February was a short month, so the March meeting of my Northern Virginia numismatic social group Nummis Nova seemed to come around fast. Our host Tuesday night was Joe Levine. Traffic was awful, and I arrived about 7pm at Esposito's restaurant in Fairfax. It was raining and I put up my umbrella for the short walk to the door.

Our party was seated just inside, and I waved thru the window. I took an empty seat at the close end of the table across from Gene Brandenburg and next to Lenny Goldberg. Besides Joe and a guest sitting next to him (more later), attendees included Julian Liedman, Wayne Herndon, Mike Packard, Jon Radel, Steve Bishop, Dave Schenkman and Eric Schena.

Your Most Treasured Numismatic Item

Joe had previously declared the exhibit theme for the evening: "My most treasured numismatic item. If times got bad and you had to raise money to feed the family, what would be the last numismatic item you would sell?"

Interesting thought experiment. Since I'd already sold off much of my collection itself, I turned my thoughts to my library. It was a tough choice, but I decided to pick my copy of the 1851 Roper sale, a rare item from a landmark event in American numismatics. It was Mark Collet's copy, priced and partially named. As an exhibit though, it doesn't look like much, and to protect it from spaghetti sauce, olive oil and wine, I decided to leave it at home. How would E-Sylum readers answer that question?

Eric and Dave were among those close enough to talk to at my end, and topics ranged from wine, decanting and silver decanters, coin dealers, favorite numismatic purchases, and a world leader nicknamed "Spanky" (don't ask).

The Six-Cent Nickel

Back on numismatics, I learned from Gene that Wayne Herndon was paying six cents for nickels dated prior to 1960. Ever one to take advantage of a new opportunity, before I'd arrived Gene gave Wayne a nickel and asked for a receipt, which Wayne made out on the spot. But not before Gene told him that he and Dave Schenkman were joint owners of the coin, so he'd need to issue TWO three-cent checks. I missed out on the fun, but will check my change more carefully - a 20% return is a 20% return. Beat THAT with the stock market...

1902 Winchester, VA Sesquicentennial Medal

1882 $50 gold certificate

Eric provided an image of one of his exhibit items. He writes:

It was a nice note. Great taste! This kid will go far. Oh wait, he already has - not only as a numismatic author and editor, but as a cataloguer for Stack's Bowers.

Engraver Ad Note and Token

Next up are some images of Dave Schenkman's other items. Here's an advertising note for an engraver, an unusual issuer for items of this type.

Dave also had a great token none of us had ever seen before - the Key token with Monitor reverse in silver. The Key company were engravers & die sinkers in Philadelphia.

Dave writes:

TAMS Franklin Mint Literary Award Medals

Lastly, Dave brought one of his Token and Medal Society Franklin Mint Literary award medals. He writes:

That had to be the highest-paid part-time writing gig anywhere in numismatics. These are impressive medals - wow! Dave earned them.

Jimmy Hayes
Down at the other end of the table there was a gentleman whose name I didn't know. I'd run into him once at Joe Levine's table at a Baltimore coin show few years ago, and we chatted about our collecting interests. I didn't get his name.

Since our area was pretty cramped, I didn't get a chance to get up and visit with the other end of the table. On the way out though, Joe introduced his guest to those of us at our end of the table. He was Jimmy Hayes, the former Congressman from Louisiana.

As politician, his ad-libbed lines were well-rehearsed. A moderate Democrat, he later switched to the Republican party. When someone chided him for "going over to the dark side," he laughed and said, "The sides are ALL dark - there IS no bright side to this business..." and "When I switched, BOTH sides of the aisle got up and applauded..."

Hayes had assembled a fabulous collection of U.S. coins which was sold by Stacks many years ago. He's still a collector and lobbies Congress on various coinage issues. I'm sorry I didn't get a chance to talk more with him. For more information, see his Wikipedia entry.

To read the complete Wikipedia article, see:
Jimmy Hayes (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jimmy_Hayes)

It was going on 9:30 when I left to head home. It was still raining, and the precipitation combined with the snow-covered ground to make a pretty dense fog. But I made it home still in time to see my family and walk the dog before calling it a night. 'Til next time!