Wednesday, August 10
My alarm rang at o-dark-thirty Wednesday morning and I left the house before the newspaper had even arrived. I drove over to Dulles Airport and for a while was the only passenger on the parking lot shuttle. Check-in was a breeze thanks to TSA-Pre and I made it to my gate half an hour ahead of my 6:05am boarding time.

The United flight was fine and arrived a bit early five hours later, around 9:30 California time. A Supershuttle came within minutes andafter a couple nearby stops deposited me at the Anaheim Hilton across from Disneyland.

After checking in and dropping my luggage in my room I headed over to the convention center next door. I quickly found two large conventions going on, but neither one was the ANA. Did I fly in to the wrong city? But after wandering around for a while I stumbled across a sign for the Stacks Bowers auction and headed toward it.

It's an interesting game with me to track who's the first numismatic friend I encounter at a major convention. Sometimes I spot them first, sometimes they find me. As I came up the escalator I spotted a tall man in a suit holding a conversation outside the auction room, and I recognized him as Stacks Bowers President Brian Kendrella.

I asked an employee for help and she kindly directed me to the bourse floor downstairs, where I made a beeline for the table shared by Len Augsburger and Joel Orosz, where they were promoting their upcoming book on 1792 coinage. The table was busy and I didn't get a chance to talk with Len until much later in the day.

Just a few steps away was Charlie Davis' table where he and Neil Musante were displaying a fresh-off-the-press copy of Neil's new two-volume work Medallic Washington. It's a beautifully designed and produced work, with excellent full color photos throughout. They'd already sold the eight other copies they had on hand, and had taken many orders. I put in an order myself.

I asked how the book came to be published by Spink, and Neil told me about a chance meeting with Spink's Phil Skingley. Phil was aware of the manuscript and asked how it was coming. Neil hadn't yet approached a publisher and Phil expressed interest. After reviewing the manuscript Spink was in.

Next I went to the Kolbe &Fanning table and spoke with Maria Fanning about the upcoming Asylum issue, where I've submitted an article covering the history of my experience of applying technology to numismatics.

Next I wandered the bourse floor for a bit, starting with the nearby U.S Mint booth, then heading to the club aisles. I spoke to two men manning the Orders and Medals Society of America booth, then with Chelsea Highfill at the Silver Dollar Collectors Roundtable booth. She thought the group would be happy to place their publication content in the Newman Numismatic Portal and directed me to her father John Highfill in a booth in the 600 aisle.

Chelsea's a medical student and a voracious reader on medical topics, so I offered to send her my copy of The Golden Age of Quackery, which I had purchased years ago to learn more about patent medicine makers advertising on tokens and encased postage stamps.

In another aisle I ran into Mary Lanin, who introduced me to Oliver Hoover of the American Numismatic Society. Other folks I spoke briefly with included Julian Leidman and Steve Hayden, who had an example of the "Indecision 2016" flipper medal at his table. Several others were busy with customers at their tables, including Dave Wnuck.

Sundman Interview
At 2pm I went to the room where they were filming an interview with David Sundman of Littleton Coin Company. There was a good crowd present. Numismatist Editor Barbara Gregory was doing the interviewing with David Lisot filming. I'll look forward to the final video.

Afterwards I spoke with David Sklow, Barbara Gregory and others before heading back to the bourse for a while. There I had a good conversation with Steve Roach about Money Artist J.S.G. Boggs.

Back at the Orosz-Augsburger table I had a chance to speak with Alan Meghrig, and E-Sylum regulars Allan Schein and Alan Weinberg. Meghrig offered some coin album and book wholesaler material for digitization in the Newman Portal, and Weinberg offered to proofread the 1792 draft and provide information about the 1792 coinage in his collection.

Schein had been having a great reception for his new book on Pratt's Indian coinage and discussed his plans for regular hardbound and deluxe editions. Brad Karoleff also happened by.

Dinner With Mr. Redbook
I had no preplans for the rest of the evening but was ready for dinner. After checking prices on the hotel restaurant menu I wandered back to the Food Court. While deciding what to order I ran into none other than Ken Bressett, editor of the classic A Guide Book of United States Coins. He was looking for a quick dinner as well and I invited him to sit with me. We ordered our food and found a table outside in the evening sun.

We had a great conversation, covering topics including The E-Sylum, the Newman Portal and CoinArchives.com, which he's been using to catalog ancient coins in his collection.

Next I went to the Hilton lobby bar where I met E-Sylum reader R.V. Dewey for the first time. We had a drink while looking at coins and coin images from multiple sources. I encouraged him to look into the Newman Portal for some of his research questions and I agreed to obtain a copy of an interesting article relating to Longacre that's not yet digitized.

Thursday, August 11

A Bourse Walkabout
Thursday morning I went back to the bourse and crossed paths with several friends including Kerry Wetterstrom of CNG, Tom Uram of PAN, Julian Leidman, and Jimmy Hayes, who seemed to be everywhere, although we never got a chance to chat.

I tried visiting E-Sylum advertisers, but some (including Wayne Herndon and Doug Winter) were busy with customers and I didn't want to interrupt. At John Kraljevich's table I ran into Karl Goetz specialist Henry Goodman. Later I spoke to Peter Preston-Morley of Dix Noonan Webb, Bob Schwartz of Archives International and Harry Labstain.

NBS Board Meeting
Next I went to the Numismatic Bibliomania Society board meeting, where several important topics were addressed. President Marc Ricard presided. Also physically present were David and Maria Fanning, David Sklow, Scott Rubin and Len Augsburger. Our Secretary/Treasurer Terry White dialed in via Marc's phone, and for grins I made a nameplate for him.

NBS and MCA Meetings

NBS President Marc Ricard introduced speaker Fred Holabird after using a whiteboard marker to highlight a phrase left there by a previous speaker in the room: "Thinking out of the box." Fred's theme was on doing numismatic research, and his main point was that to make significant discoveries, once has to get outside of the "box" of what's already been published in the numismatic community.

Joel Orosz took notes, so look for an Asylum article summarizing Fred's great suggestions and stories, which are a must for numismatic researchers and authors.

After the session E-Sylum reader Darren Burgess of Australia introduced himself to me. It's so nice to be able to finally put a face to an email address, especially when they come from so far away. It was a delight to speak with him about numismatics.

Next I spoke to Bryce Doxson of Maryland about the the Numismatic Ambassador awards and the digitization of the Maryland TAMS group's journal in the Newman Portal.

Rare Legacy
Back on the bourse floor I visited Tony and Skyler at their Rare Legacy table, where an amazing display of historical medals was beautifully arranged in several cases. Here's just one.

Some NNP Business
Next I sought out Dave Perkins, who kindly agreed to let the Newman Portal digitize his complete set of The Lettered Edge, a short-lived specialty newsletter on early U.S. silver coins produced by Bob Stark and Jules Reiver.

When I spotted a 1935 Detroit Coin Club membership List in his case, Dave also gathered up and lent us several Detroit club items, including show and banquet programs. This will be great ephemera for the archive section of the Newman Portal.

A Mint Encounter
After walking the bourse floor again I stopped by the Pennsylvania Association of Numismatists (PAN) table and spoke a bit with PAN President Tom Uram. Tom was on his way to meet Mary Lannin and U.S. Mint Director nominee Rhett Jeppson, and invited me along. We walked over to the Hilton, snapping these photos on the way.

At the bar in the Hilton Lobby I got to meet Frank Kovacs, Mr. Jeppson, and a few U.S. Mint staffers. We discussed the Mint's outreach efforts including plans for an October working session on promoting the numismatic hobby. Afterward I went up to my room to change clothes for the NLG Bash.

NLG Bash

As I approached the Bash venue I met up with Dennis Tucker, Neil Shafer and others. Greg Reynolds introduced himself to me and we spoke a bit about the mechanics of producing The E-Sylum. I also spoke with The E-Sylum subscribers Jim Wells and Phil Iversen.

Mark Borchardt invited me to sit at his table, and we also reserved spots for Joel Orosz, Len Augsburger and Len's wife Deb. Already at our table were Denis Loring, John Feigenbaum, Patrick Ian Perez, and Charles Morgan and Hubert Walker of CoinWeek.

I had a scotch and bought Joel a beer. The conversation was great. Charles and Hubert noted that the new book on Numismatic Archaeology of North America was for sale at the show.

When the festivities began the first award was a new one, the Coin Dealer Newsletter Educational award which went to the Eric P.Newman Education Society for the Newman Numismatic Portal. Len Augsburger and I went up to accept it and we each hauled back an impressiveplaque.

Len was quickly back up at the front of the room after the announcement of the NLG's Book of the Year award for "the work having the greatest potential impact on numismatics", which went to Truth Seeker: The Life of Eric P. Newman, by Leonard Augsburger, Roger W. Burdette and Joel Orosz. Len and Joel accepted.

Mark won the NLG's flagship Clemy award and made an excellent acceptance speech. For more about Mark and NLG, see Dave Harper's Numismatic News article:
Congratulations 327 times (www.numismaticnews.net/buzz/congratulations-327-times)

The highlight for me was a joint presentation by Dave Harper and Clifford Mishler on the life of Numismatic News and Krause Publications founder, the late Chester Krause. The pair took turns remembering Chet, followed up by Dave's amazing vocals on a rendition of Chet's favorite holiday sing-a-long song, the satirical O Lutefisk , sung to the tuned of O Tannenbaum.

Given the heavily Scandinavian heritage of Wisconsin, they explained that Lutefisk is a local delicacy consisting of fish soaked in lye and washed, leaving behind a smelly paste.

Lutefisk, O Lutefisk, how fragrant your aroma,
Lutefisk, O Lutefisk, you put me in a coma.
You smell so strong, you look like glue,
You taste just like an overshoe,
But lutefisk, come Saturday,
I tink I eat you anyvay

Seriously, Dave did a nice job with this, and it was all great tribute to Chet.

To read the complete lyrics, see:
Lutefisk O Lutefisk (http://lyricstrue.net/bandsongtext/Unknown/Lutefisk_O_Lutefisk.html)

Still on East Coast time, I was quickly running out of gas and had to leave just as the ultimate Odd Couple Fred Schwan and Joe Boling were taking the stage. My apologies to all, but I was done for the night.

To read the complete list of 2016 NLG Winners, see:
Results of Annual Writers' Competition for 2016 (www.nlgonline.org/awards/annual-writers-competition/results-of-annual-writers-competition-for-2016/)

Friday, August 12

How Do You Spell That Again?

Len Augsburger and I came across Numismatist editor Barbara Gregory outside the ANA Board of Governors closed session. We later talked a bit with ANA Librarian David Sklow, about multiple topics, including next year's ANA Summer Seminar and Member Appreciation Day at ANA HQ in Colorado Springs (a short drive from next year's convention in Denver, CO).

NBS General Meeting
I went back to my hotel for a while to catch up on email and work a bit on The E-Sylum. Come 11:30 I was at the NBS General Meeting, where Len and I were to give a brief overview of the Newman Portal.

It was great to see so many fellow NBS members and E-Sylum readers in attendance including David Alexander, Len Augsburger, Ken Bressett, George Kolbe, Denis Loring, Doug Mudd, Jim Neiswinter, P. Scott Rubin, Eric Schena, David Sundman and others.

Before the meeting began I was delighted to meet twelve year old numismatist Kellen Hoard from the Seattle area. He found the NBS web site online, became an E-Sylum reader at my invitation, and has become a voracious consumer of content on the Newman Numismatic Portal.

After an introduction by NBS President Marc Ricard, Len Augsburger and I spoke on the Newman Numismatic Portal. I opened the NNP segment by recounting a story highlighting the need for a comprehensive numismatic literature search engine. Back on 2007 I commented in The E-Sylum about an auction lot description of an Albany Church Penny, where the cataloguer wrote that "nothing is known" about the issuer or manufacturer. That struck me as incorrect, for I remembered seeing a detailed article on the topic once. I wrote:

Because I knew where to look for these things, I soon found a 1944 article in The Numismatic Scrapbook Magazine and others in The Colonial Newsletter. So a lot was indeed known about the piece, just not known to the cataloguer. The world needed a single, fast way to search the corpus of numismatic literature. That need led me to build my own Coin Library search engine and eventually team up with the Newman Portal.

To read the complete article, see:
ALBANY CHURCH PENNY RESEARCH FOLLOWUP (www.coinbooks.org/esylum_v10n02a18.html)

Len followed me with a presentation highlighting some of the special content that is already part of the portal, not just in the search engine, but fully available for reading on the site.

Next it was time for the NBS fundraising auction. I'd donated a few items myself and was curious to see how much they'd bring. I also hoped to bid on a few other items. A visitor from Ireland graciously agreed to be auctioneer David Fanning's "Vanna White" to hold up and display items up for bid. Marc Ricard recorded the winning bids.

I purchased a couple items and was happy to see the club raise over $3,000 for the Treasury.

Lunch
After living on Food Court sandwiches for lunch and dinner all week, I was more than ready for a change. I recruited David Sundman and George Kolbe for lunch anywhere BUT the Food Court. We ended up at the Hilton's restaurant. Service was slow but the company and food were top notch.

Next I took an hour or so to work on The E-Sylum before heading to the lobby to meet Joel Orosz - we'd planned to go over to the convention to see the exhibit area.

While waiting for Joel I ran into Ken Bressett, who was on his way to a meeting of the International Primitive Money Society. I told him about an archive of papers from the Howard Gibbs estate that I've been trying to get organized for scanning into the Newman Numismatic Portal. Gibbs was one of the biggest collectors ever of Odd and Curious money, and the archive includes an inventory of his collection and correspondence with dealers and collectors.

When Joel joined us the conversation had drifted to Hans Schulman, who sold Gibbs' collection in several auction sales. Ken remembered him as someone who you knew going in was going to get the best of you in any coin deal, but he was so charming that you didn't notice or mind.

We also talked a bit about dealer B. Max Mehl. Ken is one of just a few people alive who had met Mehl in person (the others include Dave Bowers and Eric Newman). Mark Borchardt happened by and I congratulated him on his NLG Clemy award. We talked about the Clemy typewriter which winners once had to lug home with them and haul back the next year. Now it lives year-round at the ANA headquarters in Colorado Springs.

Exhibits