Book Review: Colonial and Early American Coins by QDB

Ah, yes, my second question was if one can get a complete set of Colonial
Newsletter. �I know part of the backfile is on CD, but not all of it. �I've
also seen a stray issue of it scanned online. �What's the story on this?

I think I'm finally going to spring for an ANS membership. �Will you be at
EAC to sign me up?

James- Hide quoted text -

James, practically the entire run of the Colonial Newsletter (lacking
the issues of the last year and a half or so) is available on CD.
Issues 1 through 103 have to be ordered from Bill Spillman (I think)
and the remainder from the ANS. On my CD of 1-103 I don't see any
ordering information, but I paid around $48 as I recall. This CD also
has a searchable index. For ordering information on the CD from issue
104 on, see http://www.numismatics.org/CNL/CNL.

Bob

Bob wrote:
Ah, yes, my second question was if one can get a complete set of
Colonial Newsletter. ?I know part of the backfile is on CD, but not
all of it. ?I've also seen a stray issue of it scanned online.
?What's the story on this?

I think I'm finally going to spring for an ANS membership. ?Will you
be at EAC to sign me up?

James- Hide quoted text -

James, practically the entire run of the Colonial Newsletter (lacking
the issues of the last year and a half or so) is available on CD.
Issues 1 through 103 have to be ordered from Bill Spillman (I think)
and the remainder from the ANS. On my CD of 1-103 I don't see any
ordering information, but I paid around $48 as I recall. This CD also
has a searchable index. For ordering information on the CD from issue
104 on, see http://www.numismatics.org/CNL/CNL.

Thanks. Can you supply contact info for Bill Spillman? I'd really like to
get this purchase in motion.

James

Bob F. wrote:
"Mr. Jaggers" lugburzman[at]yahoo[dot]com wrote in message
...
I've always had a desire to attend a coin show in Canada, a real
hardcore one, to see both similarities and differences. Have you
ever experienced a Canadian show?

I went to a TOREX show a few years ago and was amazed at the quantity
and quality of the Canadian material available there.

That's what I figured. Just once I'd like to attend a show where most of
the coins offered are not slabbed and are not Morgan dollars. Guess I
better get my passport renewed so I can go to such a show before I cross the
Chilly River. And I don't mean the St. Lawrence.

James

Mike Marotta wrote:
On Apr 4, 8:15 am, "Mr. Jaggers" lugburzman[at]yahoo[dot]com wrote:
"The picture on page 169 labelled Maris 56 is actually a duplication
of the
picture of Maris 55, and, more seriously, the verbal description for
56-n on
page 183 is that of a coin that does not exist, although ..."

Thanks for the facts. I printed out that post and placed it in the
book. My mention here was ahead of my publications in print coming
next quarter. I will follow up by reading the Yahoo group, as well,
before I submit my manuscripts.

It is incumbent upon one who would write a book review to have
thoroughly examined the content of that book and to be equipped with
detailed expertise in the subject matter to a degree that qualifies
him as a critic in the first place.

I see the matter differently. Last year, I published a couple of
reviews that were lukewarm. I hit on the highlights and strengths and
defined the shortcomings as nicely as I could. I looked at the books
not from the viewpoint of an expert showing off to cast someone else's
ego into shadow, but from the perspective of a coin collector with a
certain level of knowledge, seeking to enhance their understanding of
the subject and appreciation of the hobby. Those reviews were for
general interest, US Numismatics books, an area where I have a general
interest only. (See below.)

I took the same tack with two recent reviews in _The Celator_. Since
1994, I placed about a dozen major features there and many letters and
smaller submissions. So, this is an area where I have some specific
interest. I find it much more satisfying to quote other people than
to assert my own opiniions. Not only is it safer in the long run, I
am just not that sold on my own opinions, oddly enough. I did that
for the new book on advanced collecting of ancients by Dr. Paul
Rynearson and Harlan J. Berk's "100 Greatest."

I did not write my own review first because I do not possess
that detailed expertise, nor ...

Now you are being falsely modest. Perhaps you just do not like taking
the risk of initiative and find it easier to criticise. Whatever your
motives, they are your own, and you have a right to them, but you
clearly demonstrated an abiding expertise here that more than
qualifies you to an opinion.

... As Harlan J. Berk said about his _100 Greatest
Ancients_ also from Whitman, "You write for your worst critic."
The "100 Greatest" series is necessarily arbitrary in its editorial
content. No two collectors would come up with the same lists,
obviously.

Not even close, there, Mr. J. The problems with that tome had nothing
to do with the title, but were more on the order of the glitches you
found in this book. Again, my views of the problems came first from
HJB himself who pointed me to the others who vetted the book.
Interviewing them, I gained other insights. On some of those points,
I had my own opinion, having already published at length. The purpose
of the review was to write about the new book by HJB, not to recap the
works of Mike Marotta.

While we all have our passions, I am pretty much a generalist when it
comes to numismatics. I could care less about narrow shields,
overpunched dates and all that. I could go on at length about how
uninteresting all of that is to me -- though I grant you your right to
your own passions, of course. For me, the salient fact is that New
Jersey struck so many of these, with so many dies that there are many
varieties of interest to aficiandos, but the sheer volume alone speaks
to the fundamental economics of the time and place. In short: the
governrment of New Jersey was monetized on copper.

The same is true of the Massachusetts silvers. That there are
"delicate punches" or whatever is not as interesting as the fact --
stated by Michael Hodder, elsewhere, but not investigated in this book
-- that Massachusetts was consciously taking a perogative of
sovereignty. Their coinage went along with their invasions of Maine
and New Hampshire. (Maine, they kept. New Hampshire they withdrew
from.) Within one generation, the colonists were already seeing
themselves in a new light, as something other than Englishmen living
just a bit farther from London.

The downside, of course, is that a lot of details escape me. You
can't win em all. I prefer to drill deep for important facts that
illuminate broad truths. I am a researcher, not a collector. I do
buy material when I write about a subject. I have to know what I am
writing about. (The one recent exception was a feature a few years
back on Proof Double Eagles. That was vicarious.) But I don't hang
on to the stuff. Books I keep.

Mike M.
Michael E. Marotta
"Buy the books and you won't need the coins."

Oh, but I DO need the coins!

In any event, my concept of a book review may be formed (deformed?) by the
kind of reviews I read in Scientific American and Free Inquiry, where the
reviewers essentially make of their product a monograph that could almost
stand alone.

I shall look forward to seeing you on the Yahoo group. You'll see all the
discussion relating to the errata in Bowers' book.

James
'cherishing the Bowers book, warts and all'

On Sat, 4 Apr 2009 20:51:04 -0500, "Mr. Jaggers"
lugburzman[at]yahoo[dot]com wrote:


Ah, yes, my second question was if one can get a complete set of Colonial
Newsletter. I know part of the backfile is on CD, but not all of it. I've
also seen a stray issue of it scanned online. What's the story on this?

Jim Spilman has posted online CNL issues 1-103 (up to around
1995).

Follow the link in the E-sylum newsletter below (about a third of
the way down):
http://www.coinbooks.org/club_nbs_esylum_v10n11.html
--
Ed. Stoebenau
a #143

"Mr. Jaggers" lugburzman[at]yahoo[dot]com wrote in message
...
Bob F. wrote:
"Mr. Jaggers" lugburzman[at]yahoo[dot]com wrote in message
...
I've always had a desire to attend a coin show in Canada, a real
hardcore one, to see both similarities and differences. Have you
ever experienced a Canadian show?

I went to a TOREX show a few years ago and was amazed at the quantity
and quality of the Canadian material available there.

That's what I figured. Just once I'd like to attend a show where most
of the coins offered are not slabbed and are not Morgan dollars.
Guess I better get my passport renewed so I can go to such a show
before I cross the Chilly River. And I don't mean the St. Lawrence.

Well there weren't too many Morgans but ICCS and, to a lesser extent,
CCCS, PCGS and NGC certified coins were in abundance.
I came THIS close to buying a mint state 1948 dollar but the dealer
wouldn't budge on his price and neither would I. Oh well.
With all the counterfeits coming out of China, I usually won't buy a
coin that isn't certified, except lower grade common stuff I'm putting
together for my circulated Canadian type set.

Ed. Stoebenau wrote:
On Sat, 4 Apr 2009 20:51:04 -0500, "Mr. Jaggers"
lugburzman[at]yahoo[dot]com wrote:


Ah, yes, my second question was if one can get a complete set of
Colonial Newsletter. I know part of the backfile is on CD, but not
all of it. I've also seen a stray issue of it scanned online.
What's the story on this?

Jim Spilman has posted online CNL issues 1-103 (up to around
1995).

Follow the link in the E-sylum newsletter below (about a third of
the way down):
http://www.coinbooks.org/club_nbs_esylum_v10n11.html

Got 'em all downloaded to my hard drive! Ed, I owe you for this, bigtime.
That saved me some hassle, as well as, perhaps, half a C-note. Now all I
have to do is read all those issues. Then get the CD for issue 104 on.
Lots of activity in my hobby again, which is why I do this in the first
place. Coin life is good!

Thanks again for that link. I'll bet that several RCC people go there and
do some downloading, so I hope the host server doesn't object.

James

On Apr 4, 12:55*pm, "Mr. Jaggers" lugburzman[at]yahoo[dot]com wrote:

As I mentioned in another post, I lack the cachet necessary to produce a
proper review, nor I have looked at the book macroscopically, in terms of
finding all errors of omission and commission. *I will say this, though:
The new Bowers book is a welcome addition to the literature, with the caveat
that it be soon revised and corrected.


James

Reviews by actual users of these references are much more valuable
then editorial
reviews whose writers seldom spot errors that are glaringly obvious to
those who actually
collect the series.
--
RARE COIN AUCTIONS NO RESERVES www.frankcoins.com
http://myworld.ebay.com/frankcoins Texas Auction License
11259, Board member of Texas Coin Dealers Association,
Member TNA, ANA, PCGS, NGC - Full Time Since 1991

Mr. Jaggers wrote:

That saved me some hassle, as well as, perhaps, half a C-note.

Would that be an L-note? All these posts, and no flames or off-
topics...until now! 8-)

Jud wrote:
Mr. Jaggers wrote:

That saved me some hassle, as well as, perhaps, half a C-note.

Would that be an L-note? All these posts, and no flames or off-
topics...until now! 8-)

Young Man, report immediately to the Principal's office. He will show you
his collection of fine hardwoods.

James the Pedagogue