Rubin's "Catalogue of Catalogues"

"Yes, wonderful things!"

Early last week, David Fanning emailed a layout proof of Kolbe & Fanning Sale 157, with the following admonition: "Just focus on big stuff at this point as we're going to the printer today." Finding nothing to critique, I nonetheless kept looking through the catalogue in the following days, bringing to mind Howard Carter's famous response to Lord Carnarvon's query about his impression of the first glimpse of the contents of Tutankhamun's tomb in the Valley of the Kings.

In our own little world, Philip Scott Rubin's "Catalogue of Catalogues" is chock full of wonderful things, particularly among his earlier American numismatic auction sales. The library was formed over half a century. This first installment of Scott's extensive collection, numbering in excess of 10,000 catalogues, is limited to 500 lots, and includes many highlights. You will enjoy perusing it, regardless of your numismatic affinities.

It should be mentioned that this comprehensive library of American numismatic sale catalogues was plumbed to its depths in terms of groundbreaking numismatic research, and that the wealth of such invaluable information now regularly encountered in the current generation of American coin auction sale catalogues is, in significant part, the result of Scott's wide-ranging analyses. Freely shared, with little regard to attribution, it is the measure of the man.

A Damaged 2008-D Hawaii State Quarter

Error coin expert Fred Weinberg writes:

To read the earlier E-Sylum article, see:
NOTES FROM E-SYLUM READERS: SEPTEMBER 20, 2020 : An Odd 2008-D Hawaii State Quarter(https://www.coinbooks.org/v23/esylum_v23n38a12.html)

Kointains at Chase Manhattan Display
David Thomason Alexander writes:

To read the earlier E-Sylum article, see:
MORE ON E & T KOINTAINER COMPANY(https://www.coinbooks.org/v23/esylum_v23n38a13.html)

More on Familie Penningen: Family Medals?

Our Dutch colleague's question is an interesting one, as "penning" seems to cover a lot of ground in Dutch, and like most translation questions, the relationship is one-to-many (or many-to-many), and almost never one-to-one. My instinct in this case is to consider the "familie penningen" as private medals, but the expression "family medals" doesn't lend itself to Googling very readily, and even to a native English speaker's ear it could sound like a group of medals inherited from grandparents who saw military service, for example. Even "family-related medals" tends to describe medals awarded to different members of the same family, so a nice cover-all term is eluding me for the moment. I did notice an earlier edition of The E-Sylum carried an item on wedding or anniversary medals, which appear to be a subset of the same theme.

In the meantime, however, and this is kind of helping us stall for another week or so while we think about it some more, my wife's Dutch relations were planning a book tracing the family history in 2009 and one of the numerous members of the Twaalfhoven clan with an artistic bent created the "Twaalfhoven penning" - essentially a large-format art medal with symbols relating to the family and its spread around the world in recent generations. The large heart relates to the "green heart of the Netherlands" where the family has its origins, for example. I've never thought of trying to class it as anything other than a medal or an art medal, so I too will be interested in any further ideas readers may have.

Here's a longer description of the symbolism on the Twaalfhoven penning that I wrote for a numismatic forum in 2010:

To read the earlier E-Sylum article, see:
NOTES FROM E-SYLUM READERS: SEPTEMBER 20, 2020 : Query: Familie Penningen(https://www.coinbooks.org/v23/esylum_v23n38a12.html)

It's the Searching, Not the Finding
Tom Lovelace writes:

To read the earlier E-Sylum article, see:
LOOSE CHANGE: SEPTEMBER 20, 2020 : Guardian Article Questions Fenn's Treasure Hunt(https://www.coinbooks.org/v23/esylum_v23n38a31.html)