The article on Verne Walrafen was a fitting tribute to a wonderful person. Verne was a tireless worker for the Original Hobo Nickel Society as our secretary and web master but he was a lot more. He helped many club members learn more about Hobo Nickels, helped a number of nickel carvers develop their techniques and was an active board member that quickly cut to the chase in a diplomatic, logical and effective manner. He was a nice guy - happy, friendly and considerate. It was a pleasure working with him.

I saw the obit for Verne R. Walrafen and was sorry to hear of his passing. We never met but we had a lot of communications about Gallery Mint products. He has a website dedicated to the Gallery Mint: www.gmmnut.com/gmm/rl.html .

There are some that do not appreciate the reproductions that the Gallery Mint made, but when I take my Red Book type set of NJ coppers to give a talk, a Gallery Mint "Date Under Plow Beam" and a "WM Variety" make it complete.

For 2002, the 350th Anniversary of the Boston Mint, I had the Gallery Mint make a punch for me. It is the script "NE" which is on the earliest of the Boston coinage. To commemorate the anniversary, I counterstruck NY State Quarters at the C4 Meeting at the 2002 NY ANA Convention. I also counterstruck MA State Quarters at the 2002 C4 Convention in Boston. You can see an example at www.gmmnut.com/gmm/gmm48.html .

For those that have an interest in counterstruck coins, there is a list of what and how many counterstruck coins I made. I plan to counterstrike no more, BUT if I live to be exactly 100, I will counterstrike more coins in 2052 to commemorate the 400th Anniversary of the Boston Mint. There's so many ways to have fun in this hobby!

The cheque paid to Superman's creators Jerry Siegel and Joe Schuster for the rights to their creation sold at auction for $160.00. I suspect that this is the most ever paid for a cheque. If I am wrong I am certain that you, or someone else knows the correct answer. The link to the article is here: Check that bought Superman rights sells for $160,000 (robot6.comicbookresources.com/2012/04/check-that-bought-superman-rights-sells-for-160000/).

This story was on NPR earlier this week. The British Library recently paid £ 9,000,000 (about $14,000, 000) for the St. Cuthbert Gospel, the earliest surviving bound book known. It dates from 698 and has survived to today. This may well be the most amount of money ever paid for a book.

This was shared on someone's Facebook page - have no idea of the source.

On the Georg Hulbe medal, 20 first prizes, not prices. In The E-Sylum, it looked like there was an (incorrect) umlaut on the U of Hamburg, but on the Flickr archive, I can see that there is not. Also, I loved the item on the Sultan of Swat. The silver coin should have been 714 homrens.

The medal said "first prices" instead of "first prizes."

I don't much like PURVEYOR OF either, surely TO is righterer.