Digitization of the Eric P. Newman correspondence files continues apace, with correspondents through the letter "J" now posted on the Newman Portal. In processing the letter K, we came upon an interesting letter of acknowledgement from Newman to Alexander Kaptik, who in 1966 donated to the Eric P. Newman Numismatic Education Society a specimen of timber recovered from the demolition of the first United States Mint in 1911.

Newman writes in part "We are simply delighted...It is one of those strange replicas which brings a nostalgic feeling to everyone in numismatics. It must be a wish that they could have been there to witness the operations. This piece of timber saw some beautiful coinage and witnessed brutal toil which went into its production."

Kaptik was active in the Philadelphia Coin Club, bourse chairman of the 1957 Philadelphia ANA, and served on the Assay Commission in 1965. Kaptik likely received this piece from George Cucore, a fellow Philadelphia Coin Club member, as detailed in Secret History of the First United States Mint (Whitman Publishing, 2011), pp. 80-85.

Link to Newman correspondence on the Newman Portal:
https://nnp.wustl.edu/Library/Archives?searchLetter=E