ABOUT THIS ISSUE: MAY 24, 2026

See my diary article elsewhere in this issue for my numismatic highlights this week. After my Nummis Nova dinner I located an Asylum article Chris Neuzil asked about: Thomas Wyatt and the Birth of Numismatic Fraud in the United States by David Fanning in the Winter 2016 issue.

Found on the Interwebs:

"I'm not gonna lie…. it's pretty weird being the same age as old people."
"I don't drink anything worse than Pop. Mind you, Pop could really drink."

Finally, here are some interesting non-numismatic articles I came across this week. Keep you head to the grindstone with the first article on malaphors.

What Is a Malaphor? (https://wordsmarts.com/malaphors/)

Ancient Roman Technique Discovered 8,000 Years Earlier, Study Says (https://www.sciencealert.com/ancient-roman-technique-discovered-8000-years-earlier-study-says)

Inside the Enhanced Games, Where Athletes Compete on Steroids. And Growth Hormones. And Adderall. (https://www.vanityfair.com/news/story/inside-the-enhanced-games)

How Did a Genius' Name Become an Insult? (https://wordsmarts.com/dunce-cap-origin/)

Frampton Comes Alive! at Fifty: The improbable story of rock's greatest live album. (https://quillette.com/2026/05/14/frampton-comes-alive-at-fifty-steve-marriott-humble-pie/)

5 Bizarre Medieval Battle Tactics (https://historyfacts.com/world-history/article/bizarre-medieval-battle-tactics/)

Florida's Osborne Reef: 2 Million Tires Dumped in the Ocean to Build a ‘Revolutionary' Reef… and It Wrecked the Marine Ecosystem (https://ecency.com/@davideownzall/floridas-osborne-reef-2-million-tires-dumped-in-the-ocean-to-build-a-revolutionary-reef-and-it-wrecked-the-marine-ecosyst)

‘Corpse Point' In the Arctic Is Melting, Disturbing Centuries-Old Bodies (https://www.404media.co/corpse-point-in-the-arctic-is-melting-disturbing-centuries-old-bodies/)

Mathematics is out there (https://aeon.co/essays/for-sergiu-klainerman-maths-is-a-fact-to-be-divined)

Cognition founder and nerd emperor Scott Wu (https://colossus.com/article/scott-wu-tapes-cognition/)

AI's New Acceleration Phase (https://aidailybrief.beehiiv.com/p/ai-s-new-acceleration-phase)

Dumbo Could Already Fly: 100% pure human copium about OpenAI solving Erdos problems (https://www.theintrinsicperspective.com/p/dumbo-could-already-fly)

The New A.I. Money Should Be Spent on Beauty (https://www.nytimes.com/2026/05/23/opinion/artificial-intelligence-philanthropy-beauty.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.