ABOUT THIS ISSUE: JUNE 7, 2026

This week I began spending and giving out some of the dimes I got from the Mint's vending machine at last week's PAN show. People were happy to see them, but the novelty factor means few will be respent. One cashier I regularly deal with giddily put it in her purse, destined for a coin jar at home.

While having lunch Saturday I got a nice call from fellow bibliophile and former NBS officer Dave Hirt. He told me about a book purchased on a trip he and his wife took to Budapest, and let me know he'll be attending the Pittsburgh ANA in August to pick up his 50-year membership pin. Wow! We made plans to sit together at the awards luncheon.

Seen on the interwebs: "No difference. Potato-tomato."

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

Reinventing the Wheel: The Ferris Wheel as Symbol of Urban Prosperity (https://themetropole.blog/2026/05/12/reinventing-the-wheel-the-ferris-wheel-as-symbol-of-urban-prosperity/)

How Ernest Hemingway's Love of Boxing Changed the Salad Dressing Industry Forever (https://www.saturdayeveningpost.com/2026/05/how-ernest-hemingways-love-of-boxing-changed-the-salad-dressing-industry-forever/)

Handy Mnemonics The Five-Fingered Memory Machine (https://publicdomainreview.org/essay/handy-mnemonics/)

How Google Maps actually works (https://3quarksdaily.com/3quarksdaily/2026/06/how-google-maps-actually-works.html)

Trump says his uncle was a ‘super genius.' D-Day proves his point. (https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2026/06/04/john-trump-mit-engineer-who-altered-history-d-day/)

Do these words make you sound smarter? The bias is spreading. (https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2026/06/02/what-ai-chatbots-bias-romance-languages-tell-us-about-humanity/)

Thanks largely to robots, Ukraine is now talking about winning, not just surviving (https://www.defenseone.com/technology/2026/06/ukraine-robots-winning/413902/)

Russia Wants Back In Before It Answers (https://professorbonk.substack.com/p/russia-wants-back-in-before-it-answers)

Neighbors Hope a New Park in Dallas Can Heal an Old Divide (https://www.nytimes.com/2026/06/06/us/dallas-halperin-park-oak-cliff-interstate-35e.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 via instagram @minterrors. He can also be reached by email at minterrors@gmail.com.

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.