"The image of the Hungarian coin that you were sent for that very interesting article by Tom Babinszki, is the wrong side of the coin for the AI description. That coin is a KM-689 (200 forint, 1992-1993). Based on the way KM has the pix arranged, the image shown is of the obverse of the coin, but the computer's description is of the reverse."

"Thank you so much for pointing it out, what I read from was a file on my hard drive, and I later added the wrong image, it should be fixed now."

It's indeed fixed on Tom's blog now, and our webmaster Bruce Perdue has updated the E-Sylum archive as well. Thanks, everyone. Here's the correct image. -Editor

"The Stacks Bowers post about the Mint fire of 1816 was interesting, but it left out what I think is the most interesting part of the story.

"During the first 10 days of January, the Mint had been busy striking 20,003 quarters and 147,150 half dollars. All were dated 1815 using dies that were left over. The fire conveniently happened right after the silver coins were delivered. No more could be produced until the Mint acquired new rolling mills, which did not happen until 1817.

"Copper coins could be struck from planchets received in late 1815, and quantities were delivered to the treasurer on February 3, 20 and 26. What is most interesting about these coins is that they were all dated 1814 and were of the Classic Head type. The new Matron Head design was implemented several months later. We know this because the surviving number of 1814 cents is far too high relative to that of the other Classic Heads, if the reported mintages are accurate. Similarly, the surviving number of 1816-dated cents is too low relative to the other Matron Heads of the period.

"Why did the mint strike cents with an obsolete date in 1816? We can only speculate, but it seems most likely that there had been no planning to introduce a new cent type in the first few days of 1816, so no new master dies had been produced. The early cent coinage of 1816 was a contingency to keep the mint workers busy when no gold or silver coins could be produced. Because of this, specialists who collect 1816 cents now sometimes add the 1814 Plain 4 variety to their sets.

For a full explanation, see Bill's article in The Numismatist, May, 2018, beginning on page 54. -Editor

"A new social media page is available on Facebook dedicated only to divulge information of Mexican Numismatics of all topics. I invite you to follow the page:
https://facebook.com/profile.php?id=61555370542876."

Bibliophiles note - the page includes a number of recommendations of books on Mexican numismatics. -Editor

"I read with interest the latest E-Sylum and wanted to comment on biographical/genealogical references made by Jim Haas. I wrote an article and won the 1st place Literary Award for the Civil War Token Society in 1992 about the only issuer of a Civil War token from Maine, R.S.Torrey. In my article I noted contradictory information including different dates of death. As it turns out, there were 2 men living about 75 miles apart at the same time with the same very unusual name of Ruggles Sylvester Torrey. Of course I wrote about the wrong one. The issuer of the token was a scoundrel who preyed upon women but the one I wrote about was an upstanding citizen, and the last hangman in Maine. I offered to return my award but my offer was denied. And as Mr. Haas said "Live and learn"."

Wow - that's how stuff happens. It's a rough world out there for researchers. I added an image of one of Torrey's tokens from Steve Hayden's site. -Editor

"You posted an item about a "paperweight" replica of a 1588 Dutch medal. Here's what I found in my English language version of Gerard Van Loon's "MEDALLIC HISTORY OF THE LOW COUNTRIES (1555-1716), VOL. I: 1555-1602" on page I•311. In summary, a stunning Dutch medal commemorating a catastrophic defeat of the Spanish war fleet."

Thanks - great medal commemorating a landmark historical event. -Editor

"I'm in business 50 years now. Had my first terrible experience at a coin show, with the service PMG. Sent in seven great early notes for their service. Was charged amazingly high fees totaling over $5,000. Got six of them back at the tail end of the FUN show. One of them was apparently sent back to their offices in Sarasota. I'm still waiting for it to be sent to me. Called them several times and received the same stock answer on its way to the shipping department. Disappointed and disgusted..."

FUN was quite a busy show from the reports I've seen. Not being a regular user of grading services, I'm unfamiliar with today's fee structures, and we generally avoid discussions of grading and pricing to focus on numismatics. But hobby history is fair game. Is anything new going on in today's market? -Editor