We were back in Alexandria, VA Tuesday night for the June 2016 meeting of Nummis Nova, my Northern Virginia numismatic social group. Our host was Jon Radel, and he picked Virtue Feed & Grain, a new restaurant on Union Street.

I arrived about 5:45 and saw Dave Schenkman and Gene Brandenburg in the parking garage next door. Jon Radel and Eric Schena soon joined us. We had to wait outside because they wouldn't seat us until we had seven people. But it worked out - it was a wonderful night and we enjoyed watching the crowds.

As it happens, the restaurant is almost right across the street from Gene's old coin shop, where Eric worked for him back in the day. The building where our restaurant was had been a popular bookstore. Now everyone has the Library of Congress in their pocket, and the books are gone.

Robert Hoppensteadt lives nearby, and he arrived shortly before 6:30. It was time for our reservation so we asked for our table. Up the stairs we went and were seated at a long table with tall bar chairs. People lounged about on sofas with their drinks. It was a cozy-looking watering hole.

The name of the place was "Virtue Feed & Grain", prompting Wayne Herndon to ask beforehand "Are you sure this is a restaurant? From the name, it sounds like we should pick up some feed for our sheep, goats and cattle before we leave." From the restaurant's web site:

As we tool our seats Wayne Herndon, Steve Bishop and Joe Esposito arrived. Several regulars including Julian Liedman and Joe Levine wereeither out of town of otherwise engaged, so it was a smaller group than normal.

Joe Esposito brought two bottles of wine and the waiter brought glasses and uncorked them for us. The labels were appropriately numismatic. Gene groused "What a cheapo brand of wine - only two shillings". It wasn't bad, though - I had a couple glasses.

Swiss Carnegie Hero Medal

My first show-and-tell item was this Swiss Carnegie Hero Medal, a recent eBay purchase from a seller in Switzerland.

B. Max Mehl

Since I still had room in my briefcase I brought a long a binder of material from my numismatic ephemera collection. This one was full of items related to Texas dealer B. Max Mehl.

Above is an example of Mehl's Star Coin Book Junior, a rare item. Next to it is a Mehl-published pamphlet produced in a feud with dealer A. Atlas Leve of Syracuse, NY. Below are images of both sides of a response produced by Leve, who refers to Meh as "Mox Nix Nil".

Yankees Baseball Gold Charms

Dave Schenkman had these two 14kt gold charms from the 1960 Yankees All Star Game, and 1962 Yankees World Series.

1775 British Half Penny Full Reverse Brockage

Steve Bishop had a number of nice items including more Russian copper and some pretty Morgan dollars. But my favorite was this 1775 British Half Penny with a full reverse brockage error. Neat item.

American Hoards
Eric was sitting right across from me, so we got to have some good conversations. Eric had the interesting side. He writes:

Before everyone left I hit them up for donations for the next Annandale coin show kids event, and Jon and I discussed meeting at Wayne Herndon's warehouse some Saturday to organize our material.

It was another great night of numismatic fellowship. As it happened, it was also the last day of school for our kids. As my wife and reviewed plans we ended up deciding we'd better take our family vacation right away or we might not be able to squeeze it in between my work trips and her friends' visits. So we quickly pulled together some reservations and are now out of town for the rest of the week. Luckily I was still able to pull this issue together.

'Til next time!