The E-Sylum v5#39, September 29, 2002
whomren at coinlibrary.com
whomren at coinlibrary.com
Sun Sep 29 19:46:46 PDT 2002
[This is a duplicate copy of The E-Sylum sent via the experimental
email server. The provider hasn't been responding to our
questions this week. I'm sold on the idea of using such a server,
but if we don't hear soon, we may need to look for another
provider. Except for this note, your email message should look
the same. It was mailed AFTER the regular issue, but I suspect
some of you will recieve this FIRST. Please hit REPLY (not
FORWARD) to send me a copy of this message.
Thanks. -Wayne.]
Sender: esylum-owner at binhost.com
Precedence: bulk
Welcome to The E-Sylum: Volume 5, Number 39, September 29, 2002:
an electronic publication of the Numismatic Bibliomania Society.
Copyright (c) 2002, The Numismatic Bibliomania Society.
SUBSCRIBER UPDATE
This week's new subscribers are Robert Christie, Joe Wolfe,
John Shagren Jr., Marco Fiumani of Italy, courtesy of Jose
Luis Rubio, and Gawain O'Connor, courtesy of Martin Purdy
Welcome aboard! This brings our subscriber count to 491.
PLAIN BROWN WRAPPERS
In response to Richard Crosby's note entitled "Plain Brown
Wrappers," Greg Heim writes: "I could not agree more.
When I moved last year, I was talking to one of the postal
employees when she started asking me questions about
those "neat" coin magazines I was getting.
I got the same response from Coin World as you did, and
I could not agree with them less. Just because you have a
P.O. box does not mean that other people can't see you
with the magazine in the vestibule. I would gladly play an
extra $10.00 a year for the security. BTW, I believe that
Numismatic News ships in a plain brown wrapper for their
first class mail option.
COIN WORLD GOES NON-POSTAL
William T. Gibbs, News Editor of Coin World writes:
"Regarding the note from Mr. Richard Crosby published
last week: It is true that Amos Hobby Publishing, publishers
of "Coin World," "Linn's Stamp News" and other hobby
publications, lacks the necessary equipment to place their
publications into a "plain brown wrapper" of the sort used
by the publishers of the other magazines mentioned.
Because we lack the necessary equipment, our circulation
department cannot provide that service to our subscribers.
Up to now, the best they could do is suggest subscribers
have their issues sent to a post office box. Placing the
issues in an unprinted wrap of the kind sold several times a
year by the advertising department would require additional
postal and paper costs, which would be passed on to
advertisers and subscribers. However, an alternative will
be available soon, when "Coin World" follows in the
electronic footsteps of "Linn's" and begins offering the
complete weekly issue in print and online versions (same
publication, one print and one electronic). Linn's recently
began offering each complete weekly issue online (all
contents, editorial and advertising) as a subscription-based
publication in addition to the standard print edition. We'll
announce details about the online issue of "Coin World"
as they become available, both at our main Web site and
in the print edition of "Coin World."
The subscribers to this e-mail publication generally love
traditional literature in all of its printed glory even as they
embrace the immediacy of "The E-Sylum." My own
bookshelves at home (not to mention boxes upon boxes)
are filled with books on many topics. Electronic publishing,
however, is a wave of the future, and "Coin World" is
poised to take its next step into that future.
The online edition will offer several advantages: It will get to
subscribers' homes faster than the USPS can get the print
edition to them (moving at the speed of light vs. snail mail).
Subscribers who chose the online-only option will have no
worries about security. Most interesting, I think, to the
subscribers of this journal, we'll gradually build an online,
searchable archive of every article and every advertisement
we publish each week."
[A searchable online archive would be nirvana for researchers.
Bring it on! -Editor]
ADAMS LIBRARY SALEROOM MEMORIES SOUGHT
Robert Christie writes: "In The Money Tree's 23rd sale of
numismatic literature on June 24th, 1995 I won Del Bland's
auction room copy of George Kolbe's sale of Selections
From The John W. Adams library held in June, 1990. Inside
the front cover is a list of all the bidders and their bidder
numbers. Alongside each lot in the public part of the auction
is the number of the bidder who won the lot and what they paid.
Del Bland was bidding on lots for Dennis Mendelson. I have
both of their invoices. I could give Del a hug for keeping such
meticulous records of a great auction. The following people
attended this auction with their bid numbers following.
R.E. Naftzger Jr. bidding for ANS 15
Dan Hamelberg 1
Del Bland 14
Dennis Mendelson 16
Alan Meghrig 17
John Bergman 4
Armand Champa 7
Jess Patrick 6
Dick Punchard 342
Dr. Phillip W. Ralls 12
Tom Reynolds 3
Dan Demeo 19
Jan Valentine 11
Chris Victor-McCauley 25
Ray Bisordi 5
Jeff Rock 50
Stuart Levine 23
Denis W. Loring 281
I know that several of the above people are no longer with
us, but I would very much like to hear from the rest and have
them share their memories of that auction with me. Del Bland
made me feel as though I was there. Maybe George Kolbe
has some memories of that auction to share. My address is
Robert Christie, 233 Fair Street, Carmel, N.Y. 10512
I look forward to hearing from you."
ITALIAN TELEPHONE TOKEN NOTES
Christopher Rivituso's note about phone box tokens in Italy
elicited a number of new responses:
Neil Shafer writes: "With reference to Italian telephone
tokens in circulation, I believe the years they were thus
used were 1975-78 for sure, possibly also earlier and
later. Those were the years of the severe coin shortage
in Italy that spawned the issuance of a large variety of
Mini-assegni, small checks from a number of banks that
circulated in place of the vanished coinage. Along with
those mini-checks were some private tokens and these
telephone tokens. As I recall, their value was pegged at
50 lire. Does anyone have more definitive information on
this? My interest was mainly the mini-assegni but I did
get several examples of the hard money as well."
Ted Buttrey writes: "I go back and forth to Italy, and my
aging brain will not now allow me to give exact dates; but
you might know of a period some years ago when
small-change coins of all values were simply unobtainable
in Italy. Telephone tokens were at least monetiform, and
had the fixed value of 200 lire. Otherwise people were
using the smallest wrapped piece of candy, at 10 lire --
I used them at toll stations on the highway -- and many
banks issued small denomination paper. When some of
them got in trouble for printing notelets of 100, 500 or
1000 lire they retaliated by issuing them in odd
denominations like 150 lire.
I can remember being in a shop in Sicily where the customer
proffered such a small note, and it was refused -- not
because it was paper, because that stuff circulated
everywhere, but because the shopkeeper read it first, found
that it came from a bank in northern Italy, and didn't know
if he could get rid of it. None of this stuff was legal tender,
of course, but without it small transactions would have been
impossible. I seem to recall that this situation lasted well
over a year. The banks must have made a nice profit from
the notes that were never redeemed. Come to think of it, I
wonder -- though I have no idea -- whether any of the notelets
were produced purely to profit from collectors, who wouldn't
ever redeem them, like much of the German Notgeld of the
1920's."
[Interesting experience. You know, E-Sylum readers have
great vocabularies. Your editor hasn't seen the word
"monetiform" before - can someone provide a definition?]
Bruce Purdue adds: "In 1973 I was stationed in Istanbul,
Turkey with the U.S. Air Force and "getton" or "gettone" was
the word used in Turkey for the phone tokens... perhaps this
is a European term. After some thought I realized that in
Turkey it was a "Jeton", which is the french word for token ...
older version was "jetton".
I found the following information using "Google". This is from
http://www.takeourword.com/Issue032.html:
"Our town recently started a jitney. My friends and I could
not come to an agreement on the origin of the word. Is it a
word for a nickel or some pacific slang for an American jeep?
Funnily enough, both guesses have an element of truth. Such
a vehicle was originally called a jitney bus because when it
was introduced (around 1900) the standard fare was one
nickel and the then current slang for a nickel was a jitney.
But why was a nickel called a jitney? One theory is that it
comes from jetton (from the French jeton), "a gambling token",
but this is not widely accepted.
The Philippines has a kind of bus called a jeepney. This is a
portmanteau word formed from jeep + jitney."
Kavan Ratnatunga adds that Ceylon has a telephone token
from WWII. "It's associated with a change in the 10-cent
coin from Silver to copper. It was need to let the phone
booths to continue to operate."
For more information, see his web page:
http://lakdiva.net/coins/token/gpo_token.html
CITY DIRECTORIES IN FORT WAYNE, INDIANA
In response to the discussion about numismatic research
in old city directories, George Fitzgerald writes: "I am a
volunteer at the Allen County Public library in Fort Wayne,
IN. I work in the Genealogy section which has most of
the City Directories in both books and microfilm. This
library is in downtown Fort Wayne, it is the second largest
Genealogy library in the country. It is open 7 days a week
from Labor Day to Memorial Day. It will be closed in Jan
2003 because it is moving to temporary quarters for 2 years.
The present library will be doubled in space. We also have
all of the U.S. census on microfilm."
CITY DIRECTORIES: THE NEXT STEP.
Dick Johnson writes: "For three weeks I have been writing
about how numismatists can use City Directories in their
numismatic research. I received an email from Dave Bowers
this week that reveals his use of these research tools. Here is
what he said:
"About 25 years or so ago a full set of all of the microfiche
catalogues (directories to 1861) was available, and I bought
[the set] for $5,000. This was done, if I recall, by John J.
Ford, Jr. He called a number of interested people and
rounded up five (I think) subscribers -- then simply made a
deal with the compiler of the microfiches."
Wow! What a fortunate purchase. If you recall last week
I mentioned the current cost of that set of microfiches was
over $26,000. Five times what Dave and a handful of other
farsighted researchers paid. Name a coin that has increased
five times since 1977!
Dave went on to suggest a consortium of researchers might
do the same today. Frankly, I would rather put that kind of
money in numismatic book purchases. The reason?: the ease
of obtaining these microfiches -- and Dave mentioned this --
on Inter-Library Loan.
"One thing," he wrote, "that is essential to anyone is this:
Nearly all microfilms can be obtained by inter-library loan,
obviating the necessity to buy them. All you have to do is
establish a rapport with a friendly local public or university
library and have them order the microfilms on loan. I have
done this for many years with hundreds of microfilms, and
the system is efficient and superb!"
I would like to add another tip here if you are researching
people. City Directory microfilms (and a vast library of
information) can also be obtained at your local Mormon
Church. I like researching at these just as much as the
university libraries Dave mentioned.
Call your local Mormon Church (Church of Later Day Saints).
Ask if they have a Family History Center, and learn of the
hours they are open. Often these include an evening or two
and a full day session, sometimes on Saturday. They welcome
people of all faiths to search people of the past. They can
borrow microfilm from Salt Lake City and you can use it in
this Church Center. Sometimes it is crowded, but the staff can
often answer questions that would stump public or university
librarians.
Dave's additional comments are pertinent: "Concerning
available microfilms of later directories, these have been
compiled on a catch as catch can basis, and for a given city,
say Cincinnati, it is difficult to get a FULL set of anything.
Newspapers are even worse, as often a particular "popular"
newspaper (such as, for San Francisco, the Alta California)
has been chosen for microfilming, and a dozen or more other
newspapers have never been filmed (in the meantime, as with
SF newspapers, existing archives of originals continue to be
scattered)."
After you have exhausted your City Directory search, then
what? The next step is Census Records, or as Dave suggests,
newspapers. Next week I'll discuss researching in these
historical newspapers. Doesn't all this research talk make you
want to start digging about some numismatic item of interest
to you?"
EUROPEAN COIN SCRAP PILE
In with the new, out with the old. It's a common situation
when a new coinage system is put into place. It's happening
again with the introduction of the Euro. Kavan Ratnatunga
sends this link to an article from BILBAO, Madrid, Spain:
http://www.theage.com.au/breaking/2002/03/09/FFXYURLAKYC.html
"A little bit of Europe's history is disappearing into the
melting pots of a small firm in the Basque country of
northern Spain. The firm, Elmet, in Bilbao's industrial
suburbs, is making a handsome profit out of melting down
millions of Irish pennies delivered in denominations of one,
two, 10 and 20 pence. So far more than a million coins
have been shipped here for recycling."
SUBSCRIBER PROFILE: JOE WOLFE
New subscriber Joe Wolfe writes: "I have a slightly different
interest than most of your members I am sure. I have a hobby
I am very serious about and do research on coin caches. I am
what people like to call a treasure hunter. I have a metal
detector and go out and search for dropped or lost coins
hoping to find a few valuable ones.
First I research to find a good location and then go look. I
enjoy the research more. Presently I am researching turnpikes
here in Loudoun County, Virginia. They started collecting tolls
about 1795 and did so up to about 1925. I hope the tolltakers
dropped a few coins at the tollgates and that I can find where
the tollgates sat. I've searched about 10 sites already and
found only a few coins: a 1807 large cent, 1773 reale, and
another large cent I could not see a date on.
As it turns out roads were widened drastically from 1800 and
most tollgate locations were destroyed unless the road was
moved or a historical building existed at the tollgate and it
was preserved. Even with a building, surrounding ground was
sometimes graded and dirt added to yards to make them
attractive.
The research is an education. Some of these tollgates operated
for 50 years or more. So there must be dropped coins in large
numbers. Just to give you an idea, the Little River Turnpike here
in Virginia started around 1824 and in their best year collected
about $20,000.00 at 6 tollgates. A lot of it was in pennies so
many coins changed hands. I also noted with enthusiasm that
the tolls were often collected quarterly by the treasurer. My
question now is where were the tolls kept until the treasurer
took charge of them?
Think of it as Active Numismatic Research - I research and
then perform actions. A magazine called Lost Treasure just
published my first article. I want to write my next article on
tollgates. True, the articles are about treasure hunting but the
research is often about coins and coin caches."
[Joe may be reached at cachenut at hotmail.com -Editor]
MORE ON EURO NICKEL ALLERGIES
Gawain O'Connor writes: "In response to Martin Purdy's
comment about euro allergy hogwash -
The article about euros in the Sept. 14 issue of "Science
News" shows a photo comparison to the nickel Swiss
franc coin. The pure nickel coin stays intact in their
solution. So it appears that the bi-metallic aspect is what
causes the problem, not the amount of nickel.
The online version can be seen at
http://www.sciencenews.org/20020914/fob1.asp
The original article in Nature:
http://www.nature.com/cgi-taf/DynaPage.taf?file=/nature/journal/v419/n6903/full/419132a_fs.html
[The Nature site requires a free registration. -Editor]
But it certainly could be that the study was prompted by
bias against the new euro coins, as Mr. Purdy suggests."
BIBLIOGRAPHY LINKS AND CLAIN-STEFANELLI
Chris Hopkins, Morten Eske Mortensen, Granvyl G.
Hulse, Jr. and Mike Metras all wrote to add to our list of
bibliography links. Bruce Perdue offered to add them to
the internet Open Directory to make them more accessible
to a wider audience.
On a related note, Granvyl G. Hulse, Jr. writes: "We have
talked on and off of a master listing of books and articles on
coins, etc. If Elvira Clain-Stefanelli's "Numismatic Bibliography"
could be transferred to disk, it would be a perfect place to
start from in compiling a master listing of numismatic material.
Do you have any idea if this has been done? I went surfing
some of the listings you gave and it struck me first that if we
pulled down all of the library indexes, compiled them into
one master index we would have an excellent reference.
Then I thought of Elivra's book and realized that if it was
placed on a disk, two-thirds of our work would already be
done, and we could build from there. What I would like to
know is who holds the copyright to her book. It was
published in the era of computers so it is possible that it is
already on disk. I think that it is worth checking."
ANOTHER SPACE-AGE MONEY CONCEPT
From the New Scientist comes an article about a new kind
of token that cannot be counterfeited and could one day be
used in credit cards and other secure identification applications.
A team at the MIT Media Lab's Center for Bits and Atoms
has discovered that "a transparent token the size of a postage
stamp and costing just a penny to make can be used to
generate an immensely powerful cryptographic key."
"The team created tokens containing hundreds of glass beads,
each a few hundred micrometres in diameter, set in a block of
epoxy one centimetre square and 2.5 mm thick. These are
"read" by shining a laser beam of a particular wavelength
through the token."
"The token could not be duplicated using any manufacturing
technology in existence or planned.... One future use of the
tokens could see them being embedded into credit cards."
"... the first products using the tokens could be developed in
as little as six months."
http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99992828
BIBLIOPHILES ARE COMMITTED, OR OUGHT TO BE
Interesting quote, attributed to Margaret Meade, that could
apply to our subscribers: "Never doubt that a small group of
thoughtful, committed people can change the world. Indeed,
it is the only thing that ever has."
On a related note, Kavan Ratnatunga writes: "The collecting
addiction is recognized and discussed here:
http://www.virtualstampclub.com/marotta.html
There is a also a diagnostic test and some help on one
aspect of numismatic addiction:
http://www.netaddiction.com/resources/auction_houses.htm"
GOBRECHT'S INSPIRATION
Coin designers' artistic inspirations are a popular topic
among numismatic researchers. In a newspaper
advertisement (of all places) I recently saw a reference to
Gobrecht's inspiration for one of his Liberty head designs.
It was an ad peddling $10 gold coins. A search of the net
found a couple thirdhand references, but no original source
material. I was hoping to find an image of the painting
in question. In any event, perhaps one of our E-Sylum
readers can shed some more light on the issue.
The best account I found was on a dealer web page
which credited Numismatic Guarantee Corp. (NGC)
for the story and photos. I was unable to find the same
text on the NGC web site.
"Director Robert M. Patterson was instructed to produce
eagles, and Acting Engraver Christian Gobrecht, replacing
the ailing William Kneass, prepared dies for a new design.
Gobrecht’s design, inspired by the portrait of Venus in
Benjamin West’s Painting Omnia Vincit Amor (Love
Conquers All), also became the prototype for the half-eagle
and large cent of 1839." From
http://www.oldcoinshop.com/coinhistory/10-1838-66.htm
This page has links to several images of West's paintings:
http://www.artcyclopedia.com/artists/west_benjamin.html
BEER MONEY: DADDY MADE IT
One of my favorite sources for contemporary accounts
of 18th century numismatics is The Gentleman's Magazine.
Stan Stephens, writing in the Yahoo Colonial Coins news
group transcribed this interesting item from vol 44 (1774):
"31 March: 'Information having been given to Sir John
Fielding, that a company of coiners made a business of
coining halfpence in a house on Fish-street-hill, that
magistrate applied to the Lord Mayor for his warrant to
apprehend them, which he obtained, and sent five of his
people, well-armed, to take them by surprize. There were
no less than eight of them at work, who, when they found
themselves discovered, endeavoured to make resistance,
and one of them received a ball in his head before he
surrendered.
The night before, they had sent a child for some beer, with
new halfpence to pay for it; and the landlord observing to
the child that they were warm, she innocently replied, that
her daddy had just made them. A cart-load of Implements
were found In the house, and carried to Bow-street."
(p.185).
To subscribe to the Colonial Coins group, send an email to:
colonial-coins-subscribe at egroups.com
FEATURED WEB SITE
This week's featured web site was suggested by Larry
Mitchell, who writes: "I can't remember if you've covered
this site or not - The British Museum's World of Money.
In any event, it's an especially good site for the younger set:
http://www.thebritishmuseum.ac.uk/worldofmoney/
Wayne Homren
Numismatic Bibliomania Society
The Numismatic Bibliomania Society is a
non-profit organization promoting numismatic
literature. For more information please see
our web site at http://www.coinbooks.org/
There is a membership application available on
the web site. To join, print the application and
return it with your check to the address printed
on the application. For those without web access,
write to David Sklow, NBS Secretary-Treasurer,
P.O. Box 76192, Ocala, FL 34481.
For Asylum mailing address changes and other
membership questions, contact Dave at this email
address: sdsklow at aol.com
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