The E-Sylum v6#36, September 7, 2003
whomren at coinlibrary.com
whomren at coinlibrary.com
Sun Sep 7 21:00:54 PDT 2003
Welcome to The E-Sylum: Volume 6, Number 36, September 7, 2003:
an electronic publication of the Numismatic Bibliomania Society.
Copyright (c) 2003, The Numismatic Bibliomania Society.
SUBSCRIBER UPDATE
Among recent new subscribers are Fred Holabird, courtesy
of Duane Feisel. Welcome aboard! We now have 590
subscribers.
LAKE SALE #70 CLOSING
Fred Lake writes: "Our sale #70 closes on Tuesday, September
16, 2003 at 5:00 PM EDT. You can view the sale at
http://www.lakebooks.com/current.html"
JOHN J. FORD LIBRARY SALES
George Kolbe writes: "I thought that E-sylum subscribers might
like an update concerning the first auction sale of the John J.
Ford, Jr. Library. To be held in association with Stack's, the
sale will take place on Tuesday, June 1, 2004 at the Mission
Inn, Riverside, California, a National Historical Landmark
Hotel (www.missioninn.com). The Mission Inn is about half
way between Crestline (where lot viewing will be held on the
days preceding the sale), and Long Beach (where the Long
Beach Coin Convention will begin the day after the sale). The
Mission Inn is about an hour by car from Los Angeles
International Airport, and about ten minutes from the new
Ontario International Airport. Riverside is a large city (approx.
300,000 residents) and offers a wide array of lodging and
recreational activities. I plan to start cataloguing the Ford
library in a few weeks and I will submit a report every week
or two about interesting things that will be in the sale. I
recently came across, for example, the original invoice from
Captain John Haseltine to William H. Woodin for the two
unique $50 gold patterns now held by the Smithsonian
Institution, along with papers relating to the circa 1910
litigation concerning patterns, including an original affidavit
from Haseltine."
HAITIAN AUCTIONS SOUGHT
Bob Merchant (bobm at cfl.rr.com) writes: "Perhaps an
E-Sylum subscriber can help me with this: I am trying to
locate a Spink (or Spink America) auction catalog from 1998
that contained an important collection of Haiti coinage. I do
not know what the date of the sale was. I am also interested
in other auction catalogs that contained Haiti coinage. Can
anyone help?"
1913 LIBERTY NICKEL - ART KAGIN CONNECTION
Donn Pearlman writes: "Thanks for the kind words about my
photography (The E-Sylum: Volume 6, Number 32, August 10,
2003). I only had about 60 seconds to take the photo, and I
was using -- for the first time -- a two-week old camera, a
Nikon Coolpix 4300 digital. I was amazed and delighted my
close up of the Walton 1913 Liberty Head nickel came out so
well.
Only hours later did I learn I should have taken a shot of the
reverse, too. It seems a crucial diagnostic for determining
authenticity involves an element on the reverse.
One correction to your article about the five 1913 nickels in
Baltimore. There apparently are at least TWO surviving
numismatists who had seen all five coins together prior to the
historic reunion in Baltimore in July. Eric Newman, mentioned
in your article, and Art Kagin, who saw the five together in the
late 1930s or early '40s prior to the "set" being broken up."
CATALOG COMPILATION PROJECT?
Denis Loring writes: "In a recent Coin world article, Dan
Friedus gave a list of significant auctions of certain Colonial
series. I found it valuable research info, and thought it would
be terrific if such a list existed for all appropriate series, say
copper through 1857, silver through 1891, gold through 1907,
and some specialties. I have to believe that within the
E-Sylum subscriber list, we've got the knowledge base to
produce such a list.
Here's a first shot at possible series for which we should list
the three or four most significant sales:
Mass. silver
Mass. copper
Conn. copper
NJ copper
Vermont copper
Washington pieces
Fugio cents
half cents
large cents 1793-1814
large cents 1816-1839
large cents 1840-1857
half dimes 1794-1837
half dimes 1837-1891
dimes 1796-1837
dimes 1837-1891
quarters 1796-1838
quarters 1838-1891
halves 1794-1807
halves 1807-1839
halves 1839-1891
dollars 1794-1804
dollars 1836-1839
dollars 1840-1873
dollars 1873-1885
gold dollars 1849-1889
gold $2-1/2 1796-1839
gold $2-1/2 1840-1907
gold $3 1854-1889
gold $5 1795-1807
gold $5 1807-1838
gold $5 1839-1908
gold $10 1795-1804
gold $10 1838-1907
gold $20 1850-1907
territorial gold
CA small denom. gold
patterns
hard times tokens
civil War tokens
errors"
SHORT SNOTER?
Howard A. Daniel III writes: "While at the recent 2003 ANA
Convention, I was approached by Richard Kaminski. He read
in "World Coin News" about a "short snorter" I had bought and
had one he wanted me to see. He handed me an envelope and
inside it was a letter and the left half of a United States Series
1917 2 Dollars note.
The letter is dated "Friday -March 18th" but no year, but he
said it was sometime in the 1960s. The second paragraph has;
"My reservation of the Bar dinner is enclosed as well as the
recipe we talked about in the even you do not have it as hand
and also a short snoter for Richard."
A "short snoter"? I reread it and the second word is "snoter."
I told him it was not what I had written about and was
something completely new to me. He asked if it had any value
and I told him I had no idea but we could go visit a dealer on
the bourse.
Leo May is one of the most knowledgeable dealers about
"short snorters" and we found him. Leo read the letter and
looked at the half note with the same disbelief as myself. I
said "snoter" must be an old American slang word that we
had not yet heard about in numismatics. He agreed but he
did not like my pronunciation of the word because it sounded
like something from my nose. He wanted to emphasize the
"note" in the middle of the word. I agreed this was much better
and I would research the word.
Richard wanted to sell the piece and the letter, so I asked
Leo for a value. Leo mentioned a value and Richard
offered it to me. I agreed to buy it but only for a "Bank Note
Reporter" article and to donate it to the ANA Museum.
Richard agreed and I paid him.
The primary languages for "snoter" appear to be English,
Scottish and Irish slang. Within them, "Snoter" was
connected to babies with what came out of their noses, but
there were also a reference within the Royal University of
Scir-Hafoc about someone teaching ten or more times.
Then there is a reference to the "Snoter Stone", which is a
historical site.
Does any E-Sylum reader know this word or have a reference
to it? I will keep the letter and the half note until after the
article is published so if you want a copy of both, I can send
it to you. Then I will mail it to Larry Lee, ANA Curator, as
a donation to the ANA collection. This will allow future
researchers to find it if they ever run across "snoter" in their
research.
Please contact this editor and/or me at
Howard at SEAsianTreasury.com if you know anything or
want to guess about "short snoter."
RAILROAD STOCK CERTIFICATES BOOK SOUGHT
In response to last week's request, Joe Boling writes:
"My abstract for ANS, NL136: COX, TERRY, with SAM
WITHERS. Stocks and Bonds of North American Railroads:
collectors' guide with values. Port Clinton, Ohio, BNR Press
1995. 256pp illus. ISBN 0-931960-46-0.
8559 certificate types and varieties, from hundreds of railroads
(all known issues from over 17,200 railroads known to have
existed in North America), are listed, described, and valued.
Almost 50 pages of background to collecting these certificates,
including thumbnail biographies of over 230 prominent issuers
and signers of certificates, supplement the catalog listings.
Additional info of interest to the bibliophile: 4to perfect bound
(illustrated card covers).
The listings are alphabetical by company name, so there is no
way to isolate (for enumeration) the Canadian listings.
TOPIC OF THE WEEK
Dan Gosling's topic of the week is: Plagiarism
He writes: "Can anyone provide numismatic examples of
blatant plagiarism and the penalties levied against the plagiarist?
I ran across an obvious copy of an early Charlton Canadian
Coin Catalogue in the Bank of Canada Currency Museum
Library last year. Inside was an interesting letter advising
the author to cease and desist."
INTERNET COIN FRAUDS
Kavan Ratnatunga writes: "The following link
documents eBay auction activity that should be of
interest to E-Sylum readers. [NOTE: the page has many
images and takes time to load. -Editor]
http://www.chijanofuji.com/online_liquidators.html
This is a complicated issue, but maybe a large organization
like ANA should be able to maintain a educational website
and request eBay to send that URL to every buyer of a coin
on a "Private Auction"
I find it amazing to find Bidiots paying a total of $14,900 to
buy 80 replica coins Private Auctioned on eBay as genuine.
On the long term it can only hurt the numismatic market."
REVERSIBLE BANKNOTE SPECIMENS
This week I came across an interesting item in a paper
money collection. It was accompanied by an undated article
which appears to be from Coin World circa early 1960s.
It's a $5 "specimen" note produced by an inventor hoping to
sell his idea to the U.S. government.
"The dollars are "reversible banknotes," $1, $5, $10 and $20
bills of a copyrighted design that has the same general
appearance front or back, right-side-up or up-side-down.
Invented by Rene Laflamme, a Hull, Quebec pharmacist,
"reversible" money made its first appearance earlier this year
as $1 notes on the mythical "Bank of Cadana," and the design
was submitted for the consideration of Canada's central bank."
Has anyone seen or heard of these before?"
DUMB BANK ROBBER TALE
A web page tells the following tale of a none-too-bright bank
robber in San Francisco. No source is cited, so it's anyone's
guess if the story is true, but it's amusing nevertheless.
"A man, wanting to rob a downtown Bank of America, walked
into the branch and wrote "this iz a stikkup. Put all your muny
in this bag." While standing in line, waiting to give his note to
the teller, he began to worry that someone had seen him write
the note and might call the police before he reached the teller
window. So he left the Bank of America and crossed the street
to Wells Fargo. After waiting a few minutes in line, he handed
his note to the Wells Fargo teller. She read it and, surmising
from his spelling errors that he was not the brightest light in the
harbor, told him that she could not accept his stickup note
because it was written on a Bank of America deposit slip and
that he would either have to fill out a Wells Fargo deposit slip
or go back to Bank of America.
Looking somewhat defeated, the man said "OK" and left. The
Wells Fargo teller then called the police who arrested the man
a few minutes later, as he was waiting in line back at Bank of
America."
http://www.funpages.com/dumbcriminals/
FEATURED WEB PAGES
This week's featured web pages are about postage currency
contributed to an 1873 time capsule in the Rochester, NY
Old City Hall building. "The copper box, measuring one foot
by one foot by one foot, was retrieved on September 11,
1999."
http://www.rmsc.org/capsule/2000%201%20288.htm
http://www.rmsc.org/capsule/
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/
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