WAYNE'S NUMISMATIC DIARY: MAY 25, 2025

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V28 2025 INDEX E-SYLUM ARCHIVE

The E-Sylum: Volume 28, Number 21, 2025, Article 21

On Tuesday May 20th I made my way to a familiar venue, Southside 815 in Alexandria. It was the monthly dinner meeting of my Northern Virginia numismatic social group, Nummis Nova. I arrived about half an hour early and discovered I wasn't alone - Dave Schenkman was the first to arrive. Our long table was already set up and we sat in the middle across from one another.

Before long we were joined by John "JK" Kraljevich and Jon Radel, who sat on either side of me. Other evening attendees were Tom Kays, Julian Leidman, Daryl Haynor, Erik Douglas, Mike Markowitz, Steve Bishop, Chris Neuzil and my guest Jonas Denenberg, who was home from college for the summer.

When Erik arrived with his dark beard and a camo green tee shirt, I remarked that he had a Volodymyr Zelenskyy look. We looked for a Vladimir Putin lookalike to sit him beside for peace negotiations, but no luck.

In a rare occurrence, I hadn't brought any numismatic material to pass around. I just sat back and enjoyed the company and food. The red beans and rice were superb. Many of the coins were notable as well, including cut silver and and a very high grade Morgan silver dollar.

The conversation in my section covered numismatics of course, but also traffic and parking spaces, my new no-glasses look, movies Sinners and BlacKkKlansman, the recent Early American Coppers show and the upcoming PAN show in Pittsburgh. JK related how his only acquisition at EAC was (believe it or not) a collection of odd and curious money acquired decades earlier from Hans Schulman.

The food got John and me to talking about the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival and old blues musicians like Buddy Guy and Junior Wells. I'd gotten to meet Koko Taylor at a show in Pittsburgh. JK had seen Bo Diddley twice; I'd seen him once and gotten his autograph.

Dave regaled us with his story of visiting "Nutsy Stutzy". Here's Google's AI summary:

You're referring to A.K. Miller, who was known as "Nutsy Stutzy" due to his passion for collecting Stutz cars in Vermont.

Here is information about him:

Eccentric Collector: Miller, an eccentric millionaire, was known for a large collection of classic cars, particularly Stutz vehicles.
Reclusive Lifestyle: Miller was known to live a frugal and reclusive life in rural Vermont.
Hoarder of Stutz Cars: Miller collected Stutz cars and parts, storing them in barns on his property.
Post-Mortem Discovery: After Miller's death in 1993, a large collection of his belongings, including dozens of Stutz cars, were discovered and later auctioned off.

Tom's Nummis Nova Dinner Notes – May 2025
Nummis Nova supped at the cozy southern comfort food haven, Southside 815 in Alexandria

Clockwise from bottom are Tom, Julian, Daryl, Dave, Eric, Jonas, Mike, Steve, John, Wayne, Jon, and Chris. Seen at table are delightful dishes like momma used to make if she learned to cook with love, long ago in the deep south, including fried catfish, red beans and rice, fried pickles, corn bread with peach chutney, chicken fried steak, ribs and of course, shrimp and grits.

Jonas being tempted by heavenly Key Lime Pie, so close at hand. Somehow our group had the entire dining room to ourselves; likely no other diners would sit near us as we boisterously ‘nerded-out' on coin talk. That's what we do. More than just talk, many a grand numismatic treasure braved the messy table and greasy-fingered diners to make the rounds including these remarkable finds:

• A fine collection of excavated sharp silver found at colonial sites between the Rappahannock and James Rivers including several Spanish pistareen cut quarters of Philip V, a cut half of a Pillar and Globes one real of Ferdinand VI, and two especially unusual, rough-cut pieces; a Half Disme (Small Eagle of 1794 or 1795) cut quarter, and a well-circulated, 1763 Danish West Indies Twelve Skilling, cut in half after many decades in Caribbean trade with the Virgin Islands.

• Both the Washington and Lincoln obverses of patriotic tokens made (circa 1862) from Copper taken from the ruins of the Turpentine Works / New Bern, North Carolina / Destroyed by the Rebels / March 14, 1862 signed by Merriam.

• A pair from the first shipment of the new "Lincoln Memorial" reverse design cents of 1959, rescued from tape, with letter from Congressman Fred Schwengel (R -Iowa) who gave a few out as souvenirs before general distribution began on Lincoln's 150th birthday.

• 1861 George Washington / Mount Vernon (as it looked in 1861) "So-Called Dollar" by G. H. Lovett.

• A cigar box filled with a selection of 19th century trade cards, tin type, Daguerreotype, and Carte-de-Visite (CDV) photographs. Included was this Ayers Cathartic Pills trade card (Ayers Cathartic Pills [since 1853] are also advertised on encased 1862 postage stamp shells with mica windows [The Currency to Pass]).

• Examples of 19th century tin type and Carte-de-Visite (CDV) photographs in the cigar box included this fine-looking, unidentified fellow staring at us from a tin type; Great, Great, Grandfather Reynold, taken at Gilmore's Gallery of Art in Binghampton; and a historical image of Major John André (1750 – 1780), [British Army, Head of Intelligence Operations in America during the War for Independence, who negotiated with Benedict Arnold and was hung for espionage on Washington's orders in 1780] taken at (Jas. S. Earles & Son) Earles' Galleries / Looking Glasses / Chestnut Street / Philadelphia with U.S. Revenue two-cent stamp on the back.

• In the cigar box too was this fine-looking troupe of actors, taken (circa 1869) at G. G. Filkins of Poughkeepsie, New York. Wouldn't you like to know what plays they performed? Their identity remains a mystery. Related to the field of numismatics, is looking for ephemera that link with coins, tokens, medals, counterstamps and their makers. More research is needed to find these tenuous connections before they succumb to the mists of time.

Many more treasures were seen but not captured in my pictures including an 1859 Marshall House Token by Robert Lovett, a fine selection of Bishop's Beauties (toned coins with exceptional eye appeal), a manuscript of The Coinage of Akragas by Mike Markowitz, Olivia McCommons' ANA One-on-One interview with Peter Tompa, a review of George Washington's Coppers, a talk delivered to the Fairfax Coin Club by John Kraljevich, the documentation for a golden 60 asses (circa 211 – 207 BC) with Head of Mars / Golden Eagle with thunderbolts, 19th century daguerreotypes of husband and wife in hinged, patriotic gutta percha frame, and a dark 1904 token with The Trust Breaker / Anthracite Coal Breaker, perhaps itself made of coal.

You should think about hosting your own numismatic supper club in your hometown, to keep current the joy of sharing your collection with others.

Cut Silver
Being a very new country compared to our European counterparts, the U.S. has far less numismatic archeological evidence waiting to be found. Sure, there are dinosaurs and evidence of human settlements going back thousands of years, but mints and coinage like that circulating in Europe only arrived when the Europeans did.

But coins brought and used by the early settlers and colonists can be discovered by professional archeologists and amateur diggers alike. Many of these pieces are "cut silver" or "sharps" as Tom called them. To make change when small denomination coins did not exist, people cut larger coins into fractions - primarily fractions of Spanish silver coins.

The term "pieces of eight" refers to the fractional parts of a Spanish dollar. Converting to U.S. decimal measures, a half cut is 50 cents, a quarter cut is 25 cents, and cutting a quarter in half again is one "bit" or 12 1/2 cents. A "piece of eight" is divided into eight bits, which is how the quarter got the name "two bits". And yeah - bits were often cut in half again for the equivalent of 6 1/4 cents. Early paper scrip and banknotes often use these odd denominations drawn from the circulating coinage.

John Kraljevich brought this nice group of cut silver and provided these photos.

Now that's small change. I was blown away by this one - aghast that someone had chopped up an early half dime, but intrigued by its use as even smaller change. Coins traded based on their silver content alone - the country of origin and the denomination shown on them were irrelevant. While I'd seen countless pieces of cut Spanish silver, I'd never seen a cut U.S. piece like this. Can readers point us to other examples? No fair taking a pair of shears to your 1792 Half Disme or 1796 quarter.

Newbern Turpentine Works Tokens
Dave Schenkman provided better photos of his Newbern Turpentine Works relic tokens.

"I'll be the speaker at the Civil War Token Society's annual meeting, which will be held on August 21 at 2PM at the ANA's World's Fair of Money in Oklahoma City. The topic of my PowerPoint presentation will be "Numismatic Relics of the Civil War Era," and I'll be discussing pieces from two events which occurred five days apart in March 1862; the battle of Newbern, North Carolina, and the famous battle between the ironclads Monitor and Merrimac. Illustrated here are two varieties of the tokens struck from copper from the Newbern Turpentine Works, which was destroyed by fire."

I'm not finding much online about the commemorated Turpentine Works event, so I'll look forward to Dave's talk.

Coal Company Obsolete Notes and Scrip
Dave also brought along some rare coal company pieces.

"The Aiello Mercantile Company note is quite rare. I listed it in Coal Company Obsolete Notes and Scrip, which was published a couple of years ago, but I had never seen an example until this one appeared in an auction recently. The company, which was located in Trinidad, Colorado, was the company store for the Black Diamond Niggerhead Coal and Mining Company."