The Baltimore Show was frankly more active than I had anticipated. After months of wearisome election battles and relentless revelations, it was nice to set that part of our lives aside and focus on buying and selling coins! The usual suspects were in attendance at the show, and everyone seemed to have a good time--collectors were generally able to secure desired pieces for their collections from the numerous dealers at the show.

One unexpected surprise was Winston Zack appearing at the show from far away San Diego, California! He shared numerous examples of contemporary counterfeit coins that are being used for his huge research project of documenting and writing a two (or more) volume book on these historic and often overlooked pieces of our numismatic history.

Some of the Seated coins--struck from hand cut dies created by now forgotten counterfeiters, were so comical in their crudity that I burst out laughing. Examining these folk art pieces captures so much of the American ingenuity spirit--that prior generations of people actually took the time to stamp out their own money with small common tools and whatever know-how and ability they had. These mom and pop enterprises continue all through our history, from the earliest colonial coins through our current coinage--one need look no further than the 1944 "Henning" Jefferson nickels, created and stamped out in a certain Mr. Henning's basement to be used to pay the hated toll on the New Jersey Turnpike!

Some of these counterfeiting operations were huge factories which churned out countless examples of these counterfeit coins. This is an area of research that simply has been overlooked for far too long, with the exception being the superlative work by Keith Davignon on Contemporary Counterfeit Capped Bust Half Dollars. Needless to say many numismatists have long awaited such a book documenting these fascinating coins.

To read the JR Newsletter online, see:
http://jr-newsletter.blogspot.com/

For more information on the John Reich Collectors Society, see:
http://jrcs.org/