ABOUT THIS ISSUE: DECEMBER 29, 2024

Thanks to Jan Monroe for letting us know that the NBS membership prices listed at the top of the E-Sylum were outdated; Bruce Perdue quickly corrected them for this issue. Sorry!

Christmas Eve was a holiday for me, and it was a busy one at home. In the morning I finished wrapping presents - nothing like waiting until the last minute. Then I tackled my email, handling chores and correspondence that had piled up in recent weeks, including some Newman Portal, E-Sylum, and local club business. By mid-afternoon I was able to get an early start on this week's issue with a clean, uncluttered office, desk and inbox.

My sister had gifted us Omaha Steaks and my wife expertly cooked them for dinner. Our son Tyler was off at another dinner, but when he returned home we had a traditional Christmas Eve family game night, playing bingo for prize bags my wife had assembled. Catchphrase of the evening: "Cheesecake makes me gassy."

At dinner I mentioned that I had come close to one of my goals for the year - using up all the gift cards I'd gotten since last Christmas. I've got one and a half left. I hadn't been saving the expired ones, but maybe I should start - they could be a companion to my credit card collection.

After Christmas we spent a few days in the Pittsburgh area visiting relatives. I worked a bit on The E-Sylum from our hotel, but only for a few hours or so. Nothing numismatic to report, but I did take the accompanying photo of a "Bitcoin Depot" machine at a rest stop McDonald's just off the Bedford exit of the Pennsylvania Turnpike. I've seen the machines, but have yet to see anyone actually using one.

Happy New Year, everyone! -Editor

To read the earlier E-Sylum article, see:
COLLECTING GIFT CARDS (https://www.coinbooks.org/v27/esylum_v27n36a13.html)

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.