On the afternoon of Tuesday April 8 I became aware that DavidLisot's video interview with me at the March Baltimore coinshow had been published. I watched it before leaving my office,and forwarded it to members of Nummis Nova, my northern Virginianumismatic social group. I would be meeting them for dinner in anhour or so.

Roger Burdette respondedquickly, joking "Who was the handsome guy beinginterviewed?" I was very pleased with how it turned out.David asked me about The E-Sylum and how it came about. Atthe dinner that evening Chris Neuzil told me he'd learned anumber of things from the interview. As the one who lived throughit all I guess I do take certain things for granted. Have a lookyourselves at the link below. Thanks, David!

To view the E-Sylum video interview, see: Editor Wayne Homren Talks About E-Sylum Numismatic ElectronicPublication. VIDEO: 3:36(www.coinweek.com/video-news/new-videos/editor-wayne-homren-talks-e-sylum-numismatic-electronic-publication-video-336/)

I arrived at Legal Sea Foods in the Tyson's Galleria about6:30 and soon found everyone in a private room in the back of therestaurant. Our host was Eric Schena. Regulars Tom Kays andJulian Leidman were unable to attend, but already present wereEric, Chris, Roger, Aaron Packard, Mike Packard (no relation),Gene Brandenburg, Ron Abler, Wayne Herndon, Jon Radel, JoeLevine, Steve Bishop, and Dave Schenkman.

I grabbed an empty seat to the right of Jon, and soon LennyGoldberg filled in the seat to my right. Across from us were Ericand Joe. Holding court at the far end of the table was Roger. Ipassed around a few items of numismatic ephemera that I'dpicked up recently. Other show-n-tell items for the eveningincluded a slabbed 1795 dollar.

I got up and visited folks at other parts of the table beforeand after dinner, chatting with Wayne, Dave, Eric and others.Gene was his usual generous self, offering me a glass from hisbottles of wine, which I eagerly accepted. I took the red, myusual, even though Gene had properly schooled me last month inwhat a good white wine tastes like (very good!).

Aaron had emailed me previously about some interesting CivilWar-era cardboard scrip notes, and he showed me the images on histablet computer. Aaron wrote:

I was sorry to say I wasn't aware of any such catalog.Fred Reed's recent book on U.S. Civil War Stamp Envelopes isa close cousin (and another collecting favorite of mine), butthere's a big gap for cardboard scrip. Some is covered undervarious state obsolete currency books, but other than somescattered articles, there is no book on the subject.

To read the earlier E-Sylum article, see: CIVIL WARCARDBOARD SCRIP (www.coinbooks.org/esylum_v09n26a11.html)

Jon Radel had some recent catalogs of world telephone tokenson display, He also had a nice pair of medals, recent purchasesfrom eBay. They were French Civil Service medals for the PTT(Postes et Télécommunications).

For more information, Jon recommends thie Wikipedia entry:Médailled'honneur des PTT(fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/M%C3%A9daille_d%27honneur_des_PTT)

To read the original eBay entries, see:
Médailled'honneur des postes et télégraphes bélière bicéphal bronze1925 Dacier (www.ebay.com/itm/141014406186)
Médailled'honneur des postes et télégraphes en argent officier(/www.ebay.com/itm/200942246611)

One of the discussion topics was my recent trip to Pittsburghto work on numismatic literature from the John Burns estate.It's a huge chore. There was only time to do the most basictriage; as much as I would have loved to, organizing the books bysubject just wasn't in the cards. But Pat McBride and hiscrew are still working on it, and we should be ready for theauction at the PAN show in May.

It was another great evening of numismatic fellowship. Thenext morning before heading to work I watched another of thevideos David Lisot filmed at the March Baltimore show. He hadinterviewed me, Allen Berman, Charlie Davis, John Kraljevich andDel Parker about John Burns. The end result is a superb tributeto our old friend. Follow the link below to watch it on theCoinWeek site.

To view the Burns remembrance video, see: Numismatic Book Dealer John Burns Remembered. VIDEO: 9:06(www.coinweek.com/books-2/numismatic-book-dealer-john-burns-remembered-video-906/)