Rita and I just returned from a two week auto trip from Colorado to the East Coast and back. The main reason was to pick up some of items from my parents' house that my brother and I had taken from the house after my Mom died in June. We had left most of the "valuables" in my brother's garage and basement and hadn't had a chance to get back and go over the "stuff". Since we are having major remodeling work being done on our house we thought it would be a good time to get out of town.

As hard as it was for me we did not stop at any coin shops nor even call any numismatic friends. However we made short stops at some historical sites which of course had a numismatic connection, The Abraham Lincoln Museum and Library in Springfield, IL, Gettysburg PA and Mt. Rushmore. Obviously in our Abraham Lincoln adventure we saw plenty of Lincoln "Cents" in various sizes for sale. And at North American Indian Museum (I think that's the name) at Crazy Horse Mountain we saw at least two Indian Silver Certificates.

One place that we didn't expect to see numismatic relics was at the National Czech and Slovak Museum in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. They were having a major exhibition of Alphonse Mucha the famed Czech "Art Nouveau" artist. My wife loves his work and has numerous Mucha postcards in her collection. However I had never made the connection to his work and Czech banknotes but he designed a number of Czechoslovakian banknotes from the 1st republic formed after World War I. Always something to learn.

Today I came across this short article about somebody posing as a cop to get a better deal in the disposal of his coin collection. I probably wouldn't have paid any attention to it but this happened in Portage, Indiana, a town I was not even aware of until last week when we stayed there on our way home

To read the complete article, see:Police: Man posed as cop for coin deal(www.nwitimes.com/news/local/porter/portage/police-man-posed
-as-officer-to-get-better-deal-on/
article_27aea96c-f9fe-5ae2-8d9a-122618570a70.html)