Last week's diary was cut short because I ran out of time to work on the issue. One thing I didn't get to mention was finally spotting my first 2013-dated coins. I'm sure they've been around and available for a while in other parts of the country. I'd been checking my shiny new coins off and on since February, but it wasn't until last week that I saw some new 2013 dimes and several 2013 nickels.

At my numismatic social club Nummis NovaDavid Schenkman displayed a new purchase - an obsolete note from the Potomac and Alleghany Coal & Iron Manufacturing Company. He'd purchased it in a recent auction because of his interest in coal-mining notes and tokens, but it turned out to be special in another way - it's the only obsolete note of that denomination known from the state of Virginia.

The vertical blotches seen on the front of the note are from the ink of endorsement signatures bleeding through from the back. Here are the signatures. This note really got around!

This week was different. A decidedly non-numismatic event occurred, the explosion of bombs at the Boston Marathon. I heard the news before leaving work Monday. In this 24/7 media age, the events and subsequent hunt for the perpetrators were seen worldwide, in real time. Our thoughts are with all of the victims and their families. E-Sylum contributor Len Augsburger is a runner, but wasn't in Boston. I'm not aware of any numismatists directly affected by the events.

Sections of the city surrounding the crime scene were closed off, and security was heightened nationally. In the Washington D.C. area some government workers passed SWAT vans and guards with automatic weapons on their way into the office. On Friday evening as police were closing in on the second suspect, I reached out to some E-Sylum regulars from the Boston area.

John W. Adams writes:

I heard the singing of the anthem on the radio this week and it was indeed very moving. The singer started the song normally, but turned off his mike when he heard the crowd singing along. They finished it for him, perfectly. I didn't think anyone knew the words anymore...

Anne Bentley of the Massachusetts Historical Society writes:

At 9:06pm Anne Bentley reported:

Why, indeed. Yet many thanks are owed to the first responders, hospital staffs, emergency and security personnel and the officers who lost their lives in the massive manhunt. Perhaps in time there will be numismatic tributes to their bravery and service.

We numismatists have an appreciation for history, and it's important to note that from an historical perspective, public attacks on innocent people are not something new in the 21st century. While it's easy for adults of all ages today to think terrorism is something new, it's not - the word is. People who committed these heinous acts weren't always called terrorists - they were once called anarchists.

There was the Haymarket bombing in Chicago in 1866, a bombing at the Los Angeles Times in 1910, and a bombing at a parade in San Francisco in 1916. And until Oklahoma City the largest bomb attack in the U.S. took place right in the heart of Wall Street in New York City in 1920, which killed 38 people and injured hundreds. So here's a question for our readers - are there any numismatic items related to these earlier events? Hero or Lifesaving medals? Commemorative medals? Political buttons or tokens?

Here's a link to a picture gallery from coverage of the Boston events.

To read the complete article, see:BOSTON MARATHON BOMBINGS: A TIMELINE OF THIS WEEK'S EVENTS(www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/2013/04/20/boston
-marathon-bombings-timeline-this-week-events/0UBjEeCWIQDYbBvQXwzfXN/pictures.html)