September 11 was famous in my family long before 2001 - it's my sister Nancy's birthday. So before heading to work I dashed off a quick Happy Birthday email to her office address, knowing that would surely arrive before the birthday card I'd sent to her home via the U.S. Postal Service.

On the drive to work I was delighted to find a numismatic connection in the daily Writer's Almanac on National Public Radio. It was a poem about an elongated coin titled "At the County Fair, 1956" by Charles Darling.

To read the complete issue on the web, see:http://writersalmanac.publicradio.org/index.php?date=2012/09/11

After work came one of my favorite parts of the month - the dinner meeting of my Northern Virginia numismatic social group, Nummis Nova. I arrived early at the Maggiano's restaurant in the Tyson's Galleria Mall. We'd just been to the mall on Saturday to take our daughter Hannah and a friend to the American Girl doll store.

At the door I met Gene Brandenburg and Dave Schenkman. Dave said he was happy to see me. He'd brought along a small box of rolls of 1960-D Large Date cents together with a pile of sales tax and other tokens, all meant as giveaways to the kids at an upcoming coin show. He was happy to see me because he was tired of carrying the stuff, which did weigh a ton.

The three of us met someone new before heading to our table - Steve Bishop had discovered our group on the web and written to me for information. I invited him as my guest. He brought along a nice group of medals, and later emailed me these images:

Other attendees included Eric Schena, Howard Daniel, Joe Levine, Jon Radel, Julian Leidman, and Roger Burdette.

Dave Schenkman brought along a lifesaving medal from the Merrimack Humane Society of Newburyport, MA and provided these images for The E-Sylum. He writes:

Eric Schena brought a number of items, too. He writes:

On another topic Eric writes:

Gene Brandenburg brought along an interesting overstamped piece of German notgeld.

Gene writes:

Julian Leidman's fellow congregant Rita Rubinstein translated the Yiddish writing as follows:

Julian adds:

We had ordered our dinner Family Style, and the staff kept bringing out plate after plate of delicious salmon, lasagna and other specialties until we cried Uncle. The desserts were excellent as well. The night was over all too soon. We wished Howard well - it would be the last meeting he'll make for a while, as he'll be spending six months in Vietnam. Good luck Howard - we'll miss you.

As a parting note, today (September 16th) is my wife Dee's birthday. She's turning ... well, nevermind. Happy Birthday!