BETTY HOMREN 1927-2009
Nothing much to report numismatically this week, but I'd like to note that today would have been my mother's 83rd birthday. She encouraged my interest in coin collecting growing up and was probably the one who purchased my Whitman Lincoln Cent 1909-1959 folder. I must have been seven when I started filling the holes with coins from circulation. I was eleven when I began ordering coins and supplies from Littleton Coin Company and by around thirteen I was buying foreign coins more economically from a mail order dealer in Virginia.

In college she bit her lip when I spent $200 on a proof type coin. When I sold it a couple years later for over $900 she finally admitted she'd thought I was nuts. Later when I was living in my own house she let me get away with storing perhaps thirty heavy boxes of numismatic literature in her attic. I still had some stuff there when she died last August, the night of my 51st birthday.

Above is a picture taken three years ago at the surprise birthday we threw her in Pittsburgh for her 80th birthday. She was totally surprised to see us waiting at the restaurant along with dozens of friends, neighbors and relatives. I was afraid she'd have a heart attack, but she got over the shock quickly and had a grand time - she posed for the picture with bows from her birthday presents as a hat.

God bless all the parents who encourage (and tolerate) the nuttiness of a young collector. It's one reason I give back to the hobby by running programs for kids at local coins shows. Thanks, Mom.

NUMMIS NOVA DECEMBER 2010 DINNER PHOTOS
I've uploaded to Flickr five photos I took at last week's dinner of Nummis Nova, my Northern Virginia numismatic social group. Here are a couple - see the Flickr slide show for the rest. Somehow Joe Levine managed to avoid my camera, but he was there, as were Bill and Susan Eckberg whom I neglected to list in last week's diary. Sorry! Here's proof.

To view the Flickr slide show, see:www.flickr.com/photos/coinbooks/sets/72157625614378314/show/.

To read the earlier E-Sylum article, see:WAYNE'S NUMISMATIC DIARY: DECEMBER 12, 2010(www.coinbooks.org/esylum_v13n50a18.html)