ABOUT THIS ISSUE: MAY 25, 2025

On Monday someone from HarperCollins reached out to ask permission to use an image they'd found on our Flickr account, which we use to host images for The E-Sylum. It had been supplied by Harry Waterson. I reached out to Harry who gave his OK and I passed his note along. For those who are curious, the image was of Julio Kilenyi's 1926 American Eugenics Society Goodly Heritage medal from the May 8, 2016 article linked below.

I was home Monday and Tuesday minding my wife's elderly mother while my wife was visiting Disney World with our middle son and daughter, who was celebrating her 21st birthday. I drove to Dulles airport to pick them up late Tuesday afternoon, but called an audible and had them take an Uber home instead - with the airport crowds and road traffic it would have been hard to get them home and still get myself to my Nummis Nova dinner in Alexandria in time. Instead I was able to arrive early without fuss (although my GPS guide had to lead me far off the beaten path to bypass the worst of the rush hour traffic). See my Diary article elsewhere in this issue for more on the evening.

On Thursday I confirmed a meeting in Pittsburgh that would require a change to my hotel reservation for the upcoming PAN show. I had no luck changing my arrival date online so Saturday afternoon I called the hotel and got connected to a woman with an Indian accent who claimed her name was "Megan." She said I could add another night, but it would have to be a separate reservation at a rate higher than the convention rate I'd booked originally. I balked at the higher price but before I hung up she miraculously realized that perhaps she could extend my reservation at the original rate after all. After some time on hold while she contacted the property, I got the extra night at the convention rate. I also reserved a seat on the shuttle to the PAN banquet Thursday. I'm looking forward to the trip.

-Editor

Wayne Homren
Wayne Homren is the founding editor of The E-Sylum and a consultant for the Newman Numismatic Portal. His collecting interests at various times included U.S. Encased Postage Stamps, merchant counterstamps, Pittsburgh Obsolete paper money, Civil War tokens and scrip, Carnegie Hero Medals, charge coins and numismatic literature. He also collects and has given presentations on the work of Money Artist J.S.G. Boggs. In the non-numismatic world he's worked in artificial intelligence, data science, and as a Program Manager for the U.S. Department of Defense.

Garrett Ziss
Garrett Ziss is a numismatic collector and researcher, with a focus on American paper money and early U.S. silver and copper coins. He is also a part-time U.S. coin cataloger for Heritage Auctions. Garrett assists Editor Wayne Homren by editing and formatting a selection of articles and images each week. When he's not engaged in numismatics, Garrett is pursuing a Master's Degree in Quantitative Economics at the University of Pittsburgh.

Pete Smith
Numismatic researcher and author Pete Smith of Minnesota has written about early American coppers, Vermont coinage, numismatic literature, tokens and medals, the history of the U.S. Mint and much more. Author of American Numismatic Biographies, he contributes original articles to The E-Sylum often highlighting interesting figures in American numismatic history.

Greg Bennick
Greg Bennick (www.gregbennick.com) is a keynote speaker and long time coin collector with a focus on major mint error coins and US counterstamps. He is on the board of both CONECA and TAMS and enjoys having in-depth conversations with prominent numismatists from all areas of the hobby. Have ideas for other interviewees? Contact him anytime on the web or via instagram @minterrors.

John Nebel
Numismatist, photographer, and ANS Board member and Fellow John Nebel of Boulder, CO helped the ANA and other clubs like NBS get online in the early days of the internet, hosting websites gratis through his Computer Systems Design Co. To this day he hosts some 50 ANA member club sites along with our coinbooks.org site, making the club and our E-Sylum archive available to collectors and researchers worldwide.

Bruce Perdue
Encased coinage collector (encasedcoins.info) Bruce Perdue of Aurora, Illinois has been the volunteer NBS webmaster from its early days and works each week to add the latest E-Sylum issue to our archive and send out the email announcement.