ABOUT THIS ISSUE: NOVEMBER 30, 2025

Well, I didn't run a Turkey Trot this week, but I did do a post-Thanksgiving dinner neighborhood waddle down to and around a nearby lake. We didn't go anywhere for the holiday, so it was a relaxing time at home with family and neighbors, who came over to share pies Thursday evening.

I'm thankful for all of the above, as well as our readers and advertisers for making The E-Sylum possible. I got a nice note from our friend Bob Evans, who published a new installment of his series on his adventures as Chief Scientist, Historian and Curator for the fabulous gold treasure from the wreck of the S.S. Central America.

Bob recently pointed someone who inquired about his work to the article he submitted last September: REVIEW: CURSED GOLD: A SHIPWRECK SCANDAL . I'm always glad to hear how The E-Sylum archive is of use to people. We're also seeing that The E-Sylum and the Newman Numismatic Portal are starting to drive some AI summaries by Google's Gemini and other tools.

In a follow-on from last week's Stack's Bowers announcement of their upcoming sale of 232 sets of the last "Omega" Lincoln Cents, I added an excerpt of the last lot description, which includes the cancelled dies used to strike them. I also went down a rabbit hole following the story of an artist piggybacking on the coin's massive media coverage to promote himself. It worked. Interesting story and his "thnickels" are clever satire. Plus, it gave me a chance for our first "Florida Man" headline ala The Onion.

And here are some interesting non-numismatic articles I came across this week.
His car broke down on Thanksgiving 1980 and he entered an empty house. Then the occupants came home (https://www.cnn.com/travel/car-broke-down-strangers-friendship-farmhouse-chance-encounters)
Car towed twice in 15 days before anyone noticed a dead body in the back seat (https://www.kgw.com/article/news/nation-world/car-towed-twice-in-15-days-before-anyone-noticed-a-dead-body-in-the-back-seat/507-7c4fb4aa-303b-4775-9686-e80392da3e20)
Harbinger's rolling electric chassiss (https://www.axios.com/newsletters/axios-future-of-mobility-ad6ce340-ca0f-11f0-a360-4d9ed528c623.html)
One Year Later: A Dam Removal and a River's Rebirth (https://reasonstobecheerful.world/kwoneesum-dam-removal-river-rebirth/)
Cryptographers Held an Election. They Can't Decrypt the Results (https://www.nytimes.com/2025/11/21/world/cryptography-group-lost-election-results.html)

-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.