ABOUT THIS ISSUE: JUNE 21, 2026

This week's Diary article covers my numismatic adventures for this week. Today was hectic in a good way. An old work friend from my first job out of college stopped by unexpectedly and we had a great time catching up, touring the neighborhood, having lunch and a couple beers. When he left my wife and kids were ready to take me out for a Father's Day dinner. We ended up at Cheesecake Factory for dinner and dessert in time for our daughter to report for her overnight nursing shift. This evening I put in a couple late-arriving ads and a couple more articles before wrapping up the issue. Many thanks to my assistant Garrett who picked up a good number of articles this week.

DAD JOKE: How do churches make Holy Water? They boil the hell out of it.

Here are some interesting non-numismatic articles I came across this week, and the first one is now my favorite outlandish clickbait email headline, edging out the classic "Headless Body Found in Topless Bar."

What Romans used for toilet paper would horrify you (https://historyfacts.com/world-history/article/ancient-romans-toilet-paper/)

https://interestingfacts.com/why-barns-are-red/ (https://interestingfacts.com/why-barns-are-red/)

Strangest Words for Things You See Every Day (https://wordsmarts.com/weird-everyday-words/)

Gerald Shreiber, Who Turned the Soft Pretzel Into a Ubiquitous Stadium Snack, Dies at 84 (https://www.wsj.com/business/gerald-shreiber-who-turned-the-soft-pretzel-into-a-ubiquitous-stadium-snack-dies-at-84-4b0639d0)

James Burrows, Master of the TV Sitcom, Dies at 85 (https://www.nytimes.com/2026/06/19/arts/television/james-burrows-dead.html)

What is this rock? (https://aeon.co/essays/the-strange-rocks-that-wouldnt-exist-without-us)

-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.