Asylum editor David Yoon writes:

Roger Siboni adds:

Note from the authors: What follows is an preview of a chapter from our book, The State Coinage of New Jersey. This book has been over a decade in the making and will be published by the American Numismatic Society around the end of this year or early next year-depending on the final editing, production, shipping, and the many other factors one does not consider when one has finished writing a book!

The book will be the first comprehensive treatment of New Jersey coppers since 1881, when Dr. Edward Maris published his landmark book, The Coins of New Jersey. Over the years, several numismatists have taken aim at this goal, but none of their projects were completed. Nevertheless, the authors are grateful for the scholarship they left behind, which helped make this effort possible.

Our book will cover the economic conditions of the Confederation period that created a need for this coinage, the politics involved in securing a state contract, the coiners and their operations, and collecting methodologies. It will also include quarter-page images of each variety, with an analysis of the diagnostics, pertinent history, rarity, and a condition census with provenances. It will also present to the New Jersey collecting community the various major die states for each variety.

But most relevant to our fellow Asylum readers is the chapter "Collectors and Their Collections." This was a chapter we all enjoyed working with and contributing to. It chronicles the American collecting of New Jersey coppers from as early as McCoy through modern collecting and eBay, as well as everything in between. In many ways the journey of New Jersey coppers seemed to mirror the journey for many Colonial-era coins as well. Thus we thought a preview of this chapter may be of interest to the Asylum readership.

We do ask something in return. The subject of provenance chains is opaque at best. We did our best at tracing them correctly. However, we are certain that if anybody knows the nooks and crannies of provenance chains enough to spot details that we missed or got wrong, it will be the Asylum readership. So we request that any observations about such items be brought to our attention via e-mail to rogersiboni@gmail.com.