For my work with the Newman Numismatic Portal I attended a conference by the Internet Archive at the Martin Luther King Jr. Library in Washington D.C. on Wednesday. It was a sweltering hot day and I had an hour to kill before the event began at Noon. Across the intersection was the National Portrait Gallery, housed in the old Patent Office building. Unfortunately it didn't open until 11:30, but I hung around and took a whirlwind tour of some first-floor exhibits.

Here are some of the great exhibits I saw, several with connections to numismatics or my hometown of Pittsburgh, location of the upcoming ANA convention.

The Daguerre Monument
Outside the Old Patent Office Building is a monument to photography pioneer Daguerre. Numismatic bibliophiles, researchers and collectors would all be hamstrung in their efforts without photographs of coins and paper money.

Men of Progress
The first painting to catch my eye was this 1862 group portrait. Outside of numismatics my interests include the history of science, technology and business, and the works of the men pictured are remarkable achievements, even though few names would be recognized readily today.

Fifth from the left is the connection to numismatics (and daguerrean photography in the U.S. - Joseph Saxton (1799-1873)). QUICK QUIZ: what can you tell us about Saxton?

For more information, see:
Men of Progress(https://npg.si.edu/object/npg_NPG.65.60)

Henry and Helen Frick, Mary Cassatt

Here are three Pittsburgh figures. At left is a 1910 dual portrait of industrialist Henry Clay Frick and his daughter Helen. Helen lived in the family's Pittsburgh mansion until her death in 1984. The wife of a fellow Western Pennsylvania Numismatic Society member was one of her nurses. Helen kept the mansion as it was when she was a child growing up there, and it is now a museum well worth visiting while in Pittsbirgh.

The portrait on the right is Impressionist artist Mary Casssat, painted by Edgar Degas. Cassatt was born in Pittsburgh.

Thomas Edison
The museum had more to offer than just portraits. Here's Thomas Edison and one of his inventions, the tin foil phonograph.

David Rittenhouse
Back to numismatics, here's the first Director of the U.S. Mint, scientist and astronomer David Rittenhouse.

Robert Tait MacKenzie Plaque
The artwork wasn't only in oil - here's a portrait plaque of Violet Oakley by Robert Tait MacKenzie.

U.S. Mint Coin Store
On my way home from the conference I passed the U.S. Mint Coin Store.

New Coin Books
Well, not so new, but new to my library. These two titles from the American Numismatic Society book sale arrived this week.

To read the earlier E-Sylum article, see:
ANS SUMMER BOOK SALE!(https://www.coinbooks.org/v26/esylum_v26n30a03.html)

Miami Rare Coin Co. Money Pouch
Later in the week this arrived in the mail fromBob Steinberg - a Miami Rare Coin Co. money pouch made by his father.

Bob writes:

A telephone exchange name or central office name was a distinguishing and memorable name assigned to a central office. It identified the switching system to which a telephone was connected, and facilitated the connection of telephone calls between switching systems in different localities.

Central offices were usually identified by names that were locally significant. The leading letters of a central office name were used as the leading components of the telephone number representation, so that each telephone number in the area was unique. These letters were mapped to the digits of the dial, which was indicated visibly on the dial's numbering plate.

On the number card of the telephone instrument, the name was typically shown in full, but only the significant letters to be dialed were capitalized, while the rest of the name was shown in lower case.

For more background on telephone exchange names, see:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telephone_exchange_names

To read the earlier E-Sylum article, see:
HIGGINS MUSEUM COIN AND BANK BAGS(https://www.coinbooks.org/v26/esylum_v26n30a17.html)