WAYNE'S NUMISMATIC DIARY: OCTOBER 26, 2025

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V28 2025 INDEX E-SYLUM ARCHIVE

The E-Sylum: Volume 28, Number 43, 2025, Article 21

Tuesday, October 21, 2025 brought the monthly gathering of my Northern Virginia numismatic social group Nummis Nova. Daryl Haynor was our host, at Kob Kun Fine Thai Cuisine in Oakton, VA. I walked in thinking I was early but I found Daryl, Jon Radel, Eric Schena and Dave Schenkman already there. Before long we were joined by Mike Packard, Steven Bishop, Robert Hoppensteadt, John Kraljevich, Julian Leidman and my guest Greg Bennick. Our server kindly took this group photo.

Shortly after sitting down across from me, John's phone rang. It was Jimmy Hayes. He handed the phone to Julian who made Jimmy guess who was actually on the other end. He was a good sport.

Wayne's Numismatic Literature
I missed the September dinner for a family event, and had two months of new acquisitions to bring. I needed a travel bag to hold the overflow. First up is my most recent acquisition, Mike Packard's wonderful new book on Massachusetts Cents and Half Cents. It was a chaotic evening and I decided to hold off on asking him to sign it for me. For more on many of these books, see the links to earlier E-Sylum articles below.

Those were the new books, although Fred Holabird's Coins of the Comstock is only new to me - I'd discovered and ordered it online. He published it in 2009. Great little book!

Here are a couple rare and unique items. I explained to everyone how I'd been looking for the first one for decades. Every time I bid on the Bathe book on Jacob Perkins I lost out. And every time one came up for sale again I raised my bid, only to lose out yet again. Only 200 copies were made. A few weeks back I managed to obtain copy #198 from a rare book seller. The photo is of another copy sold by Kolbe & Fanning.

The next item is the 1909 notebook compiled by San Francisco Mint Melter & Refiner Edwin R. Leach on a trip to the east coast visiting a number of smelting facilities.

Here are some new acquisitions for my ephemera collection. First is a set of about 25 glossy photo prints from the Elizabeth Morton colonial currency collection sold by Pine Tree Auction Company in 1975. They're accompanied by a cover letter from Herb Melnick to dealer Abe Kosoff. There's a similar letter to Eric Newman on the Newman Numismatic Portal, but the photos could not be found. I'll deliver these to Len Augsburger for digitization on NNP. They'll do a far better job than my scanner did - there are no black blobs on the originals, they're great photos.

Next is a nice souvenir from researcher Chester Sullivan, given out to those who assisted with his census of Castorland Jetons.

Jones and Sawyer 25c scrip
Lastly, here's an impulse purchase from the PAN show - a 25 cent Civil War scrip note from Jones and Sawyer in Alton, NH. John Kraljevich enjoyed seeing this, having worked for Dave Bowers in Wolfeboro, NH, which is a town so small they have no McDonald's - the nearest one was over in Alton.

This isn't a rare note, but I've always enjoyed the variety of Civil War scrip. What drew me to this piece was the signature and postmark on the back, which allows us to track it to a particular day in history. I don't know what was going on in Alton that day, but elsewhere there was the Union victory at the Battle of Old Fort Wayne in what is now Oklahoma, and the Confederate victory at the Second Battle of Pocotaligo in South Carolina.

FUN FACT: I was very low on cash that day at the PAN show and bummed twenty bucks from Greg Bennick so I could buy this piece. I paid him first thing when he arrived at the dinner and sat down next to me. Thanks, Greg!

I asked Google's AI for more information on the note's issuers. The links returned with its response pointed to various online offerings of other notes from this business, but none of them mentioned the full names Jeremiah Jones and Alonzo H. Sawyer, so I wasn't sure where it got those from. But another link further down in the results list took me to a dealer offering of an 1864 note that says "Alonzo H. Sawyer and Jeremiah Jones are both listed as "Traders" in the 1860 Federal Census for Alton, NH." I didn't have time to confirm that in the census, but it sounds like a reasonable attribution. Here's the full AI response, which I thought was very good, although I haven't confirmed the other facts mentioned. What I like was that it did give me specific facts that could be looked up and confirmed elsewhere.

"Jones and Sawyer" in Alton refers to a 19th-century dry goods business in Alton, New Hampshire, that was formed by the partnership of Jeremiah Jones and Alonzo H. Sawyer in 1858. The business was a major success, and its history is well-preserved through its surviving merchant scrip notes, which were issued around the Civil War era.

Formation: The business was formed in February 1858 when Jeremiah Jones, who had taken over his father's store, merged his business with Alonzo H. Sawyer's local store.
Location: The combined business remained at the original Jones' store location in Monument Square on Main Street in Alton.
Success: The partnership was successful due to the men's combined business skills.
Later years: After Sawyer retired in 1883, Jeremiah Jones partnered with his son, Herbert Jones, and renamed the business "J. Jones & Son".
Merchant Scrip: The company issued its own merchant scrip notes during the Civil War era, which were highly regarded for their reliability. Many of these notes have been found and are now collected by history enthusiasts

Dave's Mining Notes
Dave Schenkman passed around three mining notes at the dinner.

When Coal Mine Company Obsolete Notes and Scrip was published two years ago I listed two denominations of Coaling Supply Company (Coaling, Alabama) notes, but I didn't know about this one until it was listed in a recent Heritage sale.

The Chariton Coal Company was also unlisted in the book. I listed a different denomination on the basis of a partial description in a book published many years ago, but I had never seen an actual note from the company. Only a few Iowa coal companies are known to have issued notes.

The Pinetucky Gold Mines note is also another recent Heritage purchase. Only five or six mining companies in the South are known to have issued scrip, and only two of them are Civil War. This was part of the John Ford collection, which was sold in 2005.

Scovill Malleable Nickel
Dave also brought along this great proof token from the Scovill company.

Apollonoshieron Bronze
Robert Hoppensteadt bought this large bronze from Apollonoshieron.

LYDIA. Apollonoshieron. Caracalla (198-217). Flavius Aurelius Eilus, archon.
28.17 gr, 39 mm, 0 h, VF
Obv: AV K M AVP ANTON?INOC.
Laureate and cuirassed bust right.
Rev: ??I F? AV?H ?I?OY N? AP? A / A?O??ONOI???ITON.
Hexastyle temple, containing Apollo standing facing, head left, resting hand upon lyre to right. RPC V.2 81842

Steve's Beauties
Steve Bishop often brings along some really nice U.S. coins, often "toners." Here are five toned Morgan dollars he brought this month - they were especially nice viewed in person.

Jon's Medals and Such
Jon Radel brought a couple of interesting medals and a book that answers an earlier question.

"I brought a couple of items. The first was the answer to an off-hand question Wayne asked several issues of the E-Sylum back: How does one tell the difference between K. Goetz's original Lusitania medals and the many restrikes, propaganda "copies," etc.? I brought along my copy of Greg Burns' Commemoration of Death: The medals of the Lusitania Murders from 2012. There is, now that I look, an E-Sylum article at https://www.coinbooks.org/esylum_v15n36a02.html from when the book was published.

I also, having a reputation to uphold, brought some solid hunks of bronze from Finland with me. The first was the 1984 (when bronze was much cheaper) Raimo Heino, Raimo Heino, a rather self-indulgent medal the artist issued for his birthday. The obverse legend is "RAIMO HEINO SCULPTOR SUMMÆ GLORIÆ SUÆ IPSE FECIT." Google Translate renders that as "He himself made it to his highest glory." Of course, he's not too serious, that sure looks more like a croquet mallet than a polo mallet he's waving around on the back of a horse. 1582g, 135mm."

The Guild of Medallic Art in Finland runs an annual competition for a medal they sell to the membership. In 2023 Petri Neuvonen won with his "The Medal in Progress." 480g, 105mm. As purchasers learned:

The artist himself says that the basic idea of the works was to create a medal that would not refer to anything outside of itself. "Often the medal is perceived only as a domain for some outer content, theme or image. Now I wanted to make a medal that doesn't rely on external meanings but would sufficient in itself."

Take that those who don't think it's a medal unless it's commemorating something.

I remarked that I wouldn't be surprised to find a lump of metal that looked like this in the ruins of a house fire, but that to create something like this on purpose was quite the accomplishment. I'm not dissing the medal - I think it's a fine, thought-provoking work.

"In keeping with my tendency to bring Mid-Atlantic material, I brought a couple of recent Virginia bank note acquisitions that I like to categorize under the heading of "ratty but rare." In addition to a pair of extremely rare obsoletes from the Merchants Bank of Virginia from Lynchburg, I also passed around an earlier Farmers Bank of Virginia $10 from Richmond, and most importantly for me, a very rare early contemporary counterfeit $10 from the Winchester branch of the Farmers Bank of Virginia from 1819. The only other one I have run across is a cut central vignette from a genuine note that was given to me as a gift maybe 20 years ago that came from the 1983 Affleck sale.

"In addition, I also brought a quite nice French colonial 1743-C sou marque (Vlack 60) in a PCGS AU-50 holder that came from a local auction, which is far from the norm of what I usually see around my area. I recently joined the local French and Indian War society and even helped with an archaeological excavation on the site of Fort Loudoun, so the earlier French colonial material holds an interest for me."

JK, Julian and I were the last to leave the restaurant. It was another great night of numismatic fellowship. I had a great time, despite breaking my back bringing so many books along. Yeah, I know I sold my main numismatic library last year. But once a numismatic bibliophile, always a numismatic bibliophile. I just can't help myself - when I see a rare or interesting book I haven't owned before, I'm happy to acquire it.