ABOUT THIS ISSUE: FEBRUARY 8, 2026

I had another Monday off work this week, thanks to the government shutdown. A nice little taste of retirement, I guess. It gave me a chance to get another head start on the week's issue.

It was a beautiful sunny day with the temperature rising to just above freezing for the first time in over a week. I enjoyed a nice lunch at an Indian restaurant, then ran my salt-covered car through a car wash. In the afternoon I took a long walk outside for the first time since the storm. The walkway along the main road (right) had been cleared, but there was one problem (below). The path is actually paved in asphalt, but the snow crew missed and plowed the grass instead.

Things weren't as dire as they look in that photo, but I had to walk like a penguin across the foot-thick ice to get back to the street.

Thankfully, a couple days later they plowed thru that barrier to open up the path again. Saturday afternoon I took another walk, but cut it short because it was only 20 degrees with a wind chill of 5. The wind got even worse on Saturday, when the rug on our front stoop got blown all the way over in front of our neighbor's house.

After dinner tonight I watched Joe Montana toss the Libertas Americana replica to kick off the Super Bowl. It was nicely featured and presented, although I cringed when the players started walking around before the ref had a chance to pick it off the turf. Hopefully it made it back to its box safe and sound. I'll have to ask to see it the next time I visit the National Numismatic Collection.

Here are some interesting non-numismatic articles I came across this week. Anyone else old enough to remember Mercurochrome? Bless her soul, as a kid, it was my Mom's go-to remedy for my skinned knees. They still glow in the dark.

How Did a Groundhog Become Pennsylvania's Favorite Weatherman? (https://www.pittsburghmagazine.com/how-did-a-groundhog-become-pennsylvanias-favorite-weatherman/)

What Did People Keep in Their Medicine Cabinets in the 1950s? (https://historyfacts.com/us-history/article/medicine-cabinets-in-the-1950s/)

Tangible media: A historical collection of information storage technology (https://tangiblemediacollection.com/)

Spotlighting The World Factbook as We Bid a Fond Farewell (https://www.cia.gov/stories/story/spotlighting-the-world-factbook-as-we-bid-a-fond-farewell/)

Time Travel for Web (https://chromewebstore.google.com/detail/time-travel-for-web/ogckpcboinbcohhilmofkalobpkolkib)

-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.