The E-Sylum:  Volume 4, Number 24, June 10, 2001, Article 15

NOTES FROM BILL SPENGLER 

   Bill Spengler writes: "I have greatly enjoyed your latest 
   E-Sylum which has prompted the following observations. 

   "Dan Gosling wrote: "It might be a fun topic to find out if your 
   readers know of other comic strips that deal with our hobby..." 
   This reminded me of one.  A syndicated strip of "Hagar the 
   Horrible" by Dik Browne, run in the nation's newspapers on 
   November 29, 1978, featured the lovable Viking Hagar 
   flipping a coin high into the air in the presence of his sidekick 
   Eddie only to have it fail to return to earth.  In the last frame 
   Hagar looks upward and exclaims "#@!!& SEAGULL!". 
   Obviously a gull had snatched the coin in midair and made off 
   with it. 

   Coincidentally, this strip appeared just after the much respected 
   British numismatist Peter Seaby had announced to the numismatic 
   press that the medieval silver coin found in a shell heap on the 
   coast of Maine U.S.A. in 1961 had been identified as a silver 
   penny of the Norse king Olaf Kyrre (1067-1093 AD).  While 
   numismatists around the world speculated over how this post- 
   Leif Erikson Norse coin could have found its way to the rocky 
   coast of North America, I put the two stories together and wrote 
   a satirical article for "World Coin News", published on page 3 
   of its January 9, 1979 edition and headlined "Aviary Theory 
   Advanced for Penobscot Bay Find",  hypothesizing that the 
   coin could have been transported from Norway to Maine in the 
   entrails of a waterfowl and "deposited" in a shell "bank" there. 

   Re: EARTHQUAKES IN NUMISMATICS (I would have 
   preferred NUMISMATICS IN EARTHQUAKES), two 
   observations: 

   (1) Some years ago I happened to acquire from a California 
   dealer a stack of about 25 U.S. dimes which had been fused 
   together in a small column, evidently by fire.  The heat had not 
   been enough to melt the coins as the obverse and reverse of 
   the two respective end coins were quite visible and the number 
   of coins could be counted.   The item came with an affidavit 
   certifying that it had gone through the 1906 San Francisco 
   earthquake and fire and had been recovered from the rubble 
   of a bank or store.  Eventually I decided that the proper home 
   for this oddment was the San Francisco Mint Museum, so I 
   donated it to them along with the affidavit. 

   In considering what its value might be as a charitable donation, 
   the curator and I mused about whether it might contain one or 
   more of the high-value Barber dimes without mintmark -- or 
   even a precious 1894S!  But we settled on a nominal valuation. 

   (2) One of the numismatic consequences of the devastating 
   earthquake which hit the northwestern Indian state of Gujarat 
   three months ago has been to impoverish one of India's oldest 
   and most respected professional numismatists, Mr. V. K. Thacker, 
   a nonagenarian resident of Bhuj, a city at the very epicenter of 
   the quake in Kutch district. 

   Shri Thacker is well and favorably known to a generation of 
   American collectors and dealers interested in modern coins, 
   paper money, medals and tokens of India and has been a 
   regular contributor to Krause Publications catalogs for over 30 
   years.  He wrote recently: "The disastrous earthquake has made 
   Bhuj a graveyard ... My house has so many cracks that it has to 
   be demolished soon, at a cost of a minimum of (U.S.) $5,000... 
   The residents of Bhuj are either victims of the quake or have left 
   Cutch to live with friends or relatives."  He is hoping for financial 

   assistance from friends in the U.S. and other countries, either as 
   donations or small loans to be repaid in installments, and has 
   offered to present donors with a copy of his monograph "Cutch: 
   Its Coins and Heritage" along with some silver coins and revenue 
   stamps of the former princely state of Kutch-Bhuj. 

  Wayne Homren, Editor

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