RWB

Thanks! Hadn't seen that, but they only send review copies occasionally.

? Haven't seen that....or did I misread?

"Minimal effort" produces "minimal results." The meaningful value is to use reduced effort in one aspect to improve the effort in another, more difficult aspect. Time saved, must not be time lost....it is only redirected to improved productivity.

There appears to be a continuing interest in film and home darkrooms. The range of products is small compared to the 1980s, and there's no product improvement pressure, but people continue to want hands-on control and the ability to "see' much deeper into a film negative than almost any digital image. I've mentioned before the old lunar photos made on film and their much superior tonal performance compared to "modern" NASA digital images.

Oh, I thought they were searching for truffles. The old store and brickyard sites should be great places to search for coins and tokens. Speaking of truffles --- I gave my new son-in-law pile of real Kentucky country ham -- thin sliced. He loves ham and this was really special for him. (His family is from Florida -- all they have there is canned iguana, iguana kebabs, and frozen candied iguana on a stick.)

Bowers' books were, and are, mostly assembled by assistants. I've edited several and it's a well organized, efficient process.

Most were melted in commercial export use. That creates a series of possible varieties with many gaps and highly irregular availability. For some years/mints, and EF might be the best coin known.

This is consistent with the Bowers book approach --. Nothing bad about it as long as one is looking for high-level "headline" context. Others prefer a more tightly focused approach, but -- heck, Bowers' books are good sellers....Most others aren't.

The grading system has a more ancient origin than many suppose. It is first mentioned on tablets found in the ruins of the Sumerian city of Jemdet Nasr. These were counting or trade tokens representing a certain quantity of agricultural products, much like a modern bill of lading or possibly a promissory note. In the instance of grading, the sexagesimal (base 60) scale was used to define the quality of wheat grain based on a physical count of rat droppings in a "gur" (or standard measure) of grain. A higher quantity of rat poo per measure was indicated my a separate symbol, rather than by a set of items followed by numbers. (That is, there was a separate symbol for "1 sheep" and another for "5 sheep." The result was hundreds of individual symbols for products and quantities.) When modern third party coin grading was invented, the founding brothers adopted this Sumerian system because it was both obscure and knowable only to a very few indoctrinated elites. They also changed it into a base 70 system from base 60, and inverted the resulting decimal equivalents so that higher modern numbers indicate LESS rat poo, rather than MORE as did the ancient forefathers, foremothers, and foreothers. This resulted in the current base 70: 1-70 numbers with each number preceded by a symbol such as "MS". "AU". "EF" or the commonly used "FU." This was a very abbreviated overview. You can find more in the Handbook of Gradeflation and Taxidermy. Also, my new book Numismatic Flatulence is a good source of fibre. Enjoy the hobby and history, and forget the numbers.

Interesting. I've found it to be the best of all auction company sites and filled with information if you are looking for coin images. Auction lot descriptions are helpful pointers to original sources - especially the ones written over the past decade.

Cloth fragments are the most commonly seen "strike through" materials. They were used to wipe die surfaces at all stages of production as well as equipment, operators' hands, washing and drying after work and before lunch, etc. One cannot assume anything about the order in which dies were used from strike though remnants. Most are one-and-done events because the material is destroyed by striking.

For me, as a minor scribbler, this is a big part of the reason for publishing in printed form: it's not going to suddenly evaporate. I attempt to present a broader expanse of the subject and to place details within context so that readers can have a fuller understanding of the subject and its historical meaning.

The diameters of blanks will vary much as I described above. It is an engineering quantity, not a legal one. The value given for WL halves is as good as any.

Bologna. Applies to stars, asterisks, pluses, crosses, tilde, squiggles and all the other nonsense dreamt up to confuse, obfuscate, and mislead collectors. That otherwise thoughtful people buy into this - literally - is sad.

Bologna.

There is a lot of information on Wharton's adventures with the US Mint Bureau. By the time his nickel business was ready, the mint had changed to bronze. So Wharton began lobbying for using nickel in other denominations.....3-cent, 5-cent, proposal 10-cent, etc.

Polishing is done today with a cerium oxide lap matching the die radius. I've forgotten whether the die is polished first then laser etched for fake-frost, or if it's the other way around. The older way always involved polishing first, with re-dipping when relief frost faded. A frisket (relief mask) was also used for some years in the 70s-90s to protect the fields. These were hand cut, and a real time consuming task that (I recall) the engravers complaining about.

Yep. And when ANA sold off its baby and then removed its own spine, the entire adventure lost not only its leadership, but its ethical stability. Now....it is corrupt and becoming "corrupter" by the week. Maybe one of those "deep pocket" people who claim to be collectors will actually fund a "Renaissance of American Coin Grading" where stability, consistency, reliability and absolute honesty are valued for their own benefit and not financial greed. (OK...OK....you can stop laughing out there....We all know that's not going to happen!)

Wally's associations with shysters and conmen, on whom he was financially dependent, readily corrupted his original research and work. It is an apt parallel to his personal ethics. His various "owners" of course saw to it that they did not die in prison, and were even respected by some. Today, there is incessant struggle to separate fact from his fiction - making everything he wrote suspect.

Diameter and thickness of a cut/punched blank were not legally specified values. They varied with the fixed diameter of a coin , and the variable angle and height of upset necessary to produce a legal coin, free of defects, from the working dies available at any specific time. The notebook pages EagleRJO posted are from my research files.

A large proportion of all 1880 silver dollars are /79. Greater visibility = greater premium. PS: The GSA silver dollars were not a "hoard." They were not amassed intentionally,

Hospitals are among the greatest store of pathogens anywhere. Technology to sanitize every surface every day exists, but most rely of alcohol, topical betadine and getting your money in their pockets and your germie body out the door, before your get really ill.

Almost every possible way of polishing proof dies was tried. I'm not sure that any one method was adopted as "standard." More like what worked best for an assistant or diesinker.

Breen's actual research was limited. Dorothy Pascal did most of the work along with Taxay, The research was largely superficial, which Wally then filled in with conjecture and lies. Further, there was a strong tendency to pick-and-choose pieces supporting a specific opinion rather than allowing the materials to speak for themselves. Julian is, in my opinion, the most attentive and reliable research source.

"Value" is not part of the condition, "grade", of a coin or medal, or baseball card, or used car.