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About Us The Numismatic Bibliomania Society is a non-profit association devoted to the study and enjoyment of numismatic literature. For more information please see our web site at coinbooks.org Subscriptions Those wishing to become new E-Sylum subscribers can go to the following web page Subscribe You may Unsubscribe Here Membership There is a membership application available on the web site Membership Application To join, print the application and return it with your check to the address printed on the application. Print/Digital membership is $40 to addresses in the U.S., and $60 elsewhere. A digital-only membership is available for $25. For those without web access, write to: Jeff Dickerson, Treasurer Numismatic Bibliomania Society P. O. Box 578, Weatherford, TX 76086 Asylum For Asylum mailing address changes and other membership questions, contact Jeff at this email address: treasurer@coinbooks.org Submissions To submit items for publication in The E-Sylum, write to the Editor at this address: whomren@gmail.com BUY THE BOOK BEFORE THE COIN Sale Calendar Workman's Books November 1, 2026

 

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 JULY 19, 2026

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 two new books, a book review, one periodical, updates from the Newman Numismatic Portal, notes from readers, and more.

Other topics this week include money in the middle ages, Indian Peace medals, National Banks, Edgar Adams, Eric Jensen, auction previews, zoo coinage, a new Atocha discovery, the Trump dollar, Sattler scrip, and counterfeiters in Colombia.

To learn more about Thomas Willing and the Bank of North America, the 2025 Mint Report, starting dies, the largest Viking coin hoard find in Norway's history, Dr. Daniel Garrison Brinton's medal, the 2026 MCA Club medal, the lost art of coin rubbings, and the world's largest hunk of bologna, read on. Have a great week, everyone!

Wayne Homren
Editor, The E-Sylum

 

NEW BOOK: COINS AND MONEY IN THE MIDDLE AGES

Coins and Money in the Middle Ages: Studies in Honor of Alan Stahl

Numismatic Studies No. 50

Edited by Merle Eisenberg, Lee Mordechai, and David Yoon

Alan Stahl's distinguished career in numismatics has encompassed a great many topics in the study of coins, monetary history, and medallic art, from antiquity through the Middle Ages and into the modern era. This volume brings together cutting-edge scholarship from three overlapping groups of scholars: former students from the American Numismatic Society Graduate Summer Seminar whom Stahl taught during the 1980s and 1990s; colleagues and former students at Princeton University, where he has taught since 2005; and collaborators in the Framing the Late Antique and Early Medieval Economy (FLAME) research project, which he has directed since 2014. The broad scope of the articles reveals how widely Stahl has influenced numismatics and numismatists over the last five decades through his research, teaching, and training of generations of students. Some articles focus on specific aspects of coinage, but far more show how thinking with coins, as a medium, transforms how scholars write the histories of the monetary world, economic life, and social relations. Like Stahl himself, the contributors to this volume go beyond technical numismatic details and place coins and money in a broader framework that helps transform our understanding of how people lived in the premodern world.

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NEW BOOK: TARNISHED PROMISES

Using a collection of medals held at the Denver Museum of Nature & Science, Tarnished Promises presents an updated overview of the history and story of peace medals through an examination of their legacy in the modern world. Accompanying the history and analysis are images of thirteen exemplar peace medals from the DMNS collections and their accompanying object biographies.

Peace medals paradoxically worked as tools of colonialism and also Native American agency, sovereignty, power, resistance, and change in response to growing challenges. Their widespread adoption by Native people in North America both prefigured and coincided with the many ways in which Native Americans and First Nations peoples worked to adapt to the unwelcome and undesirable changes wrought by expanding western colonialism. The unique individual histories behind the medals and the larger peace medal story suggest how material objects can hold several, sometimes contradictory, meanings and be influenced by varied strands of culture and historical memory. Tarnished Promises tells this complex story in two parts, with the first detailing the history of Indian peace medals from 1670 to the present day and the second part exploring their meaning at different points in time and to different peoples.

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BOOK REVIEW: THE BANKER WHO MADE AMERICA

Patriotism, George Washington wrote from Valley Forge in 1778, "must be aided by a prospect of interest or some reward." If Washington represented the patriotic side of the American Revolution, Thomas Willing, America's leading merchant and banker at the time, represented the interested side. A devotion to both impulses has marked America's democratic experiment from the very beginning. But while Washington is remembered as the foremost of the Founding Fathers, Willing (1731-1821) has fallen into obscurity, even among historians.

Richard Vague's "The Banker Who Made America" rescues Willing from oblivion, declaring his subject "the most powerful figure in early American history that you've likely never heard of." As the first president of the Bank of the United States, Willing, Mr. Vague writes, "was the dominant economic force in the country."

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PERIODICAL: NUMISMATIQUE ASIATIQUE NO. 58

Numismatique Asiatique
No. 58 | June 2026

ÉDITORIAL

The importance of Russian numismatics

BURMA : Some new findings on King Mindon coins: dating the copper coins
by Valerii V. Gaganov

INDOCHINE : Faux pour servir en Indochine
par Daniel Cariou

INDIA : Altar of Altercation: On the Historico-numismatic Re-examination of Silver Fire-Altar coins of Skandagupta
by Arindam Chaturvedi

ACTES DES VIe RENCONTRES DE NUMISMATIQUE ASIATIQUE TROISIÈME PARTIE

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NNP: 2025 U.S. MINT ANNUAL REPORT

United States Mint Releases 2025 Annual Report

Newman Portal has added the U.S. Mint annual report, courtesy of the FRASER archive. FRASER, the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis document repository, archives material from the U.S. Federal Reserve System, in addition to other institutions, including the Mint and the Bureau of Engraving and Printing.

Mint issues of 2025 included the Five Freedoms platinum proofs, American Innovation dollar coins, Marine Corps 250th anniversary commemoratives, and many others. Indeed, the final pages of this report detail 37 distinct issues apart from the regular proof and mint set series.

U.S. Mint Annual Reports on Newman Portal:
https://nnp.wustl.edu/library/publisherdetail/51
Link to FRASER online archive: https://fraser.stlouisfed.org/

VIDEO: WHEN THE KIDS TAKE OVER NATIONAL BANKS

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2026 ANA COLLEGE SCHOLARSHIP RECIPIENTS

The American Numismatic Association (ANA) has awarded 2026 scholarships to Ryan Mizeski from Tampa, Florida, and Nathaniel Bayer Hafran from Los Angeles, California. Each winner will receive a $1,000 scholarship to use toward tuition at an institution of their choice.

"The annual scholarship provides the American Numismatic Association the opportunity to recognize young numismatists making an impact in the world," says ANA Education Director Christian Strayhorn, "not only in numismatics, but also in their own fields. By assisting these fine recipients with higher education, it is our hope to see them continue to excel at a high level and share their passion for collecting." The recipients are eligible to receive the scholarship for up to four years.

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NOTES FROM E-SYLUM READERS: JULY 19, 2026

Fundraising for Dennis Boggs (aka Abraham Lincoln)
On Facebook, FUN Show organizer Katie Williams posted:

To donate, see:
Show Love for Dennis, Our Abraham Lincoln (https://www.gofundme.com/f/show-love-for-dennis-our-abraham-lincoln)

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VOCABULARY TERM: STARTING DIES

Starting Dies. The first die to be used to begin shaping the metal of a particularly difficult design (which requires several sets of dies). It is followed by the use of striking dies which contain the full design. In the medallic field and striking high relief medals in particular, dies containing the full design are used from the beginning; each blow is struck in the same die contain the full design and the piece is softened (annealed) between each strike. Starting dies are also called forming dies and are the first to be used in a set of progressive dies.

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EDGAR HOLMES ADAMS (1868-1940)

I am writing an article on Edgar Holmes Adams for TAMS Journal. I asked Julia Casey for help with a mystery and she provided a large volume of reference material. The story of Adams' childhood injury has been told in brief. Details of the story may be found in the Belmont (OH) Chronicle for July 10, 1879, page 1.

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ERIC JENSEN INTERVIEW, PART TWO

Well, when Alfred passed away, I got his collection of the Alberta medallions, and it's, of course, the world's best collection of Alberta medallions, because not too many people collect them. I think I'm up over 4200 or so that I've listed. I got into ones that I said I wouldn't. I got into the sports ones, which you can see on that tremendous resource, the Canadian Numismatic Resources website. When they started that I finally had a place where I could put the information, where I didn't have to spend so long in Staples, photocopying, endlessly, putting it all into binders, and then trying to distribute it.

When Alfred had his mail order business, he would mail the listings off. But I had nothing like that. So, the stuff basically just was sitting there, and it was getting tougher and tougher to do books, and that's why I decided to do it electronically. The first thing I did was the Alberta tokens. I collected Alberta tokens, and I knew four others who were really serious about it, so I started to do it too. I would borrow their collections, and said that I was only doing going to create a spreadsheet. I'm said that I wasn't going to do images. It was just too difficult. This was the worst mistake I ever made in this whole exercise, because later, I got little better at taking photos with better cameras. Early on though, the cameras were very low quality. Very low megabytes. I never was happy with them, but that's what I used. Or if need be, I did rubbings, because I was actually pretty good at doing coin rubbings.

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ARCHIVES INTERNATIONAL SALE 115 SELECTIONS

Australia, ND (1939). 10 Shillings, P-25a R12, Issued Banknote, Orange on blue underprint with portrait of King George VI at right, Back is orange with "Manufactures" at center, S/N E/62 199704, PMG graded Choice Uncirculated 64.

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HERITAGE: LONDON LECTURE AND BANKNOTE PREVIEW

Heritage Auctions London is gearing up for something of a milestone. Our London gallery has hosted all sorts of exhibitions before—from Game of Thrones props and costumes to a preview of the Ruby Slippers. But never, until now, have we held an exhibition including banknotes.

On Tuesday 28th July, I'm thrilled to be bringing highlights from our upcoming October World Paper Money Signature® Auction across from Dallas for a preview evening in London. There's a wonderful selection making the journey, but there are a few I'm especially excited to see up close.

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HERITAGE: THE FACES OF LARGE SIZE NATIONAL BANKNOTES

There are seemingly endless characteristics of Large Size National Bank Notes that continue to captivate collectors. Among the most popular are their beautiful vignettes, the fascinating stories of survival and discovery behind individual notes, and, perhaps most importantly, the towns, banks, and states from which they originated. Unlike many other types of U.S. currency, where the central portrait tends to command the spotlight, the portraits on Large Size National Bank Notes can sometimes be overlooked amid the wealth of other interesting details. Yet these familiar faces provide a unifying thread, linking notes issued by thousands of different banks across the country.

As we celebrate America's 250th Anniversary this month, let's take a closer look at the portraits of the national figures that connect these notes, regardless of where they were issued.

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THE ZOO COINAGE OF GALLIENUS

Rome did not fall in 260 CE. However, it came close enough to terrify anyone who could read the signs.

The empire staggered through the Crisis of the Third Century, a brutal half century of civil war, foreign invasion, plague, inflation, and political collapse that ran from 235 to 284 CE . Then disaster struck at the top. The Persian ruler Shapur captured Emperor Valerian after the Battle of Edessa in 260. Ancient writers later added grisly stories about Valerian's captivity, including the famous tale that Shapur used him as a footstool .

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VIKING COIN HOARD FOUND IN NORWAY

Two hobbyists recently uncovered one of the largest Viking coin hoards ever found — fittingly, in a Nordic country.

The hoard was found in a field near Rena, about 18 miles north of Elverum in southeastern Norway, according to an announcement from the University of Oslo's Museum of Cultural History (KHM).

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SILVER BAR RECOVERED FROM THE ATOCHA

Treasure hunters in Florida recently uncovered a 22.5-pound silver bar from a legendary shipwreck — the first of its kind recovered in nearly three decades.

Divers with Mel Fisher's Shipwreck Expeditions, working from the salvage vessel DARE, found the silver bar at the wreck site of the Nuestra Señora de Atocha.

Captain Drake Nicholas and the crew recovered the silver bar from about 50 feet of water off Key West, Florida, according to a press release.

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PROOF 1824/1 OVERDATE HALF DOLLAR DISCOVERED

The first known certified proof 1824/1 overdate Capped Bust half dollar is being offered by Scotsman Coin & Jewelry of St. Louis, Missouri, in its Midwest Summer Sale 2026 auction. Bidding begins on July 22 and closes on August 7, 2026 at www.scoins.com.

"This is an astonishing discovery coin," declared John B. Woodside, Scotsman Vice President.

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TRUMP DOLLAR COIN DESIGN REVEALED

The U.S. Mint will begin striking one-dollar coins featuring a portrait of President Donald Trump on its face in commemoration of the nation's semiquincentennial anniversary, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent announced Wednesday morning.

The coin, which on the reverse side depicts the presidential seal with "250" inscribed on the shield, "celebrates the strength of American values, and the promise of a nation dedicated to preserving freedom for all," Bessent wrote in a social media post.

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DR. DANIEL GARRISON BRINTON'S MEDAL

My friend Michael Keropian is a sculptor of note who will shortly be visiting the Poppenhusen Institute in College Point to examine the MacNeil plasters, some of which need cleaning and others, restoration. He has a Facebook site, Figurative Sculpture in History that has over 16,000 members.

Scrolling through his site the other day, I couldn't help but notice an entry about sculptor John Flanagan, better known as a medalist, who designed a medal honoring Dr. Daniel Garrison Brinton. What caught my eye was the medal he had designed in 1898, may have influenced, however subconsciously, another by Hermon Atkins MacNeil executed in 1918.

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1770 KING'S COLLEGE LITERARY SOCIETY MEDAL

NGC MS61 | USA, King's College (Columbia University), Literary Society, Silver Hand-Engraved Prize Medal, 1770, attributed to Elisha Gallaudet, awarded to Mr James Creighton (1751-1822), COLLEGII REGALIS NOVI EBORACI IN AMERICA PRÆMIUM LITERARIUM IACOBO CREIGHTON | IN • LUMINE • TUO • • VIDEBIMUS • LUMEN •, college seal designed by Reverend Samuel Johnson, with maternal figure of Alma Mater seated on throne at centre, surrounded by three infants, whom she teaches from book in outstretched hand. Radiant sun rises behind. Scroll reads "God's Light" in Hebrew and "God" in Hebrew in radiant border above. 1ST. PET . II . I . 2, in exergue, signature below, rev. EXIMIO • JUVENI • PROPTER • INSIGNES • IN • ARTIBUS • PROGRESSUS, Minerva standing holding spear, presents medal to a student dressed in academic robes, 1770 A.D. below, 33.56g, 64.5mm (Columbia Medals Collection, 5/227).

Established in 1768, the King's College Literary Society medal is the first civilian medal to have been awarded in America which is extant today. Only four examples are known to have survived from a believed 28 original pieces listed in the society's minutes book. An initial order of 4 was placed on 17 May 1767, followed by another of the same amount on 3 November. Each order at the cost of $8 was placed with the New York silversmith Elisha Gallaudet. Gallaudet is a recognisable name within numismatics for his contribution to the Continental Dollar of 1776, which is widely regarded as the first coin of the United States.

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THE 2026 MCA CLUB MEDAL

I am delighted to announce the 2026 MCA Club medal. The Medal Committee has prepared something wonderful and historically important for us.

Designed by leading American medalist and sculptor, Heidi Wastweet, this year's medal displays, on the obverse, a powerful modern interpretation of Benjamin Franklin's famous Libertas Americana medal. The reverse shows the scene of King George III's statue being torn down in lower Manhattan on July 9, 1776. A full description of the medal and photos are included in the attachment.

The medals will be available for purchase by current MCA members on a first come, first served basis. This year the MCA will be striking both bronze and silver examples. The silver is available by subscription only.

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SATTLER SCRIP OF BUFFALO, NEW YORK

Founded in 1889 as a shoe business by John G. Sattler, after 1926 the store began expanding into clothes and then into many other merchandising lines over the years, including food and home furnishings. Its location at 998 Broadway placed it in a Polish neighborhood on Buffalo's east side, about two miles from the city's downtown.

In 1927, John G. Sattler's son-in-law, Charles Hahn Jr., took over running the business. Hahn in turn hired a young newspaperman named Robert S. Cornelius to manage the store's promotional strategies and advertising campaigns. It was Bob Cornelius who masterminded Sattler's distinctively manic merchandising style. A scrappy discount retailer located at some distance from downtown pedestrian traffic, Sattler's under Cornelius resorted to over-the-top spectacles to draw crowds to its premises. The store brought in elephants and tightrope walkers; hosted a live wedding in its display windows; sponsored visits by television and radio celebrities; and held a guessing contest for the correct weight of the world's largest hunk of bologna.

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UKRAINIAN BANKNOTE TYPEFACE TUSSLE

The National Bank of Ukraine said on July 15 that it will change the lettering on its planned Hr 2,000 banknote after public backlash that the inscription too closely resembled a Russian typeface.

Following the announcement on July 10 that the new banknote would honor 20th century Ukrainian poet Vasyl Stus, a number of people in the professional design community publicly raised concerns that the denomination inscription proposed by the National Bank's artists too closely resembled an unofficial Cyrillic adaptation of a typeface of Russian origin.

These concerns were heightened by the fact that Stus was a dissident who died in a Russian penal colony in 1985 because of his pro-Ukrainian views.

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CHASING COUNTERFEITERS IN COLOMBIA

On the day of the raid, a convoy of vehicles with armed troops escorted Prieto's team, which traveled in several pickup trucks. Soldiers on motorbikes led the caravan in the morning twilight, driving along a dirt path to a cannabis farm, the site of the suspected counterfeiting plant. At a large house on the premises, six people still slept — until the motorcycle roars woke them. They tried to escape, Prieto later told me, but five of them were caught right away. The one who fled was never captured.

Inside the house, Prieto and his colleagues found counterfeit currency with a face value of $1.6 million in uncut sheets of $50 bills printed on high-quality paper. Prieto's team seized the printing plates used for the forgery, as well as an inkjet printer, a paper cutter, a bill counter and an assortment of inks. The officers, while videotaping themselves so they would have evidence to present in court, then took a sledgehammer to the lithographic printing press the counterfeiters had been using. Investigators sometimes do this because an offset press, weighing around 1,000 pounds and usually bolted to the floor, can be too difficult to cart away as evidence. "It was left as scrap metal," Prieto says.

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LOOSE CHANGE: JULY 19, 2026

The Museum of Money

Some of it is pure spectacle. There is a booth where dollar bills shower down on whoever steps inside. There is a vault visitors can attempt to break into by dodging a laser grid. There is an 80s investment banker who reads guests' financial futures with great confidence and questionable accuracy.

Other exhibits are quieter and more curious. One small room asks visitors to barter their way to what they need without any money at all. Most adults give up within a couple of minutes and rediscover why people invented currency. Another lines a wall with real and counterfeit bills and asks visitors to pick out the fakes. A third tells the story of Mademoiselle Zélie, a 19th-century French singer who was paid for a Pacific island tour in livestock and produce: three pigs, twenty-three turkeys, five thousand coconuts, and fifteen hundred oranges, among other things.

Tucked between the photo ops are panels on the real history of money. Bronze knife-shaped and spade-shaped Chinese coins from 2,700 years ago. The story of Y'all Street, the Texas stock exchange opening in Dallas. Why gold became valuable in the first place (it doesn't rust, it's rare, and it's easy to shape).

To read the complete article, see:
The Museum of Money (https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/momoney-the-museum-of-money)

For more information, see:
https://museumofmoney.com/

To read the earlier E-Sylum articles, see:
BOSTON MUSEUM OF AMERICAN FINANCE OPENS (https://www.coinbooks.org/v28/esylum_v28n15a11.html)
MORE ON BOSTON MUSEUM OF AMERICAN FINANCE (https://www.coinbooks.org/v28/esylum_v28n16a20.html)

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ABOUT THIS ISSUE: JULY 19, 2026

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