The E-Sylum v19#10 March 6, 2016

Sun Mar 6 20:00:47 PST 2016

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The E-Sylum

  An electronic publication of
  The Numismatic Bibliomania Society

Volume 19, Number 10, March 6, 2016
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WAYNE'S WORDS: THE E-SYLUM MARCH 26, 2016
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BRYCE BROWN MAIL BID SALE #2 RESULTS
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LAKE BOOKS SALE #124 CLOSES MARCH 15, 2016
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NEW BOOK: COIN COLLECTING ALBUMS, VOLUME TWO
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NEW BOOK:  COINS OF KIEVAN RUS' 988-1018
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KOLBE & FANNING HARDBOUND CATALOGUE SUBSCRIPTIONS OFFERED
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THE BANKNOTE BOOK
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NEWMAN NUMISMATIC PORTAL ANNOUNCES OPENING 
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BENJAMIN MAXIMILLIAN MEHL (1884-1957)
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NUMISMATIC FIRM RARE LEGACY LAUNCHED
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DENOMINATIONS NAMED AFTER PEOPLE: SOMONI
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NOTES FROM E-SYLUM READERS: MARCH 6, 2016
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FUGIO CENT DIES USED AS PAPERWEIGHTS
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AMERICAN REGULATED GOLD PIECES
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CONTINENTAL CURRENCY PRINTING PLATES DONATED TO MINT
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THE PIRATES TREASURE CALIFORNIA GOLD SET
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SOME MORE HALF DIME TOKENS
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WHERE ARE THE PEALE REPORT DRAWINGS?
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"UFO" JETON RESURFACES IN POPULAR MEDIA
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THE U.S. MINT'S PALLADIUM BULLION COIN
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OBJECT OF INTRIGUE: CONFEDERATE CURRENCY
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3D PRINTING IMPOSSIBLY HIGH RELIEF PRECIOUS METAL COINS
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SPINK TO SELL STEWARTBY COLLECTION OF ENGLISH COINS
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SOTHEBY’S 1913 SALE OF ARTHUR CONAN DOYLE’S COINS
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MTB’S 1968 PRICE LIST OF ARTHUR CONAN DOYLE’S ANCIENT COINS
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ARTICLE HIGHLIGHTS METAL DETECTOR HOBBYISTS
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METAL DECTECTORIST FINDS AN ENTIRE SAXON TOWN
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ROMANIAN POLICE SEIZE STOLEN COINS
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MALAYSIAN COIN COLLECTORS LINED UP FOR NEW ISSUE
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AUSTRALIA WWII REFUGEE CAMP SCRIP NOTES OFFERED
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SWISS 5-FRANC COIN TARGETED BY COUNTERFEITERS
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COUNTERFEIT SHOVER TARGETS CALIFORNIA GIRL SCOUTS
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HOBO CARVERS CREATE UNIQUE COIN PUZZLE ART
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Click here to read this issue on the web

Click here to access the complete archive

To comment or submit articles, reply to 
whomren at gmail.com

WAYNE'S WORDS: THE E-SYLUM MARCH 26, 2016

New subscribers this week include:
Michael Jenkins, 
Greg Cohen and
Marc Merrick.
Welcome aboard!
We now have 1,954 subscribers.  

This week we open with updates from numismatic literature dealers Fred Lake and Bryce Brown, two new books and the long-awaited opening of the Newman Numismatic Portal.

Let me take a minute to repeat that - the Newman Numismatic Portal is now open!   While digitized content for NNP has been appearing regularly for some time now, this will be the first time the entire web site is fully available for use by the public.  In addition to all the content previewed to date in The E-Sylum, there are dictionary entries, biographies, and auction prices available.  Check it out!

Other topics this week include the Banknote Book, the U.S. palladium bullion coin, the Fugio Cent dies, American regulated gold pieces, California gold, 3D printing of precious metal coins, and the Lord Stewartby and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle collections.

To learn more about  Coin Collecting Albums, B. Max Mehl, Julius Caesar and Leap Days, half dime tokens, the "flying saucer" jeton, the Malaysia Coloured Silver Commemorative Coin, and Australian WWII refugee camp notes, read on.   Have a great week, everyone!

Wayne Homren
Editor, The E-Sylum

BRYCE BROWN MAIL BID SALE #2 RESULTS

Bryce Brown submitted this note about his numismatic literature sale that closed yesterday.
-Editor

The Prices Realized List for my March 5th auction sale is now posted at 

http://www.bbnla.com/  
.

Thank you Wayne, and The E-Sylum, for your gracious support in posting news of my sale.  Participation was outstanding!  Nearly all bidders were winners, and a ton (well, maybe a half-ton) of professionally-wrapped packages will be in the mail shortly!  My next sale is slated for late June or early July.  It will feature an outstanding group of 19th century auction catalogs, along with one of the most significant groups of numismatic error & variety literature ever offered.

Bryce Brown's Numismatic Literature Auctions
P.O. Box 16
Avon, CT 06001-0016 USA
email:  numismatics at att.net
Phone: 860-751-2555              
Fax: 203-900-0249
www.BBNLA.com

LAKE BOOKS SALE #124 CLOSES MARCH 15, 2016

Fred Lake forwarded this reminder of his upcoming literature sale. Thanks.   Get your bids in!
-Editor

This is a reminder that our mail-bid sale of numismatic literature closes on Tuesday, March 15, 2016 at 5:00 PM (EDT) and you can view the sale at 
http://www.lakebooks.com/current.html.   Bids may be placed via email (preferred), telephone or fax until that time. The sale features nearly 500 lots of United States catalogs, Foreign and Ancient catalogs, Books on United States money, also reference material on Paper Money, Tokens and Medals and some wonderful miscellaneous finds.  I want to express my deep appreciation for the many messages wishing me a speedy recuperation from my accident that happened on January 7th. Let me assure you that I am progressing well and will be ready for your bids. Early bidding is a big help and don’t forget ties are won by the earliest bid received.

Good Luck with your bidding,   Fred

Lake Books
6822 22nd Ave N
St. Petersburg, FL 33710-3918
727-343-8055   fax: 727-381-6822

NEW BOOK: COIN COLLECTING ALBUMS, VOLUME TWO

Author Dave Lange forwarded this note about his newest book on coin collecting albums.  More information should be available next week.  Thanks, and congratulations!
-Editor

Dave writes:

This is the second volume in my series of books titled Coin Collecting Albums: A Complete History & Catalog. It tells the story of Robert Friedberg's Capitol Coin Company and its publishing division, The Coin and Currency Institute, Inc. The main emphasis, of course, is on the coin albums produced by the C&CI---the Library of Coins and the Treasury of Coins lines. These are fully described and cataloged, as well as being illustrated in color by titles and editions. The book is 144 pages, with 64 of them consisting entirely of color plates that show all of the company's products in detail.

NEW BOOK:  COINS OF KIEVAN RUS' 988-1018

Dzmitry Huletski has published a new book on the first coins of Russia.  The author is A. Rublev.  Here's the information from the book's web page.
-Editor

COINS OF KIEVAN RUS' 988-1018
by A. Rublev

This publication contains a structured catalog of more than 930 coins struck in Kievan Rus' at the end of the 10th - beginning of the 11th centuries during the reigns of Vladimir, Svyatopolk and Yaroslav. It is a Corpus of all known specimens of these rare and significant coins. The previous work of this kind, published by Hermitage numismatist M. Sotnikova in 1995, included only 300 pieces - three times less than in this Corpus. 

Russian language.
424 full colour pages.
Hard cover.
Issue limit - 300 pieces

For more information, or to order, see:

http://wirecoins.de/kievan/

THE BOOK BAZARRE
RENAISSANCE OF AMERICAN COINAGE:  
Wizard Coin Supply is the official distributor 
for Roger Burdette's three volume series that won 
NLG Book of the Year awards for 2006, 2007 and 2008. 
Contact us for dealer or distributor pricing at
www.WizardCoinSupply.com .

KOLBE & FANNING HARDBOUND CATALOGUE SUBSCRIPTIONS OFFERED

Kolbe & Fanning Numismatic Booksellers published this reminder of the availability of subscriptions to their numbers sale hardcover editions.
-Editor

Kolbe & Fanning cloth hardcover numbered sale catalogues are available by subscription for $55 each. 

Billed when shipped. Earlier hardcover sales are also available for purchase at the subscription price if available.  

To subscribe, see:

www.numislit.com/pages/books/3728/kolbe-fanning/kolbe-and-fanning-hardcover-catalogue-subscription

THE BANKNOTE BOOK

Martin Kaplan writes:

These days my numismatic focus is world paper money. 
I started around 60 years ago with Lincoln penny boards. Isn't that how all of us this old got started? I'm not sure you are aware of "The Banknote Book"? Forever the "Pick Catalog" was the standard world banknote catalog. Today Owen Linzmayer is creating the new standard online catalog. He updates his online catalog frequently...with both new information and pricing. I'm sure you have readers who are world banknote collectors who would enjoy learning about the new standard catalog...  The Banknote Book.

We've featured  The Banknote Book before, but it's always worth mentioning again.  Here's an excerpt from the website.  Follow the lik to sign up for email updates.
-Editor

As of 4 March 2016, 226 chapters (each a stand-alone country-specific catalog) of The Banknote Book have been published as individual high-resolution PDF files. This represents a total of 3,046 pages covering 30,495 varieties, including thousands of notes not listed in Krause’s “Pick” catalog, officially known as the Standard Catalog of World Paper Money (SCWPM).

If you do not see a country of interest listed below, please be patient. Some countries are much more challenging to complete than others due to the large number of notes to be cataloged, as well as the difficulty in obtaining information about and images of rare issues. However, rest assured that the goal is to cover every country as soon as possible.

For more information, see:

www.banknotenews.com/banknote_book/chapters_published/chapters_published.php

NEWMAN NUMISMATIC PORTAL ANNOUNCES OPENING 

The Newman Numismatic Portal (NNP) is now open!  While digitized documents have been available for a while, this is the world's first peek at the full site, which includes not just books, periodicals and auction catalogs, but also databases of numismatic terms and biographies, a U.S. coin encyclopedia, and an initial search capability allowing full-text search over hundreds of thousands of pages of material.

Below is the full press release issued today.  Many thanks to Eric Newman, the Eric P. Newman Numismatic Education Society and Washington University in St. Louis for making this happen.  It's been a pleasure to have been involved with the project since its inception.  Be sure to visit the site and read up on your favorite numismatic topics.
-Editor

The Newman Numismatic Portal (NNP) is now live and open to the general public at NewmanPortal.org.  Funded by the Eric P. Newman Numismatic Education Society (EPNNES), NNP is administered through Washington University in St. Louis, and aims to provide the most comprehensive numismatic resources available on the Internet.  “I have long wanted to make the literature and images of numismatics, particularly American numismatics, available to everyone on a free and forever basis,” said Eric P. Newman, president of EPNNES. “Today’s digital technologies, combined with the funds recently assembled from auctions of some of our foundation’s holdings, now make this possible.”

The Newman Portal project launched scanning operations at Washington University Libraries in July, 2015, and at the American Numismatic Society in November, 2015.  Both locations are equipped with scanning equipment supplied in partnership with Internet Archive, as well as personnel to perform scanning on a full-time basis.  Over 3,000 documents, representing more than 100,000 pages, have been completed to date.  The documents represent a mix of auction catalogs, periodicals, reference books, and archival material.  Most of this material is unique to the Newman Portal and has not been previously scanned.

In addition to the libraries of Eric P. Newman and the American Numismatic Society, a number of contributors including private collectors Dan Hamelberg, Bill Burd, and Joel Orosz have loaned material to the Newman Portal for scanning.  The Newman Portal has further partnered with over a dozen specialty and regional organizations to provide access to back issues of club journals.  A full list of available publications may be found in the periodical section of the Newman Portal at 

http://www.NewmanPortal.org/library/periodicals.

The Portal further includes reference content structured for optimal usage within the context of online access.  Resources such as Pete Smith's American Numismatic Biographies and Albert Frey’s dictionary from the American Journal of Numismatics   have been broken down into separate entries and appear individually in search results.  The U.S. coin encyclopedia contains over 2 million auctions prices realized.  A Lucene-based search engine allows users to search across all content, from the scans hosted by Internet Archive to the reference material within the site itself.

While ongoing scanning operations continue to build the “virtual library” of the Newman Portal, the long term goal of NNP is to increase collector collaboration and foster knowledge sharing through crowdsourcing and other initiatives.  The Smithsonian Institute has recently demonstrated the promise of crowdsourcing in cataloging thousands of national bank currency proofs.  The Newman Portal has announced its first such project, creating a transcription of Franklin Peale’s Report (1835), a fundamental document related to 19th century American coining technology.  With today’s electronic resources, the power of the community can accomplish tasks beyond individuals or small teams, and the Newman Portal will enable this within the numismatic research space.

To visit the Newman Numismatic Portal, see:

www.newmanportal.org

Here's a snapshot of the home page.
-Editor

BENJAMIN MAXIMILLIAN MEHL (1884-1957)

John Lupia submitted the following information from his Encyclopedic Dictionary of Numismatic Biographies for this week's installment of his series. Thanks! As always, this is an excerpt with the full article and bibliography available online. This week's subject is dealer B. Max Mehl.
-Editor

Benjamin Maximillian Mehl (1884-1957), was born on November 5, 1884 in the Jewish Quarter or ghetto of Lodz called Alstadt, Poland-Russia (modern Poland), son of Solomon Isaac Mehl (1849-1929) and Rachel Mehl (1846-1926). All of the Mehl family were native born Polish-Russians. As Polish Jews they were fluent in Russian, Hebrew and Yiddish, as well as all of their children. The surname Mehl is German, not Russian, and means "ground meal" or "flour" which seems to refer to a family involved in that business at an earlier time when families were given surnames based on their trade.

According to his brief biographical sketch in The Numismatist, March, 1905, page 89, his family moved to Vilkomir, Umerge district, province of Kovno (modern Kaunas), Lithuania, when he was an infant in 1885. This proved to be a bad move since there was an anti-Jewish riot there that year. Nevertheless, Ukmerge had been an important Judaic center in Lithuania for hundreds of years. The Hebrew school had been established there since 1868. A new building was constructed in the Autumn of 1884 for the Talmud Torah. It was in these schools that young B. Max Mehl learned reading, writing, Hebrew, Torah, translation, prayer interpretation, some Gemara, arithmetic and Russian.   His family immigrated to America when he was ten  years and five months old, in April 1895.

Fort Worth, Texas, had established a Jewish Congregation in 1892, and in 1895 constructed a synagogue. Also in 1895, they established a Young Men's Hebrew Association. Sometime after November 5, 1897, B. Max Mehl celebrated his bar mitzvah at Fort Worth. From the time the Mehl family arrived the Jewish community at Fort Worth grew stronger and more organized. Numbered among the earlier Jewish settlers at Fort Worth were Nathaniel and Jacob Washer, who opened a men's clothing store in that city in 1882. When the Mehl family arrived at Fort Worth, Benjamin’s father Solomon opened a clothing store competing with the Washer Brothers.

Benjamin began as a coin dealer from the coins that crossed his father’s counter in the clothing store and entered his collection rather than the cash register, certainly swapped by him with dad's approval in exchange for his weekly pay.

He began coin dealing from his home at 1211 Main Street, Fort Worth, using it as an office in December 1903. Apparently he did not do well on this mail bid auction since he seems to be selling much of the same material in his January 25th 1904 circular cited in the Post Scriptum.

His importance as a dealer was as a merchandizing promoter evidenced by his aggressive advertising, auctions, and publishing of several series of numismatic books and periodicals. The synergy he contributed to the coin industry during his fifty-two years as a coin dealer (1903-1955) occurred during a period of economic growth in the nation before, during, and after the depression that contributed to decidedly sharp market increases of closed sales prices on coins and paper money.

Earliest known circular of B. Max Mehl, January 25, 1904. 
Courtesy Lupia Numismatic Library

Mehl knew the power of promotion and used every opportunity at his disposal to promote himself as the world's foremost authority and highest respected coin dealer in America creating the fictional image that he was as big, powerful and grand as a government institution.

Mehl knew how to touch the nerve of every treasure seeker since he knew amongst the struggling hard working general public people hoped they were lucky and possessed a rare coin worth a fortune that would solve life's problems. He advertised looking for 1913 Liberty Head Nickels when he knew none were available. But he got people curious going through jars of change looking to find a coin that could bring wealth to them, all for a buck, the price of his Star Rare Coin Encyclopedia. He capitalized on the same principle that made lotteries work since the colonial period : take a chance for a dollar, you just might have Lady Fortune smile on you.  By 1929 he claimed he sold 1 million copies. Even if this were only half true he would already have amassed a small fortune by book sales alone. The power of persuasion made Mehl, a former shoe salesman, into a millionaire and captain of industry.

This is only the tiniest of excerpts - a wealth of great material on B. Max Mehl is available online at John Lupia's web site - be sure to read the complete entry online.
-Editor

To read the complete article, see:

MEHL, BENJAMIN MAXIMILLIAN

(https://sites.google.com/site/numismaticmallcom/encyclopedic-dictionary-of-numismatic-biographies/mehl-benjamin-maximilian)

NUMISMATIC FIRM RARE LEGACY LAUNCHED

Longtime E-Sylumites Tony Lopez and Skyler Liechty submitted this press release about their new firm, Rare Legacy.  Congratulations, and good luck!
-Editor

We are pleased to announce the opening of Rare Legacy and our website rarelegacy.com. Rare Legacy will focus on historical artifacts, numismatics, and decorative arts relating to the colonial New World, the American Revolutionary War, and important historical figures in United States and Western European history.  Our goal is to offer our clients rare and unique original objects that that reveal the times and experiences from important persons and events in our history.  

Operating out of Rockwall, TX, Rare Legacy is a partnership between researchers and award-winning authors Skyler Liechty and Tony Lopez.  Between them, they have written more than 30 articles appearing in various publications including the Numismatist, CN Journal, Maryland Numismatist, and MCA Advisory. They have each won two Numismatic Literary Guild Awards for articles they co-authored; The Sovereign of the Seas Medal in the MCA Advisory as well as the Gilcrease Museum publication Peace Medals: Negotiating Power in Early America. Skyler Liechty received the Gloria Stamm Chamberlain Award in 2010. Tony Lopez received the Georgia Stamm Chamberlain Award in 2008 and the Carl W. A. Carlson Award in 2014.

Our areas of specialty include historical medals, especially medals pertaining to the colonial New World and the American Revolutionary War; decorative arts and historical artifacts of the federal period especially portraiture of George Washington,  Benjamin Franklin, and the other founding fathers; and historical autographs and manuscripts.

Rare Legacy can be found online at www.rarelegacy.com, and can be contacted at info at rarelegacy.com or called at (855)-8-History.

DENOMINATIONS NAMED AFTER PEOPLE: SOMONI

Regarding our discussion of currency denominations named after people, web site visitor Movin Miranda writes:

There's also the Somoni , the currency of Tajikistan.

Thanks!  At my request Movin (of Bangalore India and Kuala Lampur, Malaysia) supplied these web page references.
-Editor

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The Numismatic Bibliomania Society is a non-profit organization
promoting numismatic literature. For more information please
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at this address:
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To join, print the application and return it with your check
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David M. Sundman, Secretary/Treasurer
Numismatic Bibliomania Society,
P. O. Box 82 Littleton, NH 03561

For Asylum mailing address changes and other membership
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dsundman at LittletonCoin.com

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