mmarotta

Far beyond the cent and $5 FRN, Abraham Lincoln is the subject of a broad and deep treasury of numismatic, philatelic, and exonumic material. This new book from Whitman (2013, 448 pages, $29.95) is the second from Reed, following the 2009 release of Abraham Lincoln: Images of His Greatness. To fund America's entry into World War I, in 1917, Congress authorized the issue of bonds denominated at $5000. Lincoln's portrait from the $5 Federal Reserve Note graced the new promissory paper. Medals, medallions, movie posters, political buttons for Lincoln (of course) and for many candidates who wanted to be associated with him, and therefore, much of the paper ephemera of the Republican National Committee's quadrennial conventions. This lavishly illustrated book offers full-page and two-page spreads of significant or large-size items, and also page after page of two, three, or four examples: Log Cabin maple syrup might seem obvious; and candy bars might be unusual, but how about a fantasy baseball card showing him at bat for the Springfield Nine? Each item is attributed, some with detailed narratives, most with at least a paragraph about the time, place, and occasion of the issuer. Numismatics is all about history. Absent the documentation, the stuff has little meaning. These items and the book itself deliver a rich tapestry of artifacts celebrating the martyred president. Starting with the grief of his assassination to the 2008 presidential election, from coins to casino chips and pogs, statues, actors, and impersonators, this book is a catalog of the mundane, glorious, humorous, and humble modes in which the people of America remember Abraham Lincoln.

I keep to the straight and narrow. You cannot be responsible for everyone else's ignorance, but the fact remains that it is, indeed, ignorance, not informed choice.

Fascinating! Thanks to all. I am not sure that people back then versus now were more or less open or more or less satirical. On the one hand, I accept a certain continuity to human nature and on the other I see that we become more sophisticated in our understandings and our ignorances both alike. I now think that fractional California gold is mostly a sham. I think that the dies making it are not controlled - not known or identified or locked down. Investgating the origin of the Peace Dollar, I came to see Farran Zerbe at once an Olympian of numismatics and an idol with feet of clay. But I never respected Thomas Elder. Nothing about Elder was never nice. That said, I have to agree with him that American numismatics long ago devolved into trivia about minutiae. A Brutus coin, now that is something... but VAM varieties prove that nothing is as common as an error. Nonetheless, a fascinating glimpse at a page of our history.

I am not so sure. As I said in #8 above, a lot of what goes on in the hobby is a based on caveat emptor, getting one over on the other guy. That is not all, of course. Many people are plainly honest and plainly spoken. It is an easy claim that most people are honest. But hockey players are not violent off the ice, either. I mean, they are nice when you meet them at a party. On the ice, it's different. So, too, with numismatics. We nuture the roots of the problems we complain about. We wring our hands over yet another fake Ekatarina copper on eBay then oogle over the price of a 1913 Liberty Nickel. The fake nickel encourages the fake copper. Calling the 1804 Dollar the "king of coins" prepares the soil for seeds of the tree of evil. The 1804 Dollar just another $10,000 novodel, at best an old curio. It is one thing to collect Cavinos, perhaps. He's dead. How about people who collect modern Bulgarian counterfeits? Even if you buy it second hand as a known fake, you still encourage the production of more makes to deceive collectors.

Again, the solution, if there is one, rests on basic assumptions. In economics, value is subjective: one man's trash and all that. Forgers do create things of value. The question is whether the buyer knows the true nature of the object. The argument must then be extended to harms falling on future buyers. Mysefl, I think that the valid propositions are reflective (equal and opposite) to the concept of "rights." A right is something you do not need to ask permission to have. You have a right to life, but not to a livelihood; to liberty but not license; to property but not mine, because that would deny the concept of "property." So, with forgers, they invest a lot of creative effort producing something of some value - but to whom and for what? Just as the thief denies the definition of property, the forger denies the validity of identity. From there we have to examine harm. Ed Trompeter collected US gold and, as I recall, did not form the "greatest" collection because he lost an auction bid to Eliasberg. Trompeter bought much in private transactions, but he did not like toning. He called toned coins "schmiutzy" or dirty (Yiddish, like German schmutzig; the English word "smutty), What, then, of a dipped coin? Is it deceitful to remove the patina? We have long arguments about that -- and also about putting the toning on a coin. You dip a coin. I retone a coin. Giovanni da Cavino and Paul G. Franklin made coins. It is a slippery slope. However, I point out - not my own insight - that the slippery slope fallacy is a slippery slope of its own: how do you know when you really are on one?

That cuts to some basic questions about crime. In a sense, we are all criminals in that everyone commits harms: you only hurt the one you love. The two limiting factors are your intention and your response. When on a city bus you step on someone's toes, you say "Excuse me." Remorse is the proper response to harm. Despite psychological theories, criminals are not impulsive, but planful and habitual. Sheldon and Breen both were lifelong criminals. I believe that a deep investigation into Wyatt Yeager's past will reveal a similar pattern, not so much of misconduct - to err is human - but of planfully competent harms without remorse. (Children are a special case, which is why special courts were created for them. Consider, moreover, that you can get married, vote, and join the army at 18, but not drink until you are 21, and a national corporation will not rent you a car until you are 25. Youthful indiscretions aside, there are children who chose to victimize those around them, though they themselves never were harmed. The roots of such behavior are not clear to me. No theories are clearly explanatory, predictive, and falsifiable.) That also addresses a key problem. State crime (crimes committed by governments) and corporate crime are all around us. The mass-mediated hyper-reality of crime is about rich people killing each other over fortunes, but really, the victims of state crime and corporate crime are many and anonymous and (usually) alive. So, too, in numismatics, we all commonly live with habitual harms accepting them as normal. Again, there are no easy answers. Preparing a set of classroom lectures I will deliver next week, I am reading about forensic psychology. One consultant (Barbara Kirwin, Ph.D.) considers "robber barons" and "junk bond traders" to be criminals. It is a common assumption. But then you have to look back at Bill Gates and Steve Jobs hotwiring construction equipment for a joyride and wonder. The word "love" raises many questions. An abusive relationship is not about love, but dependency and obsession. John J. Ford called collectors "boobs." (But then, H. L. Mencken complained of the "booboisie" who, in fact, were his readers. Some audiences pay to be insulted. You have to allow that, but wonder...) A lot of what happens on the bourse floor is about getting one over on the other guy and never leaving money on the table. I do not know that there are any bright lines. Clearly, though, Ford's actions were egregious. What puzzles me is that people pursue these famous frauds, not just one aficiado or another, but droves of hobbyists want to know about the 1913 Liberty and 1804 Dollar and when they come up at auction, they never disappoint the seller. I believe that it was the Byron Reed specimen that went from XF to Unc after being cleaned with a cloth by a museum curator. It raises fundamental questions about the banality of evil. Intent is one factor, but it is not the only consideration. Intent or lack of it is easy to claim but harder to prove. I agree also that the problem is not so much this transaction, but the next one where the "audit trail" is lost. What about a retail clerk or bank teller who collects counterfeit US currency? Is that a valid pursuit in numismatics? Another problem with fakes is knowing when they were made. Alan Herbert has written strongly against the collectability of "Vampire Francaise" coins as they have no audit trail. At coin shows, you find dealers selling lead Washington Quarters and Walking Liberty Halfs clearly labeled as counterfeit and (so they claim) made long ago. As for the fiction of history, again, it is another problematic area, just defining its limits. Even the most reliable biographies depend on narrative that must be fictional. First hand records are constructed to be read by others. At some level, you just have to accept it prima facie.

My interests are bit broader than this coin or that slab. Crime is the sine qua non problem of every society. In other words, how a community defines crime and responds to it also defines the society itself. That is true of numismatics as much as it applies to ancient Sumeria, medieval France, or modern Cuba. All crimes are harms. Crimes are harms that contravene legislation. Hurting someone is one thing; breaking the rules is another. In numismatics, we have codes of ethics. The ANA has two, one for collectors, the other for dealers. Dealers are held to a higher standard. When I asked the Michigan State Numismatic Society to create a code of ethics, we merged the two viewpoints on the theory that we collectors all buy and sell. Moreover, dealers, being forced to be generalists are at the mercy of collectors who specialize. As I point out on my blog: These are not just the counter-trend. Unlike the egregious coins and holders identified in this forum, the material cited above defines our hobby. Personally, I still enjoy numismatics, of course. Make no mistake about that. However, as a criminologist, I have special demons of my own to wrestle with. Crime is not something special; criminals are not people apart; but neither is morality a matter of arithmetic: even if everyone does it, it can still be wrong.

Fascinating piece of history. Fascinating artist, as well. I had no idea. Although he died in 1899, his works previously commissioned and prepared were issued in 1900 for a Paris Exposition and 1904 for the St. Louis Worlds Fair. Only 50 when he died, he left behind an astounding array of products. Thanks for the post.

Bill, thanks for the link to Holabird-Kagin. I should have thought about them first, of course. And, also, I forgot about the Cuauhetamoc and other commems. That would be much later and more modern, of course, but could have given rise to the common meaning.

According to popular legend, Texas Rangers wore badges cut from Mexico 5 Peso silver coins. To me, this is baloney. Am I wrong? Everyone love history and Texans do everything bigger than anyone else. The Texas Rangers: Wearing the Cinco Peso, 1821-1900 by Mike Cox; Forge (2008); $15.99 Was favorably reviewed in the Austin American Statesman in 2010 here. But we also know that tall tales are not history. I heard about this book from an artist I met when we were posted as security guards to the same site here in Austin. I told him that offhand, I thought the Mexican peso was pretty close to a US SIlver Dollar into the 20th century. When I got home, I looked it up. The SCWC shows nothing called "cinco pesos" that would pass for a silver dollar sized Mexican coin of the 19th to early 20th centuries. Maybe I overlooked something. Working in Albuquerque a few years back, I saw a lot of law officer badges cut from silver dollars and other large coins at coin shows and gun shows; and I rejected them all as forgeries. Not that such a thing could not be real on occasion, but like "brothel tokens" made from Large Cents, spurious "lumber tokens" and "slave badges" and "Western Assay Bars" fakes exist in abundance; and genuines might not exist at all. Any opinions on the Cinco Peso of the Texas Rangers?

Curious and interesting! Have you tried viewing it obliquely, as suggested by Geraldine Chimirri-Russell? Does the "obverse" in particular become anything else?

Very nice. I wonder what could be done with Lloyd's as a theme?

Not my bailiwick, so at the risk of being wrong, I read along the right side of the bottom picture EBOR which is the old name for York: Eboricum. So, this would be a penny from the Dark Ages, before 1066. But it is not genuine. It is hard to tell from a snapshot, of course, but overall, it has the look of a museum store copy. The easy fact is that ground moves. Something from 10,000 years ago can come to the surface. Something from last summer will sink. Here in the States, we get this from "coin" finds at Civil War sites, especially in the South. These replicas go back a century. People stop at a roadside shop, buy some trinkets, visit the site, and lose one on the old battleground or nearby a few miles. Some years or decades later, someone else comes along (perhaps with a metal detector) and lo! a Civil War coin is discovered. Yours might have been lost by young knights holding the garden while warring for the yard in 1960. That said, mine is but the first reply. We must wait for the experts to advise.

Vernal Equinox... Daylight Savings... Passover and Easter (both late this year: full moon on the 19th of March; next one on the 18th of April). ... I am going to jump ahead to May Day, comrades. 1 Ruble 1924. Yeoman 90. Lenin's New Economic Policy brings a temporary return to hard money. Obv: Proletarian shows farmer the glorious new day.

I think I heard of them. In fact, I just now finished a cup of coffee. Funny thing, coffee: in England coffeehouses of the Age of Reason created bank clearinghouses and insurance companies; in France, the coffeehouses of the Enlightenment spawned the Encyclopedists and the Revolution. Nice medal, too, Ian: you have a great eye.

Not a big fan of the Turkish occupation of Cyprus, but the coin is nice, a pleasant modernization of an old icon. Re the aboves, I have an interest in aviation and space, so I have the Tsiolkovski commemorative ruble and some of the "Man in Space" coins, which I believe were gas station issues. Interesting...

Still a nice addition. You must be very happy with it. The wear attests to the history. No telling what this coin saw in its day.

Nature and nature's laws lay hid in night; God said, 'Let Newton be' and all was light. Alexander Pope Sir Isaac Newton was born on Christmas Day 1642 (Old Style) which was modernized to 4 January 1643. However, we still like to note that Newton was born in the year that Galileo died, 1642. For most people, Newton is famous for his Three Laws of Motiion, for inventing the Calculus to prove his theories of celestial and terrestrial mechanics. In addition Newton invented the reflecting telescope as a result of his experiments with light. And he also proved the general case for the Binomial Theorem ("Pascal's Triangle"). We tend to ignore his religious writings, the extent of which actually eclipsed his scientific production. His Arian beliefs foreshadowed modern Unitarianism, but he swore under oath to be a Trinitarian so that he could teach at Cambridge. Few people except numismatists know him to have been the Warden and Master of the British Royal Mint. In 2001, I wrote a biography of Newton for the ANA's Numismatist magazine. Last year, I was happy to be able to place several reviews of Thomas Levenson's new book, Newton and the Counterfeiter. As Warden, he had himself sworn as a justice of the peace so that he could conduct investigations. In disguise, he pursued counterfeiters in pubs and taverns. MERRY NEWTONMAS TO YOU! Michael

Nice work! When I was on projects in Columbus, walking around downtown, I saw the 1907 Peace Dollar. It's a poor workman who blames his tools, so I will not fault my camera for the fact that I never got a picture. (My avatar is the work of a photography lab aide in the fine arts department of my community college when I worked in campus safety.) I believe that in architecture, these are called "medals." That makes it hard to search via the usual engines because you get way too many hits for the easy answer. Decorations such as these must certainly be found in other places in addition to Columbus, Ohio. Does anyone know of them in your own locales? Thanks, again, ikaros, for the hard work and good shooting.

Omnicoin makes some assumptions about dimensions, so the bar is clipped, but it is a one-ounce silver bar with Ebeneezer Scrooge, mottoed "Bah! Humbug!" He clutches a purse presumably full of coins.

From 1992-1999, we lived in the village of Fowlerville, Michigan, in Livingston County. Howell is the county seat. These "Turkey Bucks" were promotions from two grocers, VGs and Felpausch's, both in the chain of Spartan independently owned grocers. Above from 1993 Above from 1995 Terms on the back say no limit to the number of turkeys you can get. All coupons must be redeemed 11/15 to 11/24/1993 (11/12 to 11/22/1995). In 1993, you got one Turkey Buck for each $25 in retail purchases (excluding alcohol and tobacco). Also one Turkey Buck for each purchase of special promotional items marked for Turkey Bucks. In 1995, 50cent coupons were given for the purchase of promotional items only. In 1993, Turkey Bucks could be redeemed for one fresh bird. 12 Turkey Bucks for a 10-14 lb; 18 Turkey Bucks for a 15-18 lb; 24 for a 19-22 lb. In 1995, redemption was for cash value toward the purchase of a Spartan brand frozen bird.

One kid came as a Washington Quarter (eagle reverse) and I gave him foreign coins and a banknote with his candy. A parent with kids was dressed as convict, so I gave him a stock certificate: seemed appropriate. Thanksgiving for me is the MSNS Convention in Dearborn. I have two exhibits to place and I asked the Paper Money Collectors of Michigan if I could deliver a short talk. (I am preparing a presentation for the Numismatic Theaters at the 2011 ANA Conventions.) The Bourse, the Educational Forum, and Board Meeting just about round out the show for me with the Sunday Breakfast capping the event. For Christmas, I have a post here already up above. In the past, I gave packages of coins, notes, and stock certificates to nieces and nephews, but they are all older now. (So am I. How did that happen?) Same with Hanukkah. I used to give real gelt to the daughters of our accountant, but they're married now -- though he isn't -- so that's not an option. I need some holiday cheer...

Should be checked with a virtual machine heavily protected. Russian computers are notorious for zombies, phishing, Trojan horses and other attacks. Just saying...

Innocent until proved guilty. Accusations are not evidences. I encourage you to make it into a feature, say 1500 words give or take, based on what you wrote here. You might as well get paid for it. One of the comforts of journalism is that you don't have to prove anything.

The problem -- if it was one -- was their "collectibles" series were by subscription. Once enrolled, you bought and bought and bought... FM was not keen to buy back its material, thus the charges, as if you could sell a car back to the dealer or General Motors even if it was never driven. Anyway, buyers fell for the lure of instant investments that others would beg from their hands. I am not sure how FM baited the hook, and it does not matter to me. No one ever faulted their workmanship. As in the 18th century when the private firms of Birmingham left the Royal Mint becalmed in the doldrums, the government mints had to play "catch up." And at some level, it is not always fair to expect the public agencies to be on the leading edge. Tangentially, in 1800 and 1802, Republicans in the US Senate proposed closing our Mint as a deadweight loss on the public treasury. So, small countries in our time find it more advantageous to have the USA, Royal Canadian Mint, and others take their work for a price. As for the FM logo on products packaged by the British Royal Mint, we had a similar "scandal" here in the 1990s when someone discovered Chevrolet engines in Oldsmobile bodies, though, of course, both are GM operations. (CPC=Cheverolet-Pontiac-Canada) and BOC (Buick-Oldsmobile-Cadillac). The perception being that Chevrolets were not as "quality" a product as a senior lines. Be all that as it may, I grant that your discovery is an interesting footnote. I recommend that you write it up as an article for a numismatic periodical. You will get paid for your work and it will reach a wider audience. The papers like bleeding headlines, but myself, I fail to see the "unholy alliance." (BTW, a play on the "Holy Alliance" of Russia, Austria, and Prussia against France 1815. In 1793, France did have a ship of the line called the Atheist. But by 1815, Napoleon was crowned in 1804, by the Pope whom he refused to dislodge from Rome in 1797 and for whom he agreed to a Concordat to assuage French Catholics in 1801. Hence, the question of what made the Triple Alliance especially "holy".)