We made it through the snowstorm last weekend. Nearly 10 inches fell in our area. Our boys (strapping young men now) did a lot of shoveling on Sunday, and a neighbor did yeoman duty with his snowblower around the neighborhood. I had a snow day off work Monday and my wife and I spent hours doing more shoveling. She told me to clean out a spot for my car in front of our house. At my age that's like the Gestapo telling prisoners to dig their own graves. Come to think of it, she's been acting funny since she became the beneficiary on my new life insurance policy. Anyway, I chopped enough blocks of 3- and 4-inch thick ice to make igloos for all our neighbors. I made it out of our street long enough to pick up lunches at Subway, but the Panera and Chic-Fil-A were closed because not enough workers could get there. Some people were stuck in the snow pulling in or out of the shopping plaza. Luckily I didn't get stuck, too. We were also lucky that the sun was out all day and helping to dry the pavement we cleared. But with low temperatures expected to continue, it'll be a while before all of this melts.

We were lucky to not have our power go out. But just in case, I was working through the weekend on last Sunday's issue, saving my work and sending copies over to Garrett. In the end, I was able to finish and send the completed issue to Bruce Perdue a little early early for publishing. But while hunkering down Saturday I missed an appointment - I forgot to stop by the Stock and Bond Show in nearby Herndon, VA. I didn't think about it until after the show was over. I apologized to organizer Scott Winslow who said a number of people didn't come because of the weather situation, but it was still a good show.

On Monday a reader alerted us that a domain listed in one of the new NNP books on encased coins had been hijacked. I confirm that and deleted  www.encasedcollectorsinternational.org from the seed list for NNP's Archive-It feature.  No need to archive a sex doll site on the Internet Archive's Wayback machine, at least not in a numismatic collection.  But if sex doll ads start appearing in my browser I've got an alibi.... Just sayin'

This is an unusual E-Sylum issue because we have no auction offerings to discuss. January's big sales are behind us, and the auction houses haven't published new previews yet. But it's a big week for press releases. We don't always publish these, but we're happy to when time and space allow, particularly when we can help promote numismatic writing, publish numismatic biographies, or document some hobby history. Garrett prepared several of these this week.

Also, a reader kindly provided over 100 email addresses of prospective subscribers. Over 40 were already subscribers, only proving that his friends' interests largely overlap our own. Welcome to all of our newest readers!

Finally, here are some interesting non-numismatic articles I came across this week.

There are no pure cultures (https://aeon.co/essays/there-are-no-pure-cultures-we-have-always-been-global)

Where The Prairie Still Remains (https://www.noemamag.com/where-the-prairie-still-remains/)

America's oldest warship, sunk in 1776, is getting a 250th-birthday makeover (https://www.washingtonpost.com/history/2026/01/27/revolutionary-war-sunk-1776-philadelphia-smithsonian-250-oldest/)

The Rebirth of Pennsylvania's Infamous Burning Town (https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/centralia-pennsylvania-rebirth)

American Hindenburg (https://magazine.atavist.com/2025/american-hindenberg-zeppelin-disaster)

Introducing Helix 02: Full-Body Autonomy (https://www.figure.ai/news/helix-02)

The Adolescence of Technology (https://www.darioamodei.com/essay/the-adolescence-of-technology)

-Editor