one of the original 13 colonies that became the first 13 states. These colony/state issues can largely be divided into three eras: 1690–1754, the era before the French and Indian War; 1754–1776, the era from the beginning of the French and Indian War to the Declaration of Independence; and 1776–1789, the era from Independence to Constitution. Regardless of their state of origin, notes from these eras have certain things in common with each other.

The earliest notes, issued between 1690 and 1754, are generally extremely rare today. Perhaps the only notes from before 1754 that can be called common are the 1748 North Carolina issue (thanks to the Samuel Cornell hoard) and the remainder Maryland notes of 1733 that survived into the 20th century as unissued sheets (now mostly cut up into individual notes). What do these earliest notes have in common, aside from their extraordinary rarity? Condition pickiness can be thrown out the window.

The notes that have survived have been nearly uniformly adulterated in their useful lives—that is, when they were circulating money and not when they were collectibles—by backing, sewing, gluing, pinning, and more. While grading services (and, thus, collectors) describe these ingenious alterations as problems, they are literally what kept the notes intact and circulating. Sadly, many of the few notes that survived their useful era in unaltered condition have usually seen other sorts of modifications like pressing and trimming in the hands of modern dealers and collectors. The New York issues of 1709 and 1711 are notable as the only notes from this era to have survived into modern times in sheet form and thus are about the only ones available in condition approaching New.

To read the complete article, see:
Collecting Colonial Currency By State (https://www.greysheet.com/news/story/collecting-colonial-currency-by-state)

To read an earlier E-Sylum article, see:
COLONIAL WILLIAMSBURG ACQUIRES NORTH CAROLINA COLONIAL CURRENCY HOARD (https://www.coinbooks.org/esylum_v13n45a07.html)

John Kraljevich has made a career out of authenticating coins and medals. So when an auction house approached him with a gold medal encased in a red leather United States Mint case, he knew it was something special. But he didn't know how special until he opened the box.

"My reaction was somewhere along the lines of, holy (expletive)," Kraljevich said, per CBS News. "As soon as I laid my eyes on it, I knew what it was."

The medal in his hands was the Daniel Morgan at Cowpens medal, a medal originally minted for Revolutionary War hero General Daniel Morgan. After disappearing from view in 1885, it is now set to be auctioned by Stack's Bowers Galleries.

"Its appearance represents the most shocking and important discovery in American numismatics in years," Kraljevich raved.

To read the complete article, see:
This Incredibly Rare Revolutionary War Medal Thought To Be Lost Forever Turned Up At An Auction (https://allthatsinteresting.com/daniel-morgan-cowpens-medal)

To read earlier E-Sylum article, see:
GOLD MORGAN COMITIA AMERICANA SURFACES (https://www.coinbooks.org/v25/esylum_v25n09a34.html)
COVERAGE OF THE DANIEL MORGAN GOLD MEDAL (https://www.coinbooks.org/v25/esylum_v25n12a30.html)
GOLD MORGAN COMITIA AMERICANA MEDAL DISPLAY (https://www.coinbooks.org/v26/esylum_v26n26a23.html)

It's a fine gold Tiffany pocket watch. It probably sold for $20 or $30 when it was first purchased in 1912, and Andrew Aldridge, the managing director of the British auction house Henry Aldridge & Son, guessed that such a watch might normally bring about $10,000 at auction today.

On Saturday, it sold for $1.97 million.

Why the big price? The inscription on the watch gives it away: "Presented to Captain Rostron with the heartfelt gratitude and appreciation of three survivors of the Titanic. April 15th, 1912. Mrs. John B. Thayer, Mrs. John Jacob Astor and Mrs. George D. Widener."

The sale price is a record for a single piece of Titanic memorabilia, the auction house said.

To read the complete article, see:
Gold Watch, a Gift From Titanic Survivors, Sells for Nearly $2 Million (https://www.nytimes.com/2024/11/18/business/titanic-watch-auction.html)

 

Alice Hudson, who, after enrolling in a mandatory geography course in college, took a detour from her plan to become a professional translator and went on to devote her career to building one of the world's premier public map collections, died on Nov. 6 in Manhattan. She was 77.

Ms. Hudson was chief of the Lionel Pincus and Princess Firyal Map Division of the New York Public Library from 1981 to 2009, presiding over what has been called the most heavily used public map room in the world. She oversaw the doubling of the collection, to more than 400,000 maps and 24,000 atlases, rivaling the holdings of the Library of Congress, the National Archives and the British Library.

She mounted exhibitions on how topography influenced history on the American frontier and along New York City's shoreline, and illuminated the overlooked contribution of women to cartography.

"A map is so much more than a diagram showing how to get from Point A to Point B," she told The New York Times in 2002. "Every map tells a story."

To read the complete article, see:
Alice Hudson, Librarian Who Built a Trove of Historic Maps, Dies at 77 (https://www.nytimes.com/2024/11/29/nyregion/alice-hudson-dead.html)

The owner of a now-closed downtown Bay City coin store is facing several felonies after allegedly taking customers' money and gambling away more than $5 million.

The afternoon of Jan. 18, a 72-year-old man went to the Bay County Law Enforcement Center to file a fraud complaint. The man told police he had gone to Flying Eagle Coins, 918 Washington Ave. in downtown Bay City's Davidson Building, in October and given $20,000 in cash to owner Matthew J. Burton in exchange for gold and silver.

Months passed and Burton did not hold up his end, the man told police. He said he contacted Burton multiple times by phone.

To read the complete article, see:
Bay City coin store owner charged with defrauding customers, gambling away $5M (https://www.mlive.com/news/saginaw-bay-city/2024/10/bay-city-coin-store-owner-charged-with-defrauding-customers-gambling-away-5m.html)

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