A seller on eBay seems to have acquired a large number of coin image printing plates mounted on wooden blocks (proper terminology?) that Whitman Publishing Co. used in the pre-digital days to print their reference books. They are very inexpensive - my three ran $12.97 total with shipping.

It seems to me they may interest many numismatic bibliophiles, as exonumia. Buyers can't choose specific plates; the seller picks out the assortment. Why, it's almost like owning the plate coin. (I own a half-dozen Krause-Michler plate coins, mostly by chance.) They were very well padded for shipping.

No, I don't know the seller personally and promoting his or her business is not my agenda.

My three proved to be two foreign coins and one medal. One of the coins is depicted in Modern World Coins (Yeoman's brown book), so I'm stoked and will forever look for the books where the other plates may have been used. I've already taken them to two clubs for Show and Tell, accompanied by my Yeoman.

The friend who alerted me to this (your sometimes correspondent Dr. Ken Berger) bought four. I haven't seen his yet. The seller suggests them as coin club meeting prizes, which isn't a bad idea at all, at least for coin clubs that don't pillory collectors of foreign coins. (I've been President of San Diego's International Numismatic Society for 15 years... mostly by chance.)

Hmm, maybe I will buy a lot more of them.

To view the complete eBay lot, see:One (1) Vintage World Coin Printing Plate from Whitman Publishing(www.ebay.com/itm/370953450841?ssPageName=STRK:MEWNX:IT
&_trksid=p3984.m1439.l2649)