Sorry for the delay - I just joined your group this year - but I can answer that question posed in the Dec. 1 2013 issue: It was me!

I did that reprint - during the first half of 1969 on Ft. Lee, Petersburg, Virginia. With the help of a moonlighting printer on the Air Force station there, we produced the book with paper and supplies I bought, working at night on the small lithographic press. Camera work was done on the pages of the dismantled original book, then printing using aluminium plates for the short 550 press run. I had the books bound in Richmond. I then stamped individual serial numbers in the books.

I shipped the books to U.S. headquarters of the Association in California. I was a 25-year old USAF Captain at the time and my dad, Ed Beals, in our hometown of San Diego, was the contact point between the Numismatic Society of Mexico and my nocturnal printing effort. I do not recall any details regarding the reasoning behind the reprinting other than a desire by the group to make the information more available.

Interesting that the original book uses what we might call rubbings to illustrate the coins as it pre-dates photography by a decade or so. And, apparently, ole Mr. Riddell did not want to pay an illustrator to create line art for all those coins.

The USAF station, a branch of NORAD no longer exists there.

Oh, a personal note: I started collecting at age 16 and got my dad started in collecting coins, not the other way around! We were both active in the hobby until I left for the Air Force in mid-1966.

There are a few copies here in Spain with the Segovia Mint Amigos group and a few more in California. When any of you visit Spain, I am sure a kind donation to the group would get you one of the copies. And I will take you to the mint built here in 1583!

Dave Ginsburg writes:

To read the earlier E-Sylum article, see:
INFORMATION ON REPRINT OF RIDDELL'S 1845 MONOGRAPH SOUGHT (www.coinbooks.org/esylum_v16n49a07.html)