Regarding the Kolbe & Fanning numismatic literature sale #119 coming up on November 18th, 2010, Joel Orosz writes:

My copy of the sale arrived this week, too.I was equally pleased with the sale cover - that lot is from my consignment of newspapers with numismatic content, and K&F chose one of my favorite items in the collection, a contemporary account of the 1851 sale of the coin collection of Dr. Lewis Roper. I have a handpriced copy of the catalog in my library (Mark Collet's copy).

Joel wrote a great article for the January 2001 issue of The Numismatist titled "Dr. Lewis Roper: Argonaut of the Numismatic Realm"The Roper sale was a landmark event in American numismatic history. From Joel's article:

Cataloguer David Fanning kindly sent me the text for the lot description:

Joel Orosz adds:

Well, I had competition and didn't get every item I went after. But what I've enjoyed about collecting numismatic ephemera of all types is threefold - the thrill of the hunt, the ultimate discovery of significant items, and their high rarity. Ephemeral items like newspapers were meant to be used and thrown away, and most were. The Roper catalog itself is an extreme rarity in numismatic literature, but I wouldn't be surprised to learn that newspaper accounts like this are even more rare. I've never seen nor heard of another.

Last week I discussed a few of my other favorite items from the collection, including contemporary accounts of new Fugio Cents and 1794 Dollars.

To read the earlier E-Sylum article, see:NUMISMATIC GLEANINGS FROM CONTEMPORARY NEWSPAPERS(www.coinbooks.org/esylum_v13n42a11.html)