Welcome to The E-Sylum: Volume 3, Number 36, September 3, 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. (Summer doldrums,
perhaps?) Our subscriber count holds at 335. If you know
of someone who would enjoy our publication, please encourage
them to subscribe.
OUR 100TH ISSUE
The present issue is the 100th E-Sylum issued since
we started on September 4th, 1998. That issue
began as follows:
"This message is being sent to members and friends of the
Numismatic Bibliomania Society (NBS). ...
In a Press Release going out soon to the numismatic press,
we describe the purpose of the mailing list as follows:
Numismatic Bibliomania Society Vice President Wayne
Homren is collecting email addresses for NBS
members, a process which began at the national
meeting at the Portland ANA convention. The
resulting mailing list will be used to keep members and
interested parties updated on NBS events and changes
to the NBS web site. ...
A number of folks signed up at the meeting in Portland.
To that initial group we've added the addresses of other
current and former members that the Board is aware of,
plus a few numismatic pen pals we thought might be
interested.
This is intended to be a moderated, low-volume mailing
list, with no more than one message every week or so.
Its purpose and use will evolve over time - please send
us your comments and suggestions."
Well, we've come a long way since then. The newsletter
didn't even have a name until the February 8, 1999 issue,
when we announced:
"These email missives are in their sixth month now, but
they've never had a formal name. To remedy that
situation, we've decided on "The E-sylum", an obvious
play on our print journal "The Asylum". "
The NBS Board had lengthy email deliberations about the
name before deciding on The E-Sylum. We voted on a
list of about a dozen suggestions. I believe E-Sylum was
my idea, but it was my second choice - I lobbied for
"The Babbler", that being what members of an Asylum
are wont to do. But saner heads prevailed, and The
E-Sylum was born.
That first email message went to 49 people. Less verbose
announcements were also sent to the COINS and
BIBLIONUMIS mailing lists, as well the the Early American
Coppers "Region 8" mailing list.
By noon subscription requests began arriving from around the
world. Peter Gaspar of St. Louis, MO was the first. Jere
Bacharach of the University of Washington in Seattle, was
second, with Dr. Hubert Emmerig of Austria a close third.
Over the course of the Labor Day weekend another twenty
people subscribed, mostly from the U.S., but from as far afield
as Italy, Poland, and the Russian Federation. Today we
have grown to 335 subscribers.
We've far exceeded our original expectations. The E-Sylum
serves not only as a vehicle to promote NBS and serve its
members, but has also become a clearinghouse of sorts for
numismatic research. We're a community of kindred souls
who work together to further our numismatic knowledge.
It's always gratifying to see articles, monographs, and books
which credit The E-Sylum and its readers with inspiration and
research assistance. It is the internet serving its highest
purpose - bringing together people across geographic
boundaries, 24 hours a day. We're in a place that didn't exist
for most people just a few years ago, and now most of us don't
know how we ever muddled along without it.
I'll have to admit, I was wary of being able to come up with
enough material to fill a weekly publication, although that was
always my goal. It's never easy, but some issues almost
write themselves with the help of our readers. So keep those
emails coming, folks - you're the backbone of The E-Sylum,
and your editor couldn't do it without you.
LAKE BOOKS 54TH MAIL BID SALE
Fred Lake reports: "Lake Books has made its latest sale of
numismatic literature available for viewing on the web. The
640-lot catalog features books on a variety of United States
coinage and also is replete with works pertaining to coinage
of the Ancient World to more modern world coins. The section
dealing with Tokens and Medals has nearly 100 entries and
contains some hard-to-find books.
Other areas covered are Paper Money, U.S. auction catalogs,
World auction catalogs, Numismatic Literature Dealer catalogs
and a variety of miscellaneous items.
The catalog can be viewed at this address:
http://www.lakebooks.com/current.html or you can email
me at fredlake@aol.com for more information.
A new Fixed Price List of over 200 items is also posted on
the web site."
THE ASYLUM
Our print journal, The Asylum, got some publicity with
a nice article in the September 11, 2000 issue of COIN
WORLD (p68). It summarized the two articles from the
Spring 2000 issue on Burns' Coinage of Scotland and
Samuel Breck. Editor Tom Fort is preparing the next
number of The Asylum. The issue will feature several
interesting shorter articles from a variety of contributors.
SAN FRANCISCO VISITORS REGISTER
Dave Lange writes: "Until I moved to New Jersey in 1994, I
lived in San Bruno within a mile of the Pacific Region Archives.
One would think that I'd have taken the time to visit there
looking for records of the SF Mint, but of course I didn't. I
suppose that's the same mentality that precluded my seeing
Yosemite while I lived in California. I'm now doing my very
best to avoid taking advantage of New York's many museums
and tourist attractions. I suppose that's the price we pay for
spending so much time reading!
A web search turned up this entry at the Oakland Museum
of California:
Anyone contemplating a visit to San Francisco should absolutely
include a day at the Oakland Museum, just across the bay. In
addition to its fine art collection, this is the real repository of
California's history, far more so than any museum in SF. One
is able to go from room to room with dioramas and artifacts
illustrating the social and economic history of the state from
native times to the present. The Oakland Museum also has a
pretty good bookstore."
E. I. BARRA'S BOOK
To add to his earlier comments on the pamphlet by E. I. Barra,
Dave Bowers writes: "Here is the citation on Barra's book.
There is hardly anything in it about the Gold Rush (I read it),
but a lot of stuff about life at sea and in ports. Well written.
Barra, E.I. Tale of Two Oceans; New Story by an Old
Californian. San Francisco, CA: Press of Eastman & Co., 1893.
I would be desirous of communicating with anyone who has any
contemporary information 1849-1857 concerning the actual use,
and described as such, of $50 slugs, bars, gold coins, etc., in
gambling halls, stores, etc., in California. I have gathered quite a
few, some of which are quite fascinating, but I would like to get
more. The "payment" will be a credit line in a new book I and a
bunch of researchers are working on re: the S.S. Central America,
with emphasis on the numismatic aspects."
The Library of Congress web site provides this information:
"Barra, E. I. (Ezekiel I.) A tale of two oceans : a new story by
an old Californian : an account of a voyage from Philadelphia to
San Francisco, around Cape Horn, years 1849-50, calling at Rio
de Janeiro, Brazil, and at Juan Fernandez, in the South Pacific /
by E.I. Barra. San Francisco : Press of Eastman & Co., 1893.
198 p. : ill. ; 24 cm. (See http://www.loc.gov/)
Another web search turned up a reference to this book:
Weinpahl, ed. A Gold Rush Voyage on the Bark Orion from
Boston around Cape Horn to San Francisco, 1849-1850. A
unique record based upon the journals of Foster H. Jenkins,
Henry S. Bradley, Seth Draper and Ezekial I. Barra. 1978.
So we have a few more clues about the no-longer-so-
mysterious E. I. Barra. His first name was Ezekiel, he was
an adult by 1849, probably living in Philadelphia. He sailed to
California to seek his fortune. He visited the San Francisco
Mint and published "Something About Coins" in 1863, and
sold coins in the Keller sale that year, also in San Francisco.
It seems very likely that he was living that city, perhaps having
stayed from his arrival in the Gold Rush. He lived in California
at least to 1893, when he published his memoir.
NBS Secretary-Treasurer Dave Hirt notes that the Keller
sale of Barra's collection is probably the earliest numismatic
auction held on the West Coast.
MORE ON L. Q. C. ELMER
In the "be careful what you ask for" department, we have this
note from Pete Smith on Lucius Quintius Cincinnatus Elmer:
"The book that immediately comes to mind is, "History of the
Early Settlement of Cumberland County, New Jersey, and of
the Currency of this and Adjoining Colonies." He wrote other
works on the law and New Jersey including, "Elmer's Digest
of the Laws of New Jersey," Elmer's Book of Law Forms,"
"Reminiscences of the Bench and Bar of New Jersey," "History
of the Constitutional Government of New Jersey with
Biographical Sketches of the Governors from 1776 until 1845"
and "Genealogy and Biographical Account of the Elmer Family"
Elmer was born in Bridgeton, New Jersey, on February 3, 1793,
the son of Revolutionary War officer Ebenezer Elmer and
Hannah Seely. He served as an officer during the War of 1812.
He was a lawyer practicing in Bridgeton until he got involved in
politics. As a democrat he served in the state assembly, State
Attorney General, Congressman, and Justice of the New Jersey
Supreme Court. He died at Bridgeton on March 11, 1883."
The first book Pete mentioned, "History of the Early Settlement
of Cumberland County, New Jersey, and of the Currency of this
and Adjoining Colonies," is the one we had in mind. The scarce
1869 work has one chapter on Continental and Colonial
Currency as it circulated in New Jersey. It was reprinted in
1976 by the Cumberland County Historical Society.
Interestingly, Pete added: "First, Lucius Quintius Cincinnatus
Elmer is more than just a funny name. The original Lucius
Quintius Cincinnatus was the Roman personification of
citizen-soldier who left the farm to serve his country in time
of crisis and, when the crisis was over, resigned to return to
the farm.
He was chosen as the symbol for the Society of Cincinnati, a
veteran's organization for American Revolutionary War officers.
In naming his son, General Ebenezer Elmer paid tribute to the
noble Roman and to his former comrades-in-arms.
And second, for several years I have been writing a genealogy
of the Eckfeldt family showing their connection by marriage to
the DuBois, Patterson, Ewing and Gallatin families. My
manuscript of more than 150 pages includes about 2500 names.
Lucius Elmer's grandparents had the last names of Elmer,
Lawrence, Seeley and Fithian. All those names appear in my
genealogy and represent intermarriages with the Ewing family.
I have found one connection: Lucius' cousin Harriet Seeley
married William Belford Ewing, a second cousin of Thomas
Ewing, who was Secretary of the Treasury. There are many
intermarriages of the same families so the relationships can get
to be complex. This has no numismatic importance but
represents the type of obsessive search I sometimes do while
following a research thread."
FEATURED WEB SITE
This week's featured web site is from The United States
Civil War Center at Louisiana State University. It's an
online exhibit titled "Beyond Face Value: Depictions of
Slavery in Confederate Currency" (Thanks to John Wilson
for pointing this one out).
http://www.cwc.lsu.edu/cwc/BeyondFaceValue/
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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