Here's a rare one dollar mining note I just purchased, and passed around at the dinner. A two dollar denomination was sold as Lot 3031 in the October 16, 2007 Stacks sale of John Ford’s collection. I’d be interested in knowing of any other denominations.

The 1732 Windisch-Gratz taler of Leopold Viktorin Johann is listed by Davenport as #1202. This coin was sold as lot 287 in the October 1965 sale of the Virgil Brand collection. Of all the items, the California silver mining company note is by far the rarest.

One of the medals that I brought was a hefty 81-mm bronze medal of Ernest Hemingway designed by French-Spanish medalist Andre Belo. It has a portrait of Hemingway on the obverse and an impressionistic account of Santiago, the old fisherman, struggling to reel in a marlin on the reverse; the legend on the reverse in lower-case letters: “le vieil homme et la mer" (the old man and the sea). This coming week marks the 120th anniversary of Hemingway’s birth. The medal usually resides in my office, providing writing inspiration.

I also brought a medal commemorating Robert Frost, which was issued by the California Friends of Robert Frost; I had seen a copy of it in the archives at the Robert Frost Library at Amherst College recently and tracked down my own. This is another large piece, 89 mm, and was designed by Francis Sedgwick, who was a California sculptor and rancher. There are various Frost medals and the poet also was awarded the Congressional Gold Medal, which President Kennedy presented to him on his birthday in 1962.

Among the discussions in our area of the table was the upcoming Virginia Numismatic Association convention and the medals and the three types of copies of Karl Goetz’s original 1915 Sinking of the Lusitania medal. But, as usual, topics ranged beyond numismatics, including the Frank Lloyd Wright-designed landmark Fallingwater, which is not far from next year’s ANA convention, and even popular D.C. restaurants The Dubliner and Martin’s Tavern. I appreciated the centennial medal of a church in Pittsburgh, St. Bernard, given to me by Tom Uram, who created it, and which was designed by Joel Iskowitz and sculpted by Heidi Wastweet.

Aside from what Wayne has already told you, I sat between Joe and Jon and talked with many of the CCAC appointees regarding medallic arts and crafts. On the other side of Jon sat Jeanne Stevens-Sollman, an award-winning medallion sculptress and environmentalist who lives in rural Pennsylvania and who observes and depicts natural and whimsical creatures found in farm and field in her work.

She told of her dog who sniffs out mice who trap themselves in her horses’ feed buckets. The dog lifts them out unharmed and carries them about as living squeak toys giving them freedom with dog breath, and a chance to make amends for horse chow stealing.

One bronze medallion in multiple fitted layers on its epidermis freezes nose and jowls of her dog’s snout in extreme close-up with mouse tail-a-wagging. Inside the maw is a hopeful mouse, resigned to its fate after a grand banquet followed by a night in the can, that sees that snout as a terrifying apparition, yet may escape with a slobbering to warn the neighbor mice about it.

I understand Jeanne accepts commissions and it would be well worth it to engage her talents in artworks for environmental education centers.

In a competition where she set about to sculpt a female of note, Jeanne chose Amelia Earhart in a touching piece with aviatrix portrait framed by riveted aircraft wreckage, juxtaposed with a butterfly wing and the word “Lost.” I get it. Nice!

Show-and-Tell Medals were present from Nummis Nova regulars in good numbers at dinner including an Edward H. Harriman Memorial Medal for the Utmost Progress in Safety and Accident Prevention, a Scovill Manufacturing Company Centennial Medal of 1902 presented by the Company to George F. Sinclair; Joe ransacked his office to bring both a Spanish medal with the eminent face of Hemingway and reverse of the Old Man and the Sea, and a Robert Frost medal of 1963, by the California Friends of Robert Frost; and a medal designed by Karl Goetz, depicting of the Sinking of the Lusitania from 1915 (British version used for rallying the English to fight the Hun due to apparent “premeditation” as it showed the date of sailing, and not the corrected date of sinking) brought by Tom Kays.

Numismatic paper at dinner included a counterfeit fifty cent fractional currency of George Washington [Received for all United States Stamps “Not Approved March 3, 1863] with an old tag reading: “Counterfeit money – Made at Stone House half mi[le] above Alliance Furnace on Jacob’s Creek, [Fayett] Co.in 1865. Cancelled and stamped “counterfeit” at [Treas.] Washington D.C. One of the first counterfeiting in the USA.” I don’t agree with the last statement, by the way. The cancellations are punched and inked with “Counterfeit” in rude letters across poor George Washington’s face.

Early American paper ephemera including lottery tickets floated past including a Washington City Lottery #1 for cutting the CANAL through the City of Washington, to the Eastern Branch Harbour (obviously this was not the winning ticket which would have been redeemed for prizes) along with a Federal City lottery ticket #2 for improvements of the Federal City (Subject to the discount of 5%), and a Grand Consolidated Lottery ticket (cost a Quarter) for internal improvements, literature, and charities in the City of Washington, [and in the States of Delaware, North Carolina, and Louisiana.] (subject to a reduction of 15%) and printed in Washington City in 1828.

Eric brought scarce obsolete paper money from New Market, Virginia, issued September 17th , 1861 in one bit (12.5 cents), ten cents and three cent denominations, payable in Virginia money when presented in sums of five dollars or more. Lastly a Payable to Bearer on Sight, One dollar bill that was issued from the Ivanpah Consolidated Mill & Mining Co at 308 California Street in San Francisco reminded us of the nationwide extent of wildcat banking in the 19th century.

I always love seeing how clever and multi-layered Jeanne Stevens-Sollman's medals are....she is extremely talented!