On Tuesday the 9th the March 2016 meeting of my northern Virginia numismatic social club Nummis Nova was hosted by Tom Kays at an Italian restaurant in Springfield called Osteria Marzano. It's a sleekly designed space in an office building in an office park not far from the Capitol Beltway.

I work nearby and arrived early. As I pulled into a space in the parking garage another early bird in the next vehicle waved to me - it was Howard Daniel. We made our way inside about 6pm to the nearly deserted restaurant where the staff was working to put our tables together. We took our seats and began reviewing the menus, but not before Howard had teased and charmed our waitress, Marisol.

Howard brought with him the manuscript for his next book on Southeast Asian coinage. It was a well-organized binder of pages in sheet protectors, a mix of draft pages and photocopies or scans of source material found during his research.

Among the next to arrive were Eric Schena, Dave Schenkman and Gene Brandenburg. All three sat at our end of the table, and they were soon joined by Joe Esposito and Mike Packard. At the other end of our corner of the restaurant were Jon Radel, Tom Kays, Joe Levine, and Steve Bishop. Among the last to get seated in a table the staff slid into the middle were Julian Leidman (at my left) and across from him my guest, Robert Hoppensteadt.

I passed out a few next business cards for NBS advertising The Aslum and The E-Sylum. They were nicely designed by Maria Fanning, and I've also been using them as an ad within The E-Sylum in recent weeks.

Among the first numismatic items passed around were some gargantuan medals from Jon Radel. These were HEAVY, and for perspective on their size, I took this picture next to a quarter from my pocket.

Jon writes:

Thanks! I brought two books with me to the meeting: the new edition of Virginia Tokens and Mike Shutty's new Lost Cents, Dead Owners.

Eric Schena took the seat next to me, which was convenient because I had some questions for him about the new edition of VirginiaTokens - I'm writing a review of it for the TAMS Journal. Eric handled the book's editing and layout, and contributed research andimages.

The majority of the tokens illustrated in the book are in Dave and Eric's collections, and all of the modern images of the issuing storefronts were taken by Eric, who has made pilgrimages around the state to visit some of the sites. Some of these visits (many of which were very fruitful) have been described in earlier E-Sylum issues. There's no substitute for shoeleather in numismatic research.

Eric brought along a neat piece of cardboard scrip with a Half Dime denomination. It's illustrated in the Virginia Tokens book, and I took this photo of it laying on the page where it's illustrated.

Eric writes:

Here are a couple other cellphone photos of interesting illustrations in the book.

Eric adds:

Eric and I also discussed his work as a part-time cataloguer for Stack's Bowers, where he's enjoying the opportunity to do the historical research for some really great coins. The selections in the next article are all lots that he recently worked on. Well done!

Other topics of discussion at my end of the table included the 1980 coin boom and subsequent bust, a rare ancient coin displayed by Robert, and counterfeit Southeast Asian pieces that fooled even the expert dealers.

Robert Hoppensteadt provided this information on his coin

Toward the end of the meal the ever-mischievous Gene Brandenburg instructed me to look at the back of the dessert menu. "Two-thirds of the way down." In a section of after-dinner drinks I found what he was looking at: The Godfather, a mix of Amaretto di Saronno and Whiskey. He bought us each one, and it was smooooth. Thanks!

Yet another great evening of numismatic fellowship. I'm very grateful to have such a knowledgeable and friendly group to get together with every month. Forming the group was one of the best numismatic ideas I've ever had (a close second to The E-Sylum itself). Ciao for now, everyone.

To read the earlier E-Sylum article, see:
SOME MORE HALF DIME TOKENS (www.coinbooks.org/esylum_v19n10a17.html)