The rise of mint mark collecting

From 1838 when the first branch mints opened, into the early 1890s, collecting coins was by date only. As hard as it may be to envision today, no one cared if a coin had a CC, S, or some other letter. Mint-marked issues that are considered great rarities today-the 1854-S $2.50 and $5 for example-were worth no more than a Philadelphia Mint coin, and an 1870-S Liberty Seated dollar had no extra value.

That changed in 1893 when Augustus G. Heaton published his landmark monograph, A Treatise on the Coinage of United States Branch Mints, for sale for just a dollar.

In that decade Heaton was one of the best-known figures in American numismatics and was important in the young American Numismatic Association as an officer and president. He also contributed to The Numismatist, including a poem about 13 -famous silver coin rarities.

To read the complete article, see:
Bowers on Collecting: The rise of mint mark collecting(https://news.coinupdate.com/bowers-on-collecting-the-rise-of-mint-mark-collecting/)

Rome's Runaway Inflation

By the beginning of the fourth century, the Roman Empire had become a completely different economic reality from what it had been at the beginning of the first century. The denarius argenteus, the empire's monetary unit during the first two centuries, had virtually disappeared since the middle of the third century, having been replaced by the argenteus antoninianus and the argenteus aurelianianus, numerals of greater theoretical value, but of less and less real value.

The public excesses in the civil and military budgets, the incessant bribes and gifts, the repeated tax increases, the growth of the state bureaucracy, and the continuous requisitions of goods and precious metals had exhausted the Roman economy to incredible levels. To cap this disastrous reality, inflation had risen from 0.7 percent per year in the first and second centuries to 35.0 percent per year in the late third and early fourth centuries, impoverishing all social strata of the empire by leaps and bounds.

To read the complete article, see:
Rome's Runaway Inflation: Currency Devaluation in the Fourth and Fifth Centuries(https://mises.org/wire/romes-runaway-inflation-currency-devaluation-fourth-and-fifth-centuries)

Put a Used Book in the Freezer

says James Fraser, manager of The Grolier Poetry Bookshop in Boston. Alternatively, you can opt to use a microfiber cloth to dust off books. This method should work when you want to clean old paperback and hardbound books.

1. Wipe down the whole book, cover to cover, being careful when you clean the book's pages.

2. If there are stubborn smudges and stains on the cover of the book, wet the paper towel or microfiber cloth with a little water and revisit those bits. Bear in the mind that books-particularly old books-can be fragile. says Fraser.

To read the complete article, see:
Why You Should Always Put a Used Book in the Freezer Before Reading It(https://www.wellandgood.com/how-to-clean-books/)