Let's start this diary with an event from LAST Sunday - I picked up the phone and spoke to Eric Newman. Actually, at first I just listened to him and his wife Evelyn until I realized I had accidentally put my phone on mute. Eric wouldn't have heard me no matter how high he turned up his hearing aid.

Once I fixed that problem and called him back, we had a nice conversation. Eric is doing well and still working on numismatic projects as he approaches his 101st birthday on May 25th. We talked about his numismatic museum and Pete Smith's recent Asylum article on the history of coin firms associated with Q. David Bowers. He'd read it all in amazement of the rapid changes in the world of numismatic business in recent years.

Eric also reads every E-Sylum beginning to end, so all of you are in good company. He's impressed with the breadth of numismatic subject matter and credited me with knowing something about everything to edit it. Well, I didn't start out that that way, but being the editor has sure been a numismatic education. Eric's probably forgotten more than I'll ever really know. It was an honor and a pleasure to speak with him.

On Monday I made preparations for Tuesday's meeting of Nummis Nova, packing a briefcase with a couple binders of ephemera related to the U.S. Mint and the American Numismatic Society.

Tuesday's dinner was a delight. It was held at J. Gilbert's in Mclean, VA. The theme was counterfeits and fakes, and a number of very interesting items were passed around. I may write more about the meeting next week - it's getting late and I'm just running out of time for this issue.

On my drive home from work Wednesday I made a call (hand-free Bluetooth!) to Craig Whitford. Craig's a longtime E-Sylum subscriber. I wanted to reconnect with him about our common interest in the work of "money artist" J.S.G. Boggs. We'd both lost touch with him. We decided to work together to draft a listing of his works.

When I checked my email Wednesday evening, I learned that The E-Sylum had been added to Click Coins, a new web page by Michael Zielinski that's a handy one-stop-shop for links to several numismatic blogs, including the U.S. Mint, Coin World, Numismatic News, Coin Week, Scott Barman's Coin Collector's Blog and others.

Nothing more numismatic to speak of this week, but it was a fun one!