"Here's a paper relic of the (short-lived) Napoleonic conquest of the Repubblica Romana-Papal States (where Napoleon himself was not head of his troops, but conquered by Berthier)."

Thanks. I wasn't familiar with these. -Editor

"Thanks for the piece on English dictionaries. These tend to be appreciated by a small number of bibliophiles. My most prized personal possession (to paraphrase Ren & Stimpy) is my 20 vol. folio Oxford English Dictionary. If I were to be marooned on a desert island and could take only one thing with me from my library it would be my complete OED. The etymologies, chronological examples of usage and editorial comments are précis of the history of the language and the nation in which it grew up and are always both informative and highly rewarding."

Indeed! In a past life I'm certain many numismatists were lexicographers or librarians; I have an innate urge to make order of the chaos around me. -Editor

"As for the condition of the U.S. gold coin, the best grade I can come up with is BUBAR, an acronym for "Buggered up Beyond All Recognition". The movie Saving Private Ryan used a similar phrase, FUBAR, with a similar meaning."

I guess I'd push back against the "Beyond All Recognition" part. It's clearly a U.S. gold coin and while the date is unreadable the unobscured part of the design narrows the possibilities, and the size and weight indicate the denomination. I wonder if conservation was able to rescue this one. -Editor

"I just finished reading the book Supernote, the intriguing story of searching for the printer of 'supernotes' by SA Ross Garret, US Secret Service, was easy to follow. The book highlighted the work of the Secret Service Counterfeit Division, or, at least, how the SS goes after counterfeiters.

"However, the book wasn't James Patterson's or David Balducci's style. Attempts were made to make it so. There was a romantic angle that was left hanging about 80% through the book.

"Thank you for bringing the book to our (my) attention."

Glad to help. I'd like to read this one myself someday. -Editor

"The definition of restrikes and the related terms novodel and reissue don't seem to mesh with how these terms are used by grading services, catalogers, numismatic authors and dealers when describing medals. To my knowledge the term restrike is used when the issuer, usually an official mint, produces an example of a medal at some point after the medal was originally issued. The term can describe a medal produced with the original dies or with dies produced at a later date. And the later examples are made as part of an authorized program. For example, the bronze examples of Indian Peace medals are termed restrikes whether produced in the 19th century with the original dies or produced in the 20th century with new ones. This is true of later examples of historical medals struck by the Paris Mint.

"The only time I've seen the term novodel used is in describing Russian coins originally struck in the 18th century or the first years of the 19th century that were produced for sale to collectors using new dies. Until the 1880s the Russian imperial mint issued copies of earlier medals but they generally are termed restrikes.

"I have rarely if ever encountered the term reissue in connection with historical medals."

"I disagree with the suggestion that the fisherperson on the M. L. Marshall store card was African-American. An excellent article on Marshall was published in the September 2002 issue of The Numismatist. This article included a reprint of a letter from Dwight D. Stone in the September 1948 issue of The Numismatist.

"On the Marshall card, the face is concealed under a hat, scarf and earmuffs. The small part of the exposed face shows just the profile of an eye and nose. On the medal, this is less than a millimeter in size. This is much too small to represent ethnicity."

I didn't spend much time on this one last week, but I looked at the photo quickly and saw facial features I thought were plausibly African-American and agreed with John. New York being on the Union side in the Civil War made me think that at least we couldn't rule that out.

Pete sent me two enlargements of the piece this week and asked, "What do they look like now?" I responded, "Like a Rorschach test." I have to agree with Pete that there's too little here to determine ethnicity. -Editor

"I thought to add to the article about Wu Zhu coins of China. First the writer may enjoy a great book by A.M Fishman, One Thousand Years of Wu Zhu that he is still selling. It tries to explain the varieties of wu zhu and give a closer date range. But to add to the complexity, I have been developing a spreadsheet of varieties of Wu Zhu. The Fishman book shows the differences in each emperor of the Western Han by calligraphic differences. From this idea, I have so far, 15 columns of wu calligraphy types- just the size of the wu character. This spreadsheet has 1200 lines of varieties in addition to just the wu calligraphy. The coinage often has surface marks some engraved into the surface and some cast. They were also filed, chiseled, and cut to form additional types. I believe the cutting and filing as well as calligraphy date the coins. The surface marks are mint marks of some sort to communicate some unknown information. Some day I hope to break the secret code in this area.

"I hope someone is having as much fun as me."

That's intense! -Editor

"I have a paper coming out soon on some Liberian pattern coins, including three examples plated in the Standard Catalog of World Coins that I have been surprisingly unable to trace. Apparently the image library for those volumes no longer exists. Does anyone recognize the photography style?"

"These are actually some of the BEST images I've found, believe it or not. A number of the illustrations are from a 1941 Numismatic Scrapbook article. They're (hopefully) the worst images I'll ever have to use!"

Can anyone help? -Editor

"Perhaps a reader can provide me with a safe website to download a PDF. The sites I've tried all display security warnings. I'm seeking: "Ancient Chinese Cash Notes – The Worlds First Paper Money - Part_II", by John Sandrock."

Can anyone help? I did find a hardcopy of a reprint on eBay from Brooklyn Gallery. -Editor