More on Tassie Coin Impressions
Don Goddeau writes:

Daniel Fearon writes:

To read the earlier E-Sylum article, see:
NOTES FROM E-SYLUM READERS: JULY 30, 2023 : More on Tassie Coin Impressions(https://www.coinbooks.org/v26/esylum_v26n31a13.html)

Silk Purse Coins and the Attribution Opinion Business

Jon Sullivan writes:

Bill Eckberg writes:

It is an interesting time for coin grading. The reality is that grading United States vintage coins is not a growth industry-after all there are only so many raw classic coins that have yet to be graded. This is something the current owners of Collectors and Certified Collectibles Group (parent companies to PCGS and NGC, respectively) seem to be keenly aware of, and it remains to be seen their level of commitment to this so-called The former has a very strong market share in sports card grading (PSA) and the latter has the same in paper money (PMG) and comic books and magazines (CGC).

The other key issue is talent. Becoming a grader with enough skill to work full time for a third party certification service takes time and determination, and the pay needs to be commensurate with what an individual with that level of ability can make as a dealer. As I write this, the ANA Summer Seminar is taking place, where the seed can be planted for such skills. Behind the scenes, I have heard first-hand from multiple dealers that grading service problems-slow returns, inconsistent grading, and other administrative issues-have had an impact on business this year. Thus, CAC Grading seems to be coming online at a prescient time, potentially one that fundamentally changes the classic United States rare coin market.

Perhaps we are entering a new era, in which grading is brutally honest, forthright, and calls out problems where they exist. It could be a situation in which short-term pain results in long-term gains, as coins that were overgraded or ones in which problems were missed or ignored are taken off the market and given the proper grades they should have received initially. While this will cause said coins to lose value, it will result in a cleaner, more transparent market that is able to attract new, well-capitalized collectors.

To read the complete article, see:
The Business of Numismatics: August 2023 Greysheet(https://www.greysheet.com/news/story/the-business-of-numismatics-august-2023-greysheet)

To read the earlier E-Sylum article, see:
LOOSE CHANGE: JULY 30, 2023 : Silk Purse Coins(https://www.coinbooks.org/v26/esylum_v26n31a34.html)

Emil Weigand and Friedrich Wilhelm Kullrich
In response to the question from Terry Hess,Judy Blackman writes:

To read the earlier E-Sylum article, see:
NOTES FROM E-SYLUM READERS: JULY 30, 2023 : Prussian Piece and Adult Movie Token Book Help Sought(https://www.coinbooks.org/v26/esylum_v26n31a13.html)

Russian Privatization Vouchers
Don Cleveland writes:

Don adds:

To read the earlier E-Sylum article, see:
1992 RUSSIAN PRIVATIZATION VOUCHERS(https://www.coinbooks.org/v26/esylum_v26n31a31.html)

ChatGPT Opines on Rare Coins
Martin Purdy writes:

On the Term "Plug Nickel"

Book lovers should be word lovers - yet another chapter: A Joyous Payoff of Bibliomania.

Having had difficulty with the term "plug nickel" for some time, I thought I had found my little high horse over insisting that anyone who didn't use the past tense of the verb as the modifying adjective didn't know, because they didn't understand the dumb-and- dumber-like insult of what kind of commission of crime proceeds with the methods once the monetary value of the activity is gone? There almost isn't a metal less precious than nickel... why become guilty of defacement? What gain?

Further, if, on the path to spiritual self-possession, one is partially through the disillusionments it takes to stop impeding one's own trade settlements due to half-baked ideas and beliefs, one might have grown weary of those who must take to dodgy habits because they know themselves to be guilty of a crime. One might develop a special disdain for some man-of-straw imagined to have bound himself to cover up guilt for a crime that could not have made wealthy.

All this complication goes to the point that: finding a standard reference that really rings true to the usage remembered to have been the way of elders is truly a joyous payoff of biliomania.

Well, it turns out, sometimes an older sense of a word can be found in a foreign dictionary's rendering into English that no modern reference seems to provide. I've been doing a slow read of a massive Polish reference from the State Publishing House in Warsaw (then Communist) Poland. (Copyright 1969.) It is only alphabetized in Polish, so cross-reference was near impossible. Lo and behold, "plug" associates adjectivally with notions like "squalid" and "filthy." I have not been able to find corresponding reference on the internet or any other English language source handy enough to research.

The inference found in a standard reference, now, it does make sense that the usage could reasonably have been that not only was five cents not much money, but the coin itself may also have been inferred to be unclean (much the way "lousy" did not really require the presence of lice to be understood.) This is no surprise by the connotation, but connotations alone are often the stuff of unceasing wonders.

Many things like this shouldn't matter. I didn't think they did, mostly, until I found in the Civil Service how much of a quest someone, or someone's family, can be left on over some word that I didn't recall being very special. But I've been called on it. When I couldn't prove it by any book in all of City Hall, the trip to the downtown library branch for the O.E.D. was a humbling one. What does it take to extinguish an unceasing wonder?

My 90' of book shelf is surely no comparison to the eviable climate-controlled glimpse of heaven many NBS members probably have every right to be proud of, but as of today, I can go standard-reference on "plug nickel" and that, by the contents of my own library (or due-diligence inventory, if it be so called.)

Once of standard reference, the wonder usually does CEASE! And that was the reason for the quest to begin with. To extinguish an unceasing wonder.