ABOUT THIS ISSUE: DECEMBER 8, 2024

This is the 49th number in this year's volume, and we have not one, not two, but three stories about 1849 coins brought about by the discovery of gold in California. Coincidence? Maybe, maybe not... Not only that, but we have two articles connected to Omaha, Nebraska. Maybe this Sunday evening glass of wine has me seeing double and triple...

This issue got off to a rocky start. Thursday morning I had a dentist appointment at 9am, and to get some work done I took my laptop to a nearby Panera restaurant before the appointment and got started on this week's issue, including inserting three articles that had earlier been formatted by myself or Garrett. Saturday morning I picked up where I left off, adding three more new articles. But then I realized I was missing those first three, along with other regular edits such as the proper volume number and date. Where did they go? Well apparently when I shut down my computer Thursday morning I'd forgotten to save my work. Ouch! But I had dutifully saved the holding file after deleting the three articles. So the work was nowhere to be found. Double ouch! It was nothing that couldn't be recreated, but before attempting to do so I thankfully remembered that my Microsoft OneDrive has a Restore File feature. A few more cuts and pastes and I was back in business. Whew! Asteroid diverted. -Editor

Wayne Homren
Wayne Homren is the founding editor of The E-Sylum and a consultant for the Newman Numismatic Portal. His collecting interests at various times included U.S. Encased Postage Stamps, merchant counterstamps, Pittsburgh Obsolete paper money, Civil War tokens and scrip, Carnegie Hero Medals, charge coins and numismatic literature. He also collects and has given presentations on the work of Money Artist J.S.G. Boggs. In the non-numismatic world he's worked in artificial intelligence, data science, and as a Program Manager for the U.S. Department of Defense.

Garrett Ziss
Garrett Ziss is a numismatic collector and researcher, with a focus on American paper money and early U.S. silver and copper coins. He is also a part-time U.S. coin cataloger for Heritage Auctions. Garrett assists Editor Wayne Homren by editing and formatting a selection of articles and images each week. When he's not engaged in numismatics, Garrett is a Senior Honors student at the University of Pittsburgh.

Pete Smith
Numismatic researcher and author Pete Smith of Minnesota has written about early American coppers, Vermont coinage, numismatic literature, tokens and medals, the history of the U.S. Mint and much more. Author of American Numismatic Biographies, he contributes original articles to The E-Sylum often highlighting interesting figures in American numismatic history.

Greg Bennick
Greg Bennick (www.gregbennick.com) is a keynote speaker and long time coin collector with a focus on major mint error coins and US counterstamps. He is on the board of both CONECA and TAMS and enjoys having in-depth conversations with prominent numismatists from all areas of the hobby. Have ideas for other interviewees? Contact him anytime on the web or via instagram @minterrors.

John Nebel
Numismatist, photographer, and ANS Board member and Fellow John Nebel of Boulder, CO helped the ANA and other clubs like NBS get online in the early days of the internet, hosting websites gratis through his Computer Systems Design Co. To this day he hosts some 50 ANA member club sites along with our coinbooks.org site, making the club and our E-Sylum archive available to collectors and researchers worldwide.

Bruce Perdue
Encased coinage collector (encasedcoins.info) Bruce Perdue of Aurora, Illinois has been the volunteer NBS webmaster from its early days and works each week to add the latest E-Sylum issue to our archive and send out the email announcement.