The E-Sylum:  Volume 7, Number 5, February 1, 2004, Article 15

ON EDITING THE E-SYLUM

  Steve Pellegrini, in submitting the following item on the first
  John J. Ford sale catalog, writes: "If you need an item for a
  future newsletter feel free to use this if you care to.   I can
  imagine how much work & time must go into producing a
  weekly newsletter. Hope my occasional purple rambling at
  least gives you some back-up material. I think you know how
  much your Monday letters mean to us all. I think that the
  steady stream of new members says it all."

  On the phone earlier this week, John Adams asked, "I don't
  know how you get the E-Sylum out each week."   Well,
  sometimes I don't know, either....  But one secret is that a lot
  of the submissions come in on Monday, and I cut and paste
  them into the draft immediately, and edit them right away if I
  have time before calling it a night.  By Thursday most of the
  week's material is in place, at least crudely.

  There is no file of backup material.  If I get it, I publish it
  immediately.   I once tried holding things back for the "rainy
  day pile" but one day decided it was too much bother.
  Besides, I figured, the more material in one week's issue, the
  more there will be for readers to comment on the next week.
  That thought has borne out week after week, although not
  always according to expectations.  Some items I'm sure will
  generate a lot of response bring nothing.  And some of the
  most innocuous-seeming items will generate extremely
  interesting responses from unexpected quarters.  That's the
  joy of it all - you never know where the train of thought
  will take us, but ride never ceases to be interesting.  The
  E-Sylum readership is an fascinating bunch, and I'm happy
  and honored to be the focal point bringing it all together.

  The bulk of my work takes place in the evening after my
  wife and kids are in bed, which gives me special empathy
  with William F. Gable, whose coin collection was sold on
  May 27-29, 1914 by S. H. Chapman.  Gable was not only
  a numismatist but a bibliophile. Gable (1856-1921) owned
  a tremendous collection of books, manuscripts and autographs,
  which was sold in several sales by the American Art Association
  of New York, beginning in 1924.  The introduction to the first
  sale (November 5-6, 1923 states:

  "Many and beautiful were the tributes paid to him by his
  thousands of friends.   Few, however, of these friends knew of
  his great and varied collection of books and manuscripts of
  literary and historic interest. This was due mostly to the fact that
  the hours spent in collecting the books and letter, now about to
  be sold, -- the happiest hours of William F. Gable's life -- were
  taken from those generally allotted to sleep.  It had been his
  custom, from the years of his early youth, to sleep only four or
  five hours each day....  Those hours of the night, during which
  most men slept, William F. Gable read and reread his prized
  literary possessions, wrote letters to his many book-dealer
  friends, read catalogues of sales, and lovingly filled out folders
  for his autograph letters."

  -Editor]

  Wayne Homren, Editor

	coinbooks.org Web

The Numismatic Bibliomania Society is a non-profit organization 
promoting numismatic literature. See our web site at coinbooks.org.

To submit items for publication in The E-Sylum, write to the Editor 
at this address: whomren@coinlibrary.com

To subscribe go to: https://my.binhost.com/lists/listinfo/esylum