ABOUT THIS ISSUE: MAY 10, 2026

On Thursday Garrett Ziss and I had a Zoom meeting with NBS President Len Augsburger to review some of the work Garrett and I have been doing to automate some of the tedious parts of the job such as cutting, pasting and formatting. We're making some good progress, but there's often no substitute for the human touch of an editor. Good examples are this week's articles on the contents of a fifth-century Roman purse and the Walpole Silver Gilt Seal Salver. Both required a close reading of the articles to select the right text to excerpt for our audience.

On Saturday, the Coin of Note newsletter mentioned some recent E-Sylum articles. See https://coinofnote.com/ and https://coinofnote.com/newsletter/

I'm still waiting to find some of the semiquincentennial coins in circulation.

Seen on the interwebs: "Has Willie Nelson been the same age my whole life?"

Finally, here are some interesting non-numismatic articles I came across this week.

The Horseless Carriage Comes to Pittsburgh (https://pittsburghquarterly.com/articles/the-horseless-carriage-comes-to-pittsburgh/)

6 Ways That Every Language Is the Same (https://wordsmarts.com/universal-language/)

One ancient wonder only stood for about 55 years. (https://historyfacts.com/world-history/fact/the-colossus-of-rhodes-only-stood-for-about-55-years/)

Everyone Remembers Paul Revere's Midnight Ride. But His Forgotten Race to Secure a Trove of Documents Reveals How Government Records Helped Win the War (https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/everyone-remembers-paul-reveres-midnight-ride-but-his-forgotten-race-to-secure-a-trove-of-documents-reveals-how-government-records-helped-win-the-war-180988648/)

Photographic memory is a myth – here's what research really says about remembering (https://theconversation.com/photographic-memory-is-a-myth-heres-what-research-really-says-about-remembering-278160)

An American industrial revolution is brewing. I saw it in Pittsburgh. (https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2026/05/07/us-robotics-firm-tech-innovators-modernize-manufacturing-defense/)

Welcome to Proto-Town (https://rationaloptimistsociety.substack.com/p/welcome-to-proto-town)

-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 pursuing a Master's Degree in Quantitative Economics 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.