The E-Sylum:  Volume 10, Number 45, November 4, 2007, Article 6

CANADIAN NUMISMATIC BIBLIOGRAPHY DELIVERED TO SUBSCRIBERS

The twelve year long Canadian Numismatic Bibliography project
has come to a milestone with the publication and shipment
of the long-awaited volumes.

Greg Burns writes (to Project Chairman Ron Greene): "They
say that good things come to those who wait. I was so pleased
to receive today's mail and find my two-volume set of the
Canadian Numismatic Bibliography. Congratulations to you and
your cohorts upon reaching the fulfillment of your monumental
task. It's an impressive work and will be very well received,
I'm sure."

[I received my copy this week as well, and it's a wonderful
sight for a bibliophile.  Bound in maroon cloth, the large
set is most impressive.  It's everything I expected based
on my delightful review of the manuscript when I met with
its editor, Darryl Atchison at Heathrow airport this past
July (see my 1 July 2007 London Diary, below). -Editor]

Editor Darryl Atchison of Cork, Ireland writes: "I probably
won't see the books until Christmas given the speed of
international post which will hopefully mean that all of
the subscribers will have them first.  I can breathe a sigh
of relief now that it is over."

[Congratulations to Darryl, Ron Greene and everyone responsible
for the successful completion of this important and monumental
project. -Editor]

David Gladfelter writes: "The long-awaited Canadian Numismatic
Bibliography, published by the Numismatic Education Society
of Canada and written by a committee including Project Chairman
Ronald A. Greene, Editor Darryl A. Atchison, and members Paul S.
Berry, Philip J. Carrigan and William H. McDonald, was shipped
last week and is now in the hands of subscribers.

"There is a saying among craftsmen and artisans that goes like
this: 'Cheap, fast and right: Pick any two, you can't have all
three.' Mr. Atchison's committee has clearly made the right
choices in producing this bibliography. It is an incredibly
thorough study -- individual entries are invariably accompanied
by critical annotations -- which runs to more than 1100 pages
of text, with a 94 page index; it is well illustrated throughout.
This work will remain useful for decades.

"The fact that the publication date was delayed by several
years may have irritated some but in the grand scheme of
things is of trifling importance: Those who consult this
work in future years, as they will, are certainly going to
be thankful for the extra effort and time that went into it.

"For portability, the work has been broken into two volumes,
each with its own table of contents. It is organized into
fifteen major subject areas, and additional minor topics.
For example, topic two covers coins, currency and tokens
of the pre-Confederation period (before 1867). The subtopics
are: General works; the French regime; geographic regions
(the Maritimes, Newfoundland, the Upper and Lower Canadas);
the Province of Canada; territorial and native issues; and
contemporary coins and tokens of other countries that
circulated in pre-confederation Canada, including the
newly-popular British evasion halfpence and Spanish
colonial silver.

"Volume I of the Bibliography contains entries for:
General numismatics; pre-Confederation numismatics;
Canadian coinage; trade tokens (excluding municipal
tokens); paper money, and banking. In volume II are to be
found entries for: orders, decorations and military medals;
commemorative and historical medals; mint histories;
counterfeiting and counterfeit detection; auction catalogues
and fixed-price lists; collectors and other numismatic
personalities; institutional collections, archives and
museums; a 'miscellaneous' section including articles on
such subjects as the Canadian coin teletype circuit; and
finally, a topic on numismatic organizations and periodicals.

"Beyond the foregoing topical organization, the plan of
presentation of individual entries is alphabetical, by
author. The detailed index makes every entry easy to find.
For example, one can find 71 distinct entries under the
index listing '1893 round-top 3 ten cent' and 14 under
'Breton 997' (a distinctive Ships, Colonies & Commerce
token variety)."

David adds: "There is a section about a detailed encyclopedia
Fred Bowman kept on a wide variety of Canadian numismatic
topics -- Atchison calls it "this enormous, unpublished
compendium of coins, tokens and medals (and some scrip) of
every imaginable description for every imaginable purpose,
entered in 29 ledgers in Fred Bowman's distinctive printed
hand." There are thousands of pages, with illustrations.
This is now kept in the archives of the National Currency
Collection at the Bank of Canada in Ottawa and you can use
it upon request. I didn't know that this existed before
receiving the Bibliography.

Also worth mentioning is a short history of Canadian numismatics,
written by Peter Moogk and Wayne Jacobs, and an article about
the national currency collection by J. Graham Esler.

I forget what I paid as an advance subscriber,
but I recall your suggestion that we donate something to
get the project out of the red. What's fair? Do we send
it to Ronald Greene or to the Foundation?"

[I asked Ron Greene about this, and he writes: "All payments
should be to the J.D. Ferguson Historical Research Foundation.
The Treasurer is:

Len Buth
P.O. Box 28012
Oakridge Post Outlet
1201 Oxford St. West
London, Ontario
Canada N6H 5E1

Alternately, donations could be sent to me and I will
forward them with my regular remittances.

Ronald Greene
P.O. Box 1351
Victoria, B.C.
Canada V8W 2W7"

-Editor]

 WAYNE'S LONDON DIARY 1 JULY, 2007
 esylum_v10n26a13.html

  Wayne Homren, Editor

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