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LOOSE CHANGE: JANUARY 25, 2026Here are some additional items in the media this week that may be of interest. -Editor CoinWeek assembled a handy guide to the 2026 semiquincentennial circulating coins. -Editor 
In 2026, the United States marks a defining milestone: 250 years since the Declaration of Independence. To commemorate that anniversary, the United States Mint has undertaken the most ambitious and philosophically unified redesign of circulating U.S. coinage since the Bicentennial of 1976. For one year only, America's everyday coins tell a deliberate story. Each denomination contributes a chapter. Each design communicates a specific idea. Taken together, they form a coherent narrative about how liberty begins, how it survives, and how it must be sustained. This article presents CoinWeek's fully expanded guide to the 2026 Semiquincentennial circulating coins. It integrates all known U.S. Mint background information, expands on the historical and symbolic meaning of every design, documents what comes next in the broader numismatic program, and concludes with CoinWeek's editorial perspective. I'll look forward to seeing these in commerce. With fewer and fewer people using actual cash, this could be a changeover that goes under the radar for a lot of people. I'd like to see all of the new coins, even the designs I was skeptical of. It's always different seeing the actual coins in hand. Maybe some will surprise me. Who will be the first E-Sylum reader to report a sighting? -Editor
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A couple weeks ago Aaron Oppenheim passed along this article about new banknotes in Syria. Sorry for the delay. The image is of a 1,000 pound Syrian banknote, but I'm not sure if that's an old or new one. -Editor 
Syria's central bank plans to begin swapping in a newly issued national currency on January 1, 2026, describing the step as a key move to stabilize the battered economy and rebuild public confidence in the Syrian pound. Announcing the change on Thursday, Governor of the Central Bank of Syria Abdulkader Husrieh presented the new notes as a marker of financial sovereignty and the beginning of a new economic phase after years of conflict, sanctions, and political transition. The move comes after more than a decade of war and sanctions that have slashed Syria's output and driven many citizens into poverty, while the pound has collapsed from pre-war stability to levels that force people to carry thick bundles of cash for everyday transactions. The government portrayed the new currency as part of a broader reconstruction push amid hopes that improved monetary management will help attract investment.
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Howard Berlin passed along this article about Bulgaria adopting the Euro. Thanks. -Editor 
Bulgaria is set to adopt the euro on January 1, 2026, making it the 21st member state of the eurozone. Joining the currency club marks a major milestone for the Eastern European country, which entered the European Union in 2007. Bulgaria's accession leaves only six of the 27 EU nations outside the currency union: Sweden, Poland, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Romania and Denmark.
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For bibliophiles, here's a story of a long-overdue library book that found its way home after traveling the world. -Editor Dimitris Economou was visiting his parents in Greece and looking for a book to read to his 7-year-old son when he found a copy of the children's book "Harry the Dirty Dog" on his dad's bookshelf. He remembered the story from his own childhood. "As we finished, I got to the back where I saw the library card," Economou said of his visit last summer. He realized two things — that this was a library book from the Fairfax County Public Library and that it was very overdue. It was due on Nov. 6, 1989. After the family's time in Virginia, they moved back to Greece, and his father went on to live in Syria, Japan and the Netherlands, the library book relocating with him without anyone realizing it. 
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Wayne Homren, Editor The Numismatic Bibliomania Society is a non-profit organization promoting numismatic literature. See our web site at coinbooks.org. To submit items for publication in The E-Sylum, write to the Editor at this address: whomren@gmail.com To subscribe go to: Subscribe All Rights Reserved. NBS Home Page Contact the NBS webmaster 
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