Here's a response to last week's discussion of why WWII Jefferson Nickels laminate. Vocabulary note: 'warnix' = War Nickels. -Editor

While I was at Coin World's Collectors Clearinghouse in the mid 1970's, I was updating a chart with the weights, diameters, thicknesses, contents and Specific Gravities for all U.S. Coins that had been created by my mentor there, Ed Fleischmann. We found it very handy when identifying wrong planchet coin errors, and counterfeits. Versions of this chart have appeared in many places over the years.

Most values were given expected numbers, but the S.G. for the warnix was given as a range that Ed had observed over the years via testing specimens. He attributed this to the laminations so commonly seen on warnix.

I was curious as to what the expected S.G. should be, so I wrote to Dr. Goldman at the Mint Lab in Washington, D.C. Over the years he had always been very helpful in responding to our inquiries, unlike the current Mint administration. I also asked him why so many warnix were found laminated.

He gave me an expected figure, but said that the range we used was probably more accurate because of the lamination problems. As to the cause of the laminations, he said basically this:

'I was working at the Philadelphia Mint during the War. We were so busy striking coins for domestic and foreign use that ingots of non-precious metals were stored outdoors in the open courtyard of the building, where they were exposed to the elements. The manganese ingots especially became highly oxidized. We should have scaled them (i.e., scoured them with coarse wire brushes-TD) before using them, but we were just too busy. The manganese oxide went into the melts, where it did not bond well.'

So, sometimes an easy answer is the correct one.

Thank you! Interesting history. -Editor

Alan Weinberg passed along these notes and images inspired by last week's piece on the Indian Peace medals in the Buffalo Bill Center of the West collection. -Editor

"I see scratches-from wear and tear. Maybe an Alien dropped it from Mars and reentry was tough on it."

"My new book, The Banker Who Made America, is now out as an audiobook. If you are the audiobook type (and lots of my friends have been chiding me to get the audiobook version out), you can get it at Audible or Apple Books.

"I'm now hard at work on a book on the tumultuous founding of the Bank of England in 1694, which I view as the beginning of the modern era—but that is such a tortuous project that it will be a couple of years before it will be ready for publication.

"In the meantime, I hope you enjoy The Banker Who Made America!"

"I have eight sterling silver pins with screw post backs. They are beautiful but small (11 mm in diameter). They feature the historic Lamp on a book, large "A N A" and 'de profundus'

"I was told that it is NOT from the American Numismatic Association but another society with similar initials.

I'd love to hear from anyone who knows about them. I'd sure like to see them go to someone who might get them to collectors who find them quaint. Otherwise, I'll take the melt value from a coin dealer at the upcoming Rochester Numismatic Association show on October 31st."

I'm not familiar with all the ANA jewelry items produced over the years. I ran an image search hoping to find another example of Nick's pins, but only got back a confident response from Google's AI that these are American Numismatic Association medals. Now that's a fine guess and may well be true, but it did not locate any exact matches for these pins.

The classic lamp-of-knowledge design and the Latin motto "De Profundis" (meaning "Of the depths") could well have been adopted independently by other organizations, schools or universities. This particular piece seems of lower quality than typically seen with "our" ANA's medals. It doesn't look right to me, and I'm inclined to agree that it must be something else. But what? I reached out to school medal collector John Sallay whose response is below.

Does anyone have information on these? Can anyone help Nick keep them from the melting pot with an offer? -Editor

"The lamp-of-knowledge sitting on a book is one of the more common devices used on school award medals. It is perhaps most prominently featured on the American Legion School Award medals, of which over one million have been awarded over the last 100+ years. It is not inconceivable that there is or was somewhere a "Something Something Academy" with the initials ANA that used this device and same De Profundis motto as the American Numismatic Association.

"However, I am not aware of anything relevant and my own Google AI search came up with, "There is no prominent real-world educational academy with the initials A.N.A. that officially uses "De Profundis" as its institution-wide motto." And to me, the design similarity, initials, and motto seem way too coincidental to be unrelated.

"Even without knowing what this is, I think it would be a shame to melt it. The melt value (plus postage) seems like a small cost for a fun research project and, who knows, a potentially rare and valuable addition to someone's collection of ANA memorabilia (or school award medals)!"

"I wanted to share a recent news story that may matter to numismatic researchers.

"In September, OpenAI announced that its AI had solved a version of the Navier–Stokes problem, one of math's famous Millennium Prize problems. NYU math professor Tristan Buckmaster pushed back. He and a colleague had spent a year on the same uncommon approach, and they kept all their drafts in OpenAI's own Codex tool. OpenAI started its effort only after word of their progress reached the company. When Buckmaster asked whether OpenAI used his work to train its models, it didn't give a clear answer. OpenAI later said it "cannot rule out" that data from his usage helped improve its models.

"The lesson for our community is that most AI chatbots train on your conversations by default unless you opt out. Numismatic researchers who work with AI models like ChatGPT, Claude, and Gemini may be feeding unpublished findings into a future model without realizing it. Turning this off is free and takes a minute, and this Engadget guide walks through it for each major company."

Good advice. Some years ago the Newman Numismatic Portal had a feature that showed recent user queries. I enjoyed seeing these and learned a lot, sometimes making new E-Sylum articles. I thought it was a great idea, but one researcher pushed back and the feature was removed. -Editor

"Have a wee coin mystery I'd like to see if any of the E-Sylum folks may be able to assist with. I recently bought a decent Kushan tetradrachm of Wima Takto. It's a variety I didn't have but what really intrigued me was the inventory card that came with it. It's a decent sized card typed in German with a few handwritten notes here and there, plus a pasted photo of the same coin on the reverse. The reference to the Whitehead reference seems to point it being catalogued before Mitchiner's Ancient and Classical World tome came out in the 1970s. Considering the level of detail on the card, this makes me think it came from a known collector/scholar of Central Asian coins. Do you or anyone recognize this catalog card? I would like to preserve the provenance as much as I can for this coin."

Can anyone help? -Editor