Content presented in The E-Sylum is not necessarily researched or independently fact-checked, and views expressed do not necessarily represent those of the Numismatic Bibliomania Society.

WAYNE'S WORDS: THE E-SYLUM OCTOBER 25, 2020

New subscribers this week include: Ty Gardner, Taylor Dixon, courtesy of Ty Gardner; and David Lescarini. Welcome aboard! We now have 6,595 subscribers.

Thank you for reading The E-Sylum. If you enjoy it, please send me the email addresses of friends you think may enjoy it as well and I'll send them a subscription. Contact me at whomren@gmail.com anytime regarding your subscription, or questions, comments or suggestions about our content.

This week we open with three numismatic literature sales, four new books, updates from the Newman Numismatic Portal, and more.

Other topics this week include Assay Commission medals, the Stone Mountain Distinguished Service medal, heat treating, Stack's Bowers' new NYC location, the 1913 Liberty nickels, hobby awards, four auction sales, reading Greek coins, Peruvian banknotes and a couple of really big ingots.

To learn more about bookplates, currency in Bahrain, Ecuadorian coins, how to publish a numismatic book, the Cohen Mint, a Hajj token, the Bank of England Museum, coin dealer John W. Haseltine, collector Fred Knobloch, the most influential people in numismatics, the Carson City Mint, and War of 1812 Treasury notes, read on. Have a great week, everyone!

Wayne Homren
Editor, The E-Sylum

ALAIN POINSIGNON NUMISMATIC LIBRARY BOOKPLATES

On 2 and 3 November 2020, auction house Künker in Osnabrück will auction off the library of coin dealer Alain Poinsignon. Just like every great library, it contains books that were previously owned by other numismatists and coin collectors. Bookplates tell this story. And we tell some stories about the bookplates.

Even in medieval monasteries, the most precious codices did not simply lay on the shelves but were chained to lecterns. This made a basic need of every enthusiastic reader impossible to satisfy: acquiring the book with which one had such an affectionate relationship. A bookplate, or ex-libris (Latin for "ex" and "libris", thus "from the books of"), is the modern way of chaining books. It makes it more difficult to snatch a book from a library because every time the book is opened, the reader immediately sees who its actual owner is.

Read more here

RARE BOOKS & FINE ARTS E-AUCTION 7 ANNOUNCED

Lots 9 and 10

Lot 9: Archivio di Stato di Firenze
Mediceo. Archivio di Stato di Firenze, 2015. Collezione di monete greche, romane e bizantine con contromarca medicea nel Museo Archeologico Nazionale di Firenze. Brossura editoriale, 364pp., 252 monete elencate + 21 da aste pubbliche. NUOVO

To read the complete lot description, see:
Lot 9 (https://www.biddr.com/auctions/rarebooksandfinearts/browse?a=1386&l=1481705)

Read more here

REINER SEUPEL ISLAMIC NUMISMATIC LITERATURE LOTS

Read more here

NEW BOOK: STANDARD CATALOG OF ECUADORIAN COINS

Standard Catalog of ECUADORIAN COINS
A Checklist and Compendium

By Dale Seppa and Michael J. Anderson. Heavy card covers 4.5" (115 mm) by 8.5" (215 mm), 136 pages. Many items are priced generally based on recent auction results. The book is extensively illustrated with high quality drawings and photos.

Scheduled for official release January 1st, 2021. If books are ready before then they will be shipped as soon as they are available.

The book is divided into over a dozen sections to include: PRE-COLUMBIAN MONEY, COLONIAL COINAGE, WARS OF INDEPENDENCE, REPUBLICAN PROTO-COINAGE, PRE- DECIMAL COINAGE, DECIMAL COINAGE, PRE-DECIMAL GOLD COINAGE, DECIMAL GOLD COINAGE, EARLY PATTERNS & UNUSUAL, DECIMAL PATTERNS & UNUSUAL, SETS, SILVER SPECIAL ISSUES, GOLD SPECIAL ISSUES

Read more here

NEW BOOK: COINAGE IN EARLY ENGLISH LITERATURE

Coinage and State Formation in Early Modern English Literature
(Early Modern Cultural Studies 1500–1700)
by S. Deng

A reassessment of the historic relation between money and the state through the lens of early modern English literature, Coinage and State Formation examines the political implications of the monetary form in light of material and visual properties of coins as well as the persistence of both intrinsic and extrinsic theories of value.

Editorial Reviews

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NEW BOOK: PAPER MONEY OF RHEINHESSEN 1793-1948

Hugo Schneider:
The paper money of the Rheinhessen region 1793-1948

Special catalog of city, district, company and private editions

202 pages, color illustrations throughout, format 21 cm x 29.7 cm,
hardcover, Walluf 2020.
without ISBN. Price: 30 euros

Read more here

BANKNOTE BOOK PERU CHAPTER PUBLISHED

Today we are proud to present another large chapter completing coverage of yet another currently issuing country. Fewer than a handful remain, and we're working diligently to publish them as soon as possible.

Peru (South America)
This 76-page catalog covers notes issued by the Junta Administradora (Administrative Board) from 1879 to 1881, the Junta de Vigilancia (Supervisory Board) from 1914 to 1918, the Banco de Reserva del Perú (Reserve Bank of Peru) from 1922 to 1926, and the Banco de Reserva del Perú became the Banco Central de Reserva del Perú (Central Reserve Bank of Peru) from 1922 to present.

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RESEARCH & PUBLISH A NUMISMATIC BOOK

You can Research & Publish a Numismatic Book

This virtual presentation will cover what decisions the instructors had to make (and how they chose to implement them) for two different numismatic publications. The first publication included all numismatic collectibles for Chattanooga, Tennessee. The second publication included all obsolete paper money from the state of Tennessee.

Read more here

1893 ASSAY MEDAL LETTER ON NEWMAN PORTAL

Friends in High Places

While the National Archives remains inaccessible to researchers, Newman Portal continues creating transcriptions of previously scanned material. Recently processed is an 1893 letter from the Superintendent of the U.S. Assay Office in New York City, Andrew Mason, requesting that Philadelphia Mint Superintendent Oliver C. Bosbyshell supply a medal of the Assay Commission for that year. The "ask" was made on behalf of collector Harlan P. Smith of New York City, whose cabinet was featured by the Chapman’s in a 1906 sale.

The Assay Commission medals were struck in low quantities (not all mintages are recorded, but 40-50 pieces is typical) and do not appear on U.S. Mint fixed price lists of the era. Did Smith get his medal? Quite likely so. His 1906 auction sale catalog included an extensive run of Assay Commission medals, including an 1893 silver example (lot 1664, AC-37) housed in a "morocco case." Smith’s Assay Commission medals turned out to be a tough sell, with the Chapman’s buying-in most of the pieces, including the 1893 example at $2.60.

Image: 1893 Assay Commission medal (AC-37), dies by George Morgan. Images courtesy of PCGS.

Link to U.S. Mint General Correspondence on Newman Portal:
https://nnp.wustl.edu/library/archivedetail/515202
Link to Chapman auction sale catalogs on Newman Portal
https://nnp.wustl.edu/library/auctioncompanydetail/21
Link to U.S. Mint fixed price lists on Newman Portal:
https://nnp.wustl.edu/library/publisherdetail/512757

VIDEO: THE LIFE OF ADAM BREWER

Numismatic Tribute for the Life of Adam Brewer. VIDEO: 6:19.

Glenna Brewer, Denver Gold & Silver Exchange, David Lisot, Producer, CoinTelevision.com.

David Lisot shares with Glenna Brewer about the passing of her youngest son, Adam Brewer. Although just 20 years old, Adam had a passion for coin collecting and the business of numismatics.

An excerpt of the video is available for viewing on the Coin Television YouTube Channel at:
https://youtu.be/p-rE0gkDMws

NOTES FROM E-SYLUM READERS: OCTOBER 25, 2020

More on Plasters and Cameos
Tony Terranova writes:

To read the earlier E-Sylum article, see:
DASSIER'S KINGS AND QUEENS OF ENGLAND MEDALS (https://www.coinbooks.org/v23/esylum_v23n42a14.html)

Read more here

BANK OF ENGLAND MUSEUM AUDIO HIGHLIGHTS

The Bank of England started an interesting initiative, describing their collection. As they claim on their site, it is suitable for visually impaired adults. There is no information about the initiative, but it speaks for itself.

Often times, the problem with describing artifacts for blind people is that there is a small target audience at a high expense of description. Not to mention that many blind people don’t consider numismatics as a viable hobby, thus, making numismatic objects accessible in any way may not draw a big audience.

Read more here

STONE MOUNTAIN DISTINGUISHED SERVICE MEDAL

Here is an image of my 1926 Stone Mountain Distinguished Service Medal. The diameter is 40mm, Bronze and the edge is stamped Medallic Art Co NY. Designed by Augustus Lukeman.

It is my understanding that 29 medals were struck in gold and given to the 29 girls that sold the most Stone Mountain half dollars during the Harvest Campaign. A loop was added to the top and their names were engraved on the reverse.

These medals were featured in the May 1927 edition of The Numismatist magazine.

Read more here

VOCABULARY TERM: HEAT TREATING

Heat Treating. The controlled heating and cooling of metal to change its physical properties; it includes annealing, quenching and tempering, among others. Each metal has the characteristic that its properties are changed with the raising and lowering of temperature, often rapidly. Iron or steel is important in coin and medal manufacture – primarily for dies – and steel can be heat treated to extremes of hardness, for example, soft for cutting in the design, hard for striking. Art medals with high relief design can only exist because of heat treating: the metal composition – traditionally bronze or silver – can be softened by annealing after each strike, allowing for another blow to build up the high relief.

Here are some of the specific areas in which heat treating is used in coin and medal making:

Read more here

JOHN WHITE HASELTINE (1838-1925)

Haseltine, Captain John White (1838-1925), Philadelphia coin dealer. Captain in the Civil War. Afterwards a clerk at Haddock & Reed, Co., 164-166 Market Street, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, where he worked in his family business, formerly called Haseltine, Haddock, Reed & Co. The firm of Haddock & Reed, Co., was dissolved in 1871.

He was born on September 6, 1838, the son of John Haseltine (1793-1871), a native of Massachusetts and a very wealthy and successful businessman, and his wife Elizabeth Stanley Shinn Haseltine (1811-1882), a native of Pennsylvania, and an amateur landscape painter. He was one of ten children. Elizabeth’s mother Mary Shinn lived with at the Haseltine’s home in Philadelphia and is listed as age 84 in the US Census of 1870, at the family residence 706 Spruce Street, Philadelphia. At that time the Haseltine family had three live-in domestic servants from Ireland : Ellen Gallaher (1820), Mary Donnagan (1845-), and Mary Hogan (1845-). In that same census report the Haseltine home was estimated at $80-100,000.

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HARVEY STACK'S NUMISMATIC FAMILY, PART 81

Stack's presented over half a dozen public auctions in 1980, featuring collections from various museums as well as private collectors. In February we featured items from several important places, highlighted by a comprehensive collection from the New Canaan Historical Museum. Also included was a cabinet of Charlotte Mint gold coins from Parks Dalton, who with his father and brother had assembled a major collection of this very popular specialty. There were other collections geared toward general collectors, making up a sale of over a thousand lots. Our March sale included items from the Detroit Historical Society, as well as the collection of, Dr. J. Hewitt Judd.

Read more here

STACK’S BOWERS GALLERIES OPENS NEW YORK LOCATION

Stack’s Bowers Galleries is thrilled to announce the opening of their new flagship gallery at 470 Park Avenue in Midtown Manhattan. Located just down the block from their historic West 57th Street storefront, this new gallery at 470 Park Avenue will serve as the East Coast’s premier numismatic destination for a new generation of collectors.

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VAN RYZIN UPDATES 1913 LIBERTY NICKEL RESEARCH

Until my article, "Shadowy rarity: 1913 nickel first seen in 1919, not 1920," appeared in the Aug. 1, 2017, issue of Numismatic News, most who have explored the sketchy history of this coin recorded that the earliest documented showing of the nickel was at the late August 1920 ANA convention in Chicago. There were rumors that Samuel W. Brown, a former Philadelphia Mint employee, long linked by collectors to the 1913 Liberty Head nickel’s questionable creation, had exhibited the coin at a CCC meeting prior to his bringing it to the 1920 annual convention. However, documentation of such a meeting was lacking, until it was discovered within the club reports in the pages of The Numismatist.

Read more here

ANS 2020 HUNTINGTON AWARD TO SYD MARTIN

The Trustees of the American Numismatic Society (ANS) have voted to bestow upon Mr. Sydney Martin the 2020 Archer M. Huntington Award in recognition of his scholarly work specializing in Colonial American coinage.

The award ceremony will be held on Thursday, November 19, 2020, at 1:00 pm ET at the American Numismatic Society, 75 Varick Street, in New York City and will be available to attend virtually via zoom. Featured during the event will be the Silvia Mani Hurter Memorial Lecture by Mr. Martin, entitled "Numismatic Commemoratives of the 200th Birthday of George Washington in 1932."

Read more here

COIN WORLD'S MOST INFLUENTIAL PEOPLE SURVEY

To cast your vote, see:
Coin World's Most Influential People in Numismatics from 1960-2020 (http://www.coinworld.com/influential/)

ANA'S 2021 SERVICE AWARD NOMINATIONS SOUGHT

Each year, the American Numismatic Association (ANA) presents awards to deserving individuals in recognition of outstanding dedication to numismatics. The ANA is now accepting individual nominations for 2021 awards and Numismatic Hall of Fame "Modern Era" candidates.

All nominations can be submitted in writing and online – 300 words or more for the Numismatic Hall of Fame, and 50-100 words for all other awards. Nominations are accepted through Jan. 15, 2021.

Read more here

HOLABIRD FALL 2020 SALE SELECTIONS

This sale features some amazing one of a kind rarities, and also brings to market several long awaited collections. Perhaps the top item in the sale is the Pierce Powell copy of the all-time #1 "psychedelic" rock n roll poster, the Charlatans at the Red Dog Saloon, Virginia City. Long on display in his personal home, Powell’s personal copy of this historic event is now offered. We were unable to verify if this is the only copy, or one of two known. Regardless, if you are a rock n roll collector, it is the all-time #1 poster.

The auction features the collections of Ken Prag, Salvatore Falcone and John Reynolds.

Read more here

ARCHIVES INTERNATIONAL AUCTION 62 SELECTIONS

Lot 50: Chile 20 Pesos Specimen Note

Concepcion, Chile.... Specimen 20 Pesos, ND (ca. 1883), P-S180s. S/N D-00000, Specimen overprints, POC's, PMG graded Choice Uncirculated 64 with comment "Previously Mounted" (Cert # 8012570-008). ABNC.

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COLTRANE WAR OF 1812 TREASURY NOTES

Mike Coltrane’s intense interest in history and American paper currency inspired him to form the most comprehensive collection of War of 1812 United States Treasury Notes ever assembled. There are two main classes of notes. First are those authorized by the acts of June 30, 1812, March 4, 1814, and December 26, 1814 (and $100 notes from the February 24, 1815, act). They were in a large size format and paid 5-2/5% interest for one year from its hand-dated time of issuance. The second class of notes was authorized by the final act of February 24, 1815. These were in a "small" size format with denominations from $3 to $100, similar in size and style to slightly earlier first Bank of the United States notes. These did not pay set interest or have a set term, but were redeemable later for 7% United States funded stock. They circulated in commerce when signed by three officials including the register of the treasury or an authorized, designated official such as a commissioner of United States loans or other official designee.

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PARTRICK COLLECTION OF CONNECTICUT COPPERS

One of the most memorable U.S. Coin auctions of all time may well have been Heritage's January 2015 presentation of Donald G. Partrick's extraordinary United States colonials. In that unprecedented sale, 355 lots realized a total of nearly $26 million - a remarkable result yet, incredibly, only a small portion of Mr. Partrick's holdings. Now, we are thrilled to present the rest of this amazing collection in a series of specialized auctions, starting with the renowned Partrick 1785-88 Connecticut coppers. Bidding is open now and continues through the live session at 5PM CT on Sunday, November 1.

Read more here

READING ANCIENT GREEK COINS

MODERN AMERICAN COINS are required by law to include quite a lot of text.

In contrast, ancient Greek coins are remarkably laconic.

Many bear no inscription at all — the technical numismatic term for this (from Greek, of course!) is "anepigraphic". We can only guess at the level of literacy in the ancient Greek-speaking world. By one estimate, about five to 10 percent of the adult male population could read and write (Harris, 114). Several non-Greek societies (Celtic, Semitic, and Persian) used Greek letters for their coin inscriptions. Ancient Greek coin inscriptions are all written in "capital" letters; lower case letters were a post-Classical development used mainly in manuscripts. There were usually no spaces between words.

Read more here

TOURIST FINDS MEDIEVAL SILVER COIN CACHE

A tourist found silver coins from the 13th and 14th centuries under an uprooted tree near Piešťany.

He has reported it to the Regional Monuments Board (KPÚ) in Trnava. Its workers found 147 middle-age silver coins after searching with a detector. The coins are mostly Wiener pfennigs but there are also Hungarian imitations of Wiener pfennigs that were minted in the years 1251 and 1330.

Read more here

SILVER PENNY OF BARON EUSTACE FITZJOHN

An extremely rare silver penny of Baron Eustace Fitzjohn, a 12th century Yorkshire Business Magnate has been discovered recently by a metal detectorist and is to be offered by International coins, medals, banknotes and jewellery specialists Dix Noonan Webb in a live/online auction of Coins and Historical Medals on Tuesday, November 3, 2020 at 10am on www.DNW.co.uk. The coin, which measures 19mm in diameter, was minted in York is one of only 20 surviving examples with this design and is estimated to fetch £10,000- 15,000.

Read more here

MAINE METAL DETECTORIST FINDS 1798 LARGE CENT

If you spend enough time in some of traveling around Maine, you'll likely come across a treasure hunter. They're easy to laugh off, often times laser-focused with their metal detectors while everyone else around them is in relaxation mode. And while the take may generally be junk to most, every now and again, a treasure hunter finds exactly what they were looking for. That seems to be the case with one treasure hunter who recently spent some time in the Embden, Maine area.

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LITHUANIA EURO COIN WITH HEBREW LETTERS

The Bank of Lithuania minted the first euro piece of currency containing Hebrew letters.

The 10-euro coin was minted on Tuesday and is a limited-edition commemorative collector’s item celebrating the 300th anniversary of the birth of the Vilna Gaon, the 18th-century rabbinical luminary Elijah ben Solomon Zalman, who lived and died in the Lithuanian capital of Vilnius.

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QUEEN’S BEASTS VS. AMERICA THE BEAUTIFUL

Two major series of bullion and collector coins — the America the Beautiful (ATB) five-ounce silver quarters from the U.S. Mint, and the Royal Mint’s Queen’s Beast series — will soon end. Both have helped to reshape the market for modern bullion and collector coins in recent years and have been major sources of revenue for their respective mints.

Examining the similarities and differences between the two series may shed some light on what modern coin buyers are looking for and on what kinds of coins do well in the marketplace. This information may also be useful to world mints contemplating similar series that run for an extended period — something already happening in the U.S.

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KELLOGG & HUMBERT GOLD INGOT

Hefty, Historic Gold Bar Highlights November Auction

Heritage Auctions will be selling a great piece of shipwreck history as part of the November US Coin Auction #1321. The S.S. Central America shipwreck occurred in the 1850s and forever changed numismatic history. This 280-foot sidewheel ship regularly operated between Central American and the eastern coast of the United States in the 1850s until a hurricane in 1857 sunk the mighty boat, weighed down heavily with a huge treasure of gold coins and bars.

Read more here

LOOSE CHANGE: OCTOBER 25, 2020

Wallis Simpson’s Lucky Silver Dollar?

An 1885 US silver dollar coin, carried by Duchess of Windsor Wallis Simpson in her handbag as a good luck charm. Measures 1.5 inches in diameter.

The coin is accompanied by several unused notelets belonging to the Duchess, some printed with the words "From the desk of HRH The Duchess of Windsor".

Read more here

NEW BOOK: DARK ARCHIVE

In her book, Rosenbloom takes us from library to library, recounting her conversations with other librarians, as well as with historians, collectors and medical students in the act of dissecting cadavers. She includes no shortage of memorable scientific minutiae and clarifications of misunderstood history along the way, including the fact that there’s no evidence that Nazis made books from human skin. (This was maybe the one abominable thing they didn’t do.)

In fact, anthropodermic bibliopegy was not the practice of some singularly heinous regime. Such books were never common — Rosenbloom’s team has identified only about 50 alleged examples worldwide — but she suggests that the total number is plausibly far greater. Human skin leather looks indistinguishable from that of other mammals, and only recent developments in DNA sequencing technology have made it possible to tell a skin-bound book from a forgery.

Read more here

FEATURED WEB PAGE: PERUVIAN BANKNOTES

https://www.perutelegraph.com/peru-information/peruvian-money/current-peruvian-banknotes