Thank you, once again, for an excellent issue. You do know how to tell the difference between a Buffalo and a Bison? You cannot wash your hands in a Buffalo.

I liked the Reader's Digest cartoon submitted by Dick Johnson. But in answer to his inquiry, it's neither Bison nor Buffalo but Indian Head Nickel.

Thank you very much for that copy of The E-Sylum newsletter. I read it and, frankly, I am astounded that you can put something of that quality and breadth out on a weekly basis. Sir, I tip my hat to you.

Also, thank you for bringing Yuan Mingda’s book, Taiwan’s Tokens, to the attention of so many numismatic bibliophiles.

Thought I would weigh in on the use of Wikipedia as a reference. As a chemist who is sometimes asked to get quick information on an obscure branch of the field that is outside my normal expertise, I have found wikipedia to be remarkably reliable. Sometimes people who specialize in obscure subjects like to write up excellent detailed articles on thier specialty and put it in Wikipedia, and it is often information that woud be very time consuming to track down elsewhere.

I think some judgement is needed in determining the validity of Wikipedia articles. I would not trust popular and trendy topics without checking other sources. I would have an eye out for statements that don't make sense in the context of what I already know. But if the topic is not a likely subject for those of questionable interests, and the contents indicate the author must have a good academic knowledge of the topic, I have found a substantial number of articles that are valuable and reliable. There are a lot of nerds out there who jump all over a small mistake in an article on their favorite topic (yes, your honor, I'm guilty as charged).