• Contents of this Issue
  • Notes
  • CCC Meeting Minutes
  • The Newman Numismatic Portal: What It Is, How It Works, and What It Can Do for Collectors
  • Walter Perschke (1939-2016)
  • Exhibits
  • Upcoming Meeting
  • Important Dates
  • Chatter Matter
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Chatter

Editor’s Notes

This issue is mailed a little earlier than usual because of my summer vacation, so the details on featured speakers are lacking. I will also miss our July meeting, but the August Chatter will be produced on the usual schedule — we hope someone will write a summary, of the featured program at our July meeting, for the August Chatter.

I also will miss our August meeting because I will be in Anaheim for the ANA convention. I will not be our only member there, so I look forward to some trip reports for the September Chatter.

Paul Hybert, editor

Minutes of the 1170th Meeting

The 1170th meeting of the Chicago Coin Club was held June 8, 2016 in the Chicago Bar Association Building, 321 S. Plymouth Court, Downtown Chicago. President Elliott Krieter called the meeting to order at 6:45 PM with 23 members and 4 guests: Deb Kurtz Augsburger, Jennifer Mayster, Tom Dewing, and D. Michael Andre.

A motion was passed to accept the May Minutes as published in the Chatter. Treasurer Steve Zitowsky gave a detailed financial report for March showing $1,271.00 in revenue and $337.42 in expenses, total assets of $28,822.45. A motion was passed accepting the report.

President Krieter announced that the Board considered two designs for a new speaker’s medal and had unanimously recommended a hexagonal die-struck medal with the Club logo colorized. After a discussion, a motion was passed to strike the medal in nickel-silver with multi-colored logo and spend up to $2,700.00 for the die and approximate 3 year supply.

It was announced that Chicago Coin Company and Niles Coin Shop each donated $500.00 toward the cost of a new digital projector for Club use. After a discussion on different models, a motion was passed to spend up to $1,500.00.

The recent passing of Walter Perschke, member 842, was announced and the membership stood for a moment of silence.

First V.P. Richard Lipman introduced featured speaker Leonard Augsburger who delivered a presentation The Newman Numismatic Portal: What It Is, How It Works, and What It Can Do for Collectors. Following many questions, Leonard was presented with an ANA Educational Certificate and engraved Club medal.

Second V.P. Marc Stackler announced the exhibitors. RICHARD HAMILTON: 3 silver coins with animal images. PHIL CARRIGAN: 2 slabbed 1829 bust dimes. ROBERT LEONARD: 5 coins from Byzantine Emperor Justin I, 518-527 AD. STEVE ZITOWSKY: 7 different coin weights. MARK WIECLAW: 5 items including a $5 gold coin folder, 2 didrachms, and elongated coins. DEVEN KANE: a coin issued 1650 to celebrate peace in Nuremberg, and 3 coins honoring women rulers. ROBERT FEILER: token from Virgil Brand collection showing 6-masted schooner, plus tackle salvaged from a Lake Michigan wreck. DALE CARLSON: 3 2016 Illinois Shawnee National Forest quarters showing slight differences. LYLE DALY: a medal commemorating the 60th Anniversary of the Liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau, and a telegram from Nov 1945 announcing his father’s impending army discharge. RICHARD LIPMAN: a 5-cent Imperial Reply Coupon from British Honduras, notes from New Zealand and West Samoa, and an erroneous legend on a token.

The meeting was adjourned at 8:57 PM.

Respectfully Submitted,
Carl Wolf, Secretary

Speaker’s Wor[l]d
The Newman Numismatic Portal: What It Is, How It Works, and What It Can Do for Collectors

a presentation by Len Augsburger,
to our June 8, 2016 meeting

The Newman Numismatic Portal (NNP) is the latest numismatic endeavor of Eric P. Newman of St. Louis, Missouri. Its goal is to be a comprehensive online numismatic reference library, with a focus on American numismatics, and available to collectors and the public on a free and forever basis. The website www.NewmanPortal.org has been available to the public since only December, 2015, and already it holds over 250,000 pages from over 6,000 documents. Its physical home is in the library on the campus of the Washington University in St. Louis which, for the last 10 years, has been the home of the Newman Money Museum.

Our speaker, Len Augsburger, has been employed as the project coordinator since May of 2015. Robert Manley is employed as the full-time scanning manager, and there are many students doing the actual scans of the documents. Another full-time scanner works at the American Numismatic Society in New York, scanning items in their collections. For the rest of the program, Len visited the website and also used slides of screen shots to illustrate the site’s current capabilities. Under the Library tab, a visitor can select from a number of areas, including books, people, periodicals, and archives. The Periodicals page lists many items alphabetically by title, and Len followed the link for the C4 Newsletter. The resulting page started with a paragraph about the Colonial Coin Collectors Club, and followed that with a list of years from 1993 to 2011. Selecting 2000 resulted in the front page, as a small icon, and a two-line description for each of the four issues from 2000. Selecting the first icon took him to the Spring, 2000 issue, which he was able to page through. A number of clubs have provided NNP with complete sets of their journals, usually excluding some of the most recent years. When they scan periodicals, they try for completeness. Mention was made of the site’s search engine, which can search all text on the site — they hope to allow a limited search, by title or year or other aspect, in the future, but their main emphasis now is on scanning more documents.

When making documents available to everyone on the Internet, copyrights must be respected. Old books and magazines from before the 1920s are out of US copyright protection, as are any US government publications, so these can be presented without worry. The recent club journals presented on the Portal are there because the copyright holder gave permission. Pete Smith gave permission for his numismatic biographies to be presented on the Portal, and they can be found under the people tab of the library.

Under the archives tab, Len showed us material of the Western Pennsylvania Numismatic Society, including hand-written ledgers from the 19th century — a wonderful view into the early history of that group. Other items scanned, either recently or expected soon, include the Burdette Johnson invoices and the Eric P. Newman correspondence.

Under the auctions tab, Len is trying for completeness from the 19th and early 20th centuries. He showed us two of the named and priced Chapman catalogs — named and priced means that someone wrote in the name of the successful bidder, along with the winning bid, for each lot. Multiple copies of an item could be presented if each has interesting annotations. Early plated and important catalogs are very collectible and can be pricey — Len sometimes is asked if its value will fall once it is available online for free — Len thinks not, at least for the level of a plated Chapman catalog with annotations. The ANS Library is providing many of the early catalogs for scanning.

Under the books tab, a visitor can find Mint Reports, Counterfeit Detectors, and other items that now are in the public domain. Many of the current works are still under copyright, so unless the owner’ permission is obtained, the Portal wll scan it and add its content to the search engine, but will not show the complete text, only a brief part around the search term, to give the searcher an idea of the context. This is how Google and some other search engines handle works still under copyright.

Len spent the rest of the presentation on recent additions and efforts for 2016. The Portal added a copy of the 1864 “Mrs. Marshall” Catalogue of Coins — although the book is seldom encountered, it has been mentioned in the numismatic press. Her husband died in 1850 in California, on the gold rush, but she added to the collection, and exhibited it at Delaware County (New York) fairs. A 1999 article in the Asylum, the journal of the Numismatic Bibliomania Society, showed Marshall among the buyers listed in some contemporary named auction catalogues. The Asylum is among the journals on the Portal, and readers of the Esylum (the free emailed weekly newsletter of the NBS) are treated to reports on the latest additions to the Portal. Material need not be old and obscure for it to be added to the Portal. The US Mint recently provided about 80 pages of documents, including proposed designs, for the 2017 American Liberty High Relief $100 gold coin. This coin will use the first African-American interpretation of Miss Liberty. Len is trying to find a way for the Portal to have access to the National Archives & Record Administration, to scan primary ledgers and records from the early US Mint.

Crowdsourcing is when a website uses members of the public to perform tasks. The Portal is looking into offering such a capability; to show us what is possible, Len showed us two examples. The Smithsonian has thousands of proof sheets of paper money, but no descriptions. A page on their website shows a picture of an item, along with a number of empty text boxes where a visitor can enter the bank’s name, location, and details about the notes. The TokenCatalog.com site offers visitors the chance to identify tokens, and Len showed us the start of the listing of tokens from Illinois — there are 17,564 tokens from Illinois so far. For these sites to be accurate, there must be a way to check the work by others, and and allow changes — but the same can be said about sites that use a computer program to convert a picture of a page of text into text that can be indexed, searched, and copied.

The Portal looks for interesting items to add — books, catalogs, journals, and even videos. Contact them if your group has material it wishes to make available to everyone at no charge.

Walter Perschke (1939-2016)

Walter “Bud” Perschke passed away May 20, 2016. He joined the Chicago Coin Club in October 1968 and became member 842.

Walter was born February 25, 1939 in McHenry, IL, attended Lane Tech, and received his undergraduate degree from the University of Chicago. He was a professional numismatist, finance columnist for Chicago Daily News, had an Emmy-nominated TV show “Ask an Expert” and appeared regularly on PBS’s “Wall Street Week.”

Walter was an internationally renowned numismatic expert and business man. He owned for 35 years, what is considered the finest certified example of the 1787 Brasher, Punch on the Wing, gold Doubloon. He also owned for 30+ years the unique 1783 Nova Constellatio, Type II quint pattern.

A memorial service will be held 6 PM, June 26 at Unity Church in Chicago, 1925 W. Thome Ave., Chicago.

Sincerely,
Carl Wolf, Secretary

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Show and Tell

Items shown at our June 8, 2016 meeting,

1. Richard Hamilton showed 3 silver bullion crown-sized items from his “animals on coins” collection.
   1. $5 Canada .9999 fine one ounce, with a Flying Eagle, dated 2014.
   2. $5 Canada .9999 fine one ounce, with a Mountain Lion and a miniature Maple Leaf, dated 2016.
   3. $2 Niue .999 fine one ounce, with a Turtle, dated 2016.
2. Phil Carrigan showed 2 1829 bust dimes, both slabbed. They are among 14 different die marriages from 1829 alone. The obvious difference between these two varieties is the size of the denomination on the reverse.
   1. 1829 small 10 C, JR-9.
   2. 1829 medium 10 C, JR-12.
3. Bob Leonard had 5 coins associated with the Byzantine Emperor Justin I, 518-527.
   1. A normal follis (or 40 nummia) copper coin of Justin I.
   2. Another follis, with a badly blundered obverse inscription using nicely formed letters, and a perfectly normal reverse. A contemporary imitation? Or an illiterate diecutter, attempting to follow a pattern? This coin is from the Prue Morgan Fitts Collection sold by CNG, merely noted by her as “blundered.”
   3. A contemporary imitation of a follis of either Anastasius I, Justin I, or Justinian I, very much smaller and cruder than the preceding.
   4. A follis of the joint reign of Justin I and Justinian I, April 4 to August 1, 527. Coins of this brief joint reign were once considered to be great rarities, but many more have been found in recent years. This coin is ex CNG, from the Bramhill Collection of England, and earlier from the Robert N. Bridge Collection prior to 1990.
   5. A half follis (20 nummia) of the joint reign of Justin I and Justinian I. Unlike the follis, this coin is truly scarce, though the catalog value does not reflect that. It is an eBay cherry-pick as “Justinian I.”
4. Steve Zitowsky brought coin weights that have a design element from the corresponding coin:
   1. Spain: a Double Excellent Weight (1469-1504), Ferdinand & Isabella.
   2. England: a Double Crown Weight (1603-25), James I.
   3. England: Rose Ryal Weight (1603-25).
   4. England: Spur Ryal Weight (1603-25), a “spur” being a sun (small dot) with pointed rays set within a rose.
   5. England: Unite Weight (1625-49), Charles I.
   6. England: Crown Weight (1625-49).
   7. Genoa: 48 Lire Weight (1793-97).
5. Mark Wieclaw talked about these items:
   1. A blue folder album for U.S. $5.00 gold coins, at least that is what the cover seems to say. It is actually for $5 US Presidential pieces struck for Liberia.
   2. A Didrachm from Populonia, Etruria (3rd Century BC) with a Gorgon head.
   3. A Didrachm from Segesta, Sicily, 412-400 BC with a dog (resembling a greyhound).
   4. Misc. elongated coins from this year’s C.S.N.S. convention. (This time for real).
   5. A two-coin set issued to celebrate the 25th anniversary of Coins magazine in 1980: 1955-S Lincoln Cent and Roosevelt Dime, with information about the San Francisco mint.
6. Deven Kane discussed four coins.
   1. A 1650 “Stecchenreiterkilppe” of Nuremberg in the name of Ferdinand III. Klippes are square coins minted generally in times of war, since it is much easier to cut metal strips into squares, or used to issue commemorative coins, such as this one. Even though the Thirty Years War ended in 1648 by the Treaties of Westphalia, Germany was still full of foreign armies. In 1650 the parties met in the Imperial City of Nuremberg and hashed out the details by which the foreign troops would finally leave Germany. To commemorate this a special coin was issued. An article on academia.edu that noted that after the agreement was signed, the children of Nuremberg gathered in great numbers with their hobby horses, demanding a token of the peace from the assembled princes. The princes, being in a celebratory mood, told them to return the following week, when they were handed this coin. The obverse shows a child with a hobby horse carrying a toy sword, and the reverse notes the emperor, but it does not explicitly reference the onset of peace.
   2. Continuing a theme from a few years ago: a Luigino dated 1666. The Luigino was valued at one twelfth of a Louis d’argent (a silver Ecu) started by Louis XIII of France and continued by Louis XIV. These coins became very popular in the Ottoman Empire for use as jewelry and buttons on clothing. Since they were being bought for more than their silver was worth, immitations were produced by a number of small principalities. This piece was produced by Livia. As usual, the obverse portrait imitates Anna Maria Luisa d’Orléans, Princess of Dombes and the first cousin of Louis XIV, with the Bourbon coat of arms on the reverse. Even though they were making money on the sale of these pieces, they tried for even more money by debasing the coins!
   3. A 2 Dirhams coin of Sati Beg (1338-1339). The Il Khanate was the Persian branch of the Mongol Empire founded by Hulagu, brother of Khublai Khan. At its peak, the Il Khanate conquered Iraq, sacked Baghdad, broke the power of the Seljuk Sultanate of Rum, and invaded Syria — then were stopped by the Mamelukes of Egypt. Following the death of the Ilkhan Abu Said and his sons from the black death in 1335, the resulting civil war saw various factions placing their own contenders on the throne. Sati Beg was Abu Said’s sister, and was briefly placed on the throne by one faction. Her nominal authority did not exceed beyond Northwestern Iran. She was soon deposed and forced to marry another pretender to the throne, and she disappeared from the records around 1345. She is one of the rarer medieval rulers to issue coins, and one of the very few female Muslim rulers to issue coins.
   4. A bronze coin from Sri Lanka, of Queen Lilavati (reigned 1197–1200, 1209–10, and 1211–12). Lilavati was the second woman in Sri Lankan history to rule as a sovereign in her own right. She was the chief queen and widow of Parakrambahu the Great. After his death in 1186, Sri Lanka lapsed into anarchy as a series of short lived monarchs came to the throne. In 1197 she was placed on the throne by a victorious general. Each of her three reigns ended in a coup which she survived. The coins from this period in Sri Lankan history give the name of the monarch on the coin, which is not a given for Indian coinage. On one side of the coin, a seated king holds an object; do not confuse the lines representing the king’s robes with additional limbs!
7. Robert Feiler brought a recently acquired token, ex. Virgil Brand collection, with a 6-masted schooner design. This triggered a connection to memories about a similar vessel and a part of its tackle Bob salvaged. The 43 mm Brand medal was manufactured in white metal by J. Davis. It is graded XF-45 by NGC. The medal was issued to commemorate the experimental voyage of the S.S. Great Britain Passage from Bristol to London Jan 26, 1845. The reverse of the medal features twenty-two lines of text to mark the maiden voyage. The obverse features the ship with six masts, which was quite unusual for the era. The ship was launched by Prince Albert who hosted a sit down banquet dinner for 600 guests. The ship was huge for the time at 322 feet long, 50 feet wide, and a depth of 52 feet. It featured 26 one-bed state rooms and 113 two-bed state rooms. The ship performed flawlessly during a heavy gale with high seas. Bob purchased the Great Britain medal because it reminded him of a very large ship wreck on which he dove many times years ago, and recovered a piece of the ship’s tackle.
   The ship was the David Dows, referred to as the “First Lady of Chicago Shipwrecks.” It sank during the Thanksgiving Day storm of 1889. The David Dows was the largest 5-masted schooner in the world at the time. She was 365 feet long, with a 37-foot beam, and 18-foot draft. She carried 540 feet of chain and had anchors weighing 4,000 and 3,600 pounds. To say she was impressive was an understatement. She had been converted into an enormous barge at the time of her sinking in 40 feet of water 5 miles from the Indiana Shoals, a 45-minute boat ride from the Calumet Harbor. The David Dows ship wreck faded into obscurity until divers found it in the late 1950s when SCUBA was in its infancy. Almost every diver to visit her over the years has taken some memento. The Maritime Society has a scale model of the David Dows, which was formerly on exhibit at the Newberry Library.
8. Dale Carlson compared die characteristics of three 2016 Shawnee quarters. While examining some rolls of the new coins, he found many coins that have an extra rock somewhere in the design. He showed us coins with:
   1. No visible defects — what they all should look like.
   2. A die chip resulting in an extra rock atop Camel Rock.
   3. A different die chip resulting in extra rock, but on the side of Camel Rock.
9. Lyle Daly showed two items.
   1. A rectangular Polish Medal, sold bronze but appearing to be nickel due to some kind of silver antique finish. This exquisitely done medal grabs the viewer. It commemorates the 60th Anniversary of the Liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau, 1945-2005.
   2. An item from WWII that he recently found among his father’s uniform: A November 1945 telegram, sent home from Honolulu, announcing his impending discharge from the Army.
10. Rich Lipman presented a range of items.
    1. An Imperial Reply Coupon, stamped British Honduras, worth 5 Cents. This dates back to an agreement among countries in the early half of the 20th century to facilitate return postage. The sender of a letter could purchase a reply coupon and include it in the letter. The recipient would then use the reply coupon to purchase return postage to the sender. Imperial Reply Coupons were good within the British Empire. There were also coupons meant for use world-wide. Rich later mentioned that Charles Ponzi used speculation on these coupons as part of his financial schemes in the 1920s.
    2. Reserve Bank of New Zealand 5 Pound note, from 1940-1955. The front has a vignette of Captain Cook. Both front and back have various Maori iconography.
    3. Western Samoa 1 Pound note. The note was produced for Western Samoa by authority of the New Zealand Government.
    4. A “Veteran” token that used “Veterinary” in the legend, thinking it referred to veterans. The token commemorated victories in Europe and the Pacific in WWII. In the center is a 1945 Lincoln Cent.

Our 1171st Meeting

Important Dates

Unless stated otherwise, our regular monthly CCC Meeting is in downtown Chicago on the second Wednesday of the month; the starting time is 6:45PM.

Chatter Matter

http://www.ChicagoCoinClub.org/

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CHICAGO COIN CLUB
P.O. Box 2301
CHICAGO, IL 60690

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