I received an email this week from Jeff Shevlin announcing an auction of 75 lots of so-called dollars to take place at the FUN convention next month. It led me to his excellent web site and I reviewed again what he says there about himself, his chosen interest-niche-passion of so-called dollars and his Discussion Page that encourages collectors to comment on a wide variety of subjects related to this numismatic medal topic-specialty.

I don't know anyone in numismatics who has more fun than Jeff Shevlin!

Jeff has chosen a very narrow specialty within the numismatic field: American So-Called Dollars. There are only about 950 of these. Jeff has studied these, collected these, and now makes a business of dealing in them. He has written articles about these, and now even written a book on just one of these little gold dollar issues with a co-author William D. Hyder.

He attends major conventions with a stock of his special medals. He has acquired world-renowned collections of so-called dollars. He has researched deeply into the history of selected issues and plans to expand this to, perhaps, a series of books similar to the one he just published on the Charbneau Dollar.

I arranged for a plant visit for Jeff and his sidekick, Bill Hyder, at Medallic Art Company's Dayton, Nevada, plant. There the pair saw how modern medals are made at every step of manufacture. This undoubtedly gives insight into Jeff's knowledge of the making of these items from the earliest 1826 Erie Canal Completion Medal to the present. It makes Jeff a better writer and a better dealer in this specialized collectible series.

Jeff and I have exchanged emails on a variety of so-called dollar subjects, including such subjects as a definition of so-called dollars and should certain medals be delisted from the standard work on the subject -- by Hibler and Kappen -- and not be classed as "so-called dollars" any longer. My definition entails the type of press on which these medals were struck. (I touched on this in an article in TAMS Journal, Sept-Oct 2011, page 140-142, defining "art medals.")

We also discussed should new issues be added to those that HK cataloged in their standard work. That's still open for more discussion.

So you can imagine the scope that Jeff has carved out for himself and the fun one person can have in the field of numismatics. Pick a narrow subject and learn everything about it you can. Become the expert like Jeff has become the expert on so-called dollars.

Here's the link to Jeff's web site: To read the complete article, see:www.So-Called Dollar.com