Welcome to The E-Sylum: Volume 3, Number 25, June 18, 2000:
an electronic publication of the Numismatic Bibliomania Society.
Copyright (c) 2000, The Numismatic Bibliomania Society.
SUBSCRIBER UPDATES
We have no new subscribers this week. Our subscriber count
holds at 296. What is this, the summer slow season?
BASS SALE RESULTS
George Kolbe notes the following highlights from the recently
concluded sales of the Bass library:
* $38,500 for a large paper set of W. Elliot Woodward's eight
"Semi-Annual" Auction Catalogues, apparently Woodward's
own (last sold at auction in 1968 for $55!)
* $13,200 for S. H. Chapman's 1921 Henderson Auction Sale
with plates, the highest price ever paid for an American coin
auction catalogue (the last copy sold, in the 1994 Bowers &
Merena sale, brought $3,530)
* $29,700 for a Superb Leatherbound Set of The Numismatist,
1888-1952, including the first ANA President's run of the early
volumes (from our June 1990 John W. Adams auction where
it brought $33,000)
* $25,300 for the two Photographic Albums Depicting Colonel
Green's Collection of United States Eagles and Half Eagles
(first sale at auction)
* $11,550 for Paul Fouts' first six volumes of The Numismatist
(in a subsequent Bass sale, the remainder of the set, 1894 to
1969, brought $3,520)
* $7,700 for a Deluxe Leatherbound Copy of Newcomb's 1925
The United States Cents of the Years 1801-1802-1803 (the
highest price ever paid at auction - the 1994 Bowers &
Merena sale copy brought $4,620, and a second Bass copy
sold for $6,600)
* $9,900 for Charles Bushnell's Annotated Copy of the 1851
Auction of the Lewis Roper Coin Collection (the last priced
and named copy brought $1,925)
* $13,750 for J. N. T. Levick's Annotated 1881 Andrews'
Varieties of U. S. Cents, 1816-57 (the 1994 Bowers &
Merena sale copy brought $5,060)
* $20,900 for A. M. Hart's 1851 Work on American Colonial
Paper Money with the rare "Historical Chart" (the only copy
sold at auction in the modern era - it last brought $140 in the
1971 Katen sale of the Fuld Library)
* $11,550 for Thian's 1880 Register of the Confederate Debt,
one of only five copies known (this same copy brought $8,525
at the September 1995 Bowers & Merena sale)
George adds the following notes: "Re Dick Johnson: Chris
Schenkel was a fascinating conversationalist AND a numismatic
bibliophile, and Malcolm Forbes bought the complete series of
King Farouk art sale catalogues (including the coin sale) in a
Kolbe/Spink New York sale years back.
Re Doug Owens: The original manuscript for McKay's book on
colonial currency brought $1,210 in Bass 4 (estimated at $500)."
THE REST OF THE STORY...
John Huffman writes: "I was passing thru another attorney's office
at work today about 11:50 and he had a radio on, tuned to ABC
news. Paul Harvey was giving his take on the news (Page 2)
He mentioned a news item of a congressman had introduced a
bill to mint a commemorative coin with Reagan's portrait. Mr.
Harvey said that this would be a first - a living president on a
US coin. (Page 3) Being a neophyte webuser/e-mail at work, I
tried a practice session, finding an e-mail address for Mr.
Harvey at ABC News and sending in a comment. I referred to
the 1926 sesquicentennial half-dollar with Washington and
Coolidge. Also, other commems have living persons
(unfortunately). Examples: Carter Glass, and Eunice Shriver
That was just from memory. But seeing the reference in the
E-Sylum to Mr. Harvey being into coins, I am surprised at both
the poor research his staff does and his mentioning the error."
WORD OF THE WEEK: BIBLIOPHAGE
Another email newsletter which may be of interest
to E-Sylum subscribers is A.Word.A.Day, available at
this address: http://www.wordsmith.org/awad/index.html
The newsletter's current theme is words about booklovers,
and for fun we'll publish some in the next few E-Sylum
issues. Here's the first one:
"bibliophage (BIB-lee-uh-fayj), noun
An ardent reader; a bookworm.
[Biblio- book + -phage one that eats.]
"A thousand facts crowd the mind of the bibliophage narrator
who recites fragments -- proper names, book titles, writefly
quirks--at a dizzying clip."
Sybil Steinberg, et al., PW's best books, Publishers Weekly,
Nov 1996.
So many books, so little time! Do you find yourself muttering
these words as you browse the shelves in a library or a bookstore?
Rest assured, you are not alone in your love of books. It was the
Dutch writer Desiderius Erasmus who once said, "When I get a
little money I buy books; and if any is left I buy food and clothes."
This fondness for books subsumes a wide range. At the extreme,
books have been ascribed as the motive behind murders (Don
Vicente, a Spaniard killed as many as eight people to acquire a
book in 1836), and there have been thieves who steal only books
(Stephen Blumberg of the US, stole precious books worth
millions of dollars from hundreds of university libraries during the
1970s and 80s, all for his own pleasure, not for resale)."
MAKING SENSE OF PATTERN LISTINGS
Michael Schmidt had this to say about one of the patterns
mentioned in last week's issue "lot 293 -- Copper Pattern
of 1/4 eagle 1803 sold to a Mr. Moses for $.10 (ten cents)"
"This is an interesting listing. Pollock makes no mention of a
copper quarter eagle of 1803 and in Dr. Judd's book he says
that there is no record of a copper 1803 quarter eagle except
for the listing in the Adams-Woodin book."
The following is Andrew Pollack's take on it: "I get the impression
that Judd thought AW-22 was actually the 1803 $2.50 KETTLE
gaming token, and he seems to indicate that he was actually aware
of some of these receiving the AW-22 attribution in catalogues.
I'm not aware of any specific auction records wherein AW
numbers have been assigned to KETTLE pieces.
Although I doubt Edgar Adams would have been deceived by a
KETTLE token, it's possible that a mid-19th-century cataloguer
might have been, especially if the token had been altered by
removing the letters KETTLE. Hence, I presume Adams got his
listing from an auction catalogue or a dealer's FPL.
I list the brass and silver KETTLE $2.50 in my book as P-8001
and 8010, respectively. Judd also mentions "copper gilt"
KETTLE tokens.
I guess the question to resolve is "When did KETTLE tokens first
appear?" If they were produced prior to 1859, then the listing can
probably be safely attributed to them. Unfortunately, since my
numismatic library is still in storage in NH, I can't do any checking."
The reference to Kettle tokens sent me scurrying to my
library to find L. B. Fauver's 1981 book, "Exonomia Symbolism
& Classification": "The Kettle firm was begun during the 1780s
by Henry Kettle, and his sons Thomas and William joined the
firm sometime probably shortly after 1800. Thomas Kettle took
over responsibilities about 1812 and continued to run the business
until at least the late 1830's...
The vast majority of Kettle pieces served as counters... their
great similarity in both design and size to contemporary gold
guineas, gold half guineas, gold one-third guineas, and to
American gold quarter eagle and gold half eagles." (pp v-vi)
REVIEW: BREEN'S ENCYCLOPEDIA
Michael E. Marotta writes: "Walter Breen's "Complete
Encyclopedia of U.S. and Colonial Coins" changed the
landscape of American numismatics. Before this book was
published, the most authoritative research appeared in
auction catalogs. There, the assertions, however right they
might have been, were seldom backed by documentary
proof. Walter Breen changed that.
The Breen Encyclopedia brought academic scholarship
to American numismatics. Breen footnoted his claims with
supporting evidence from primary sources. This is how we
learned to write term papers -- and the Breen Encyclopedia
is nothing if not a 750-page term paper (with 4000 illustrations).
Breen completed a four year degree in one year at Johns
Hopkins University. He was brilliant. His genius shines through
this work. He does have his prejudices and quirks. He saw
paranoia and conspiracies in other people quite readily. However,
his editorial assertions are easy to cull. The Breen Encyclopedia
came out in 1988. In the last 12 years, some new facts have
surfaced. For instance, we now believe that among the Shield
Nickels, Judd 417 and 419 are back-dated fantasies and Breen
2466 may be a mule fantasy. These little amendments cannot
detract from the overpowering value in the Breen Encyclopedia,
but instead, prove that all numismatists must continually search for
truth rather than relying on authority. The publication of the Breen
Encyclopedia deserves to be noted among the greatest events in
the last 100 years of American numismatics."
Breen's Encyclopedia is undoubtedly a landmark work. But
the review raises a couple of questions that may be of interest
to E-Sylum subscribers:
1. How "easy to cull" are Breen's "editorial assertions"?
2. What would you nominate as the other great
"events in the last 100 years of American numismatics"?
FEATURED WEB SITE
This week's featured web site is Canadian Bank Note Errors,
a collector's site illustrating Canadian paper errors and
replacement notes.
http://www.geocities.com/bnknotes/
Wayne Homren
Numismatic Bibliomania Society
The Numismatic Bibliomania Society is a
non-profit organization promoting numismatic
literature. For more information please see
our web site at http://www.coinbooks.org/
There is a membership application available on
the web site. To join, print the application and
return it with your check to the address printed
on the application. For those without web access,
contact Dave Hirt, NBS Secretary-Treasurer,
5911 Quinn Orchard Road, Frederick, MD 21704
(To be removed from this mailing list
write to me at whomren@coinlibrary.com)
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