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JY£JYcA VOL 61 March 2007 NO. 1 © INC. The President's Comments by William Stone Something Completely Different Book review by Jan M. Dyroff Women In Power by Prue Fitts Wv Scholarship to fiNfi Seminar Prue and Arthur Fitts For Kids Only NENA News 1 NORTHEAST NUMISMATICS, INC. ACTIVE BUYER AND SELLER OF ALL BETTER UNITED STATES COINS Collectors, Dealers and Investors have been dealing with Northeast Numismatics, Inc. for the past 40 years we have been in business. If you are buying, we have an inventory of over 2,000 NGC, PCGS and ANACS coins that change daily. For a free list and to receive a periodic listing of our current inventory, we request your address or fax number. We also service want lists on an aggressive basis. Visit us at www.northeastcoin.com. We update daily! If you are selling, we would like to be given the opportunity to purchase your material. It does not need to be certified. Single coins or complete collections, we will buy it all! With a high percentage of our business being with other dealers, doesn’t it make sense to deal with Northeast Numismatics, Inc. directly? We invite you to see us at major shows, call, fax or write us today. Authorized dealer in all major grading services. 10 Concord Crossing, Suite 220 Concord, MA 01742 1-800-449-2646 978-369-9155 978-369-9619 (Fax) Thomas [email protected] Caldwell www.northeastcoin.com ANA LM 2 Nena News #1318 BOARD OF DIRECTORS OF THE NEW ENGLAND NUMISMATIC ASSOCIATION email: [email protected] PRESIDENT William Stone (term expires 2008) VICE PRESIDENT Robert Hewey (term expires 2008) TREASURER Robert S. Anderson (term expires 2007) DIRECTORS Prue Fitts (term expires 2007) Robert Drew (term expires 2007) Ernie Botte (term expires 2007) John Kiley (term expires 2007) George Bilodeau (term expires 2007 Bill Harkins (term expires 2007 STATE DIRECTORS Connecticut Joe Duval (term expires 2007) Maine Currently Vacant Massachusetts Jack Haroian (term expires 2008) New Hampshire Robert F. Fritsch (term expires 2007) Rhode Island Richard Lavimodiere (term expires 2007) Vermont Currently Vacant NENA NEWS EDITOR Joe Duval P. O. Box 28 Willimantic, CT 06226-0028 email: [email protected] MEMBERSHIP Robert S. Anderson P. O. Box 920586 Needham, MA 02492-0007 YN ACTIVITIES Jack Haroian MEDALS COORDINATOR Robert S. Anderson HISTORIAN Jan Dyroff NENA NEWS is the official publication of the New England Numismatic Association (NENA). It is published quarterly and mailed to all members of the association in good standing. For information about NENA or this publication, write to: NENA NEWS, P. O. BOX 920586, Needham, MA 02192-0007 NENA News 3 PRESIDENT'S COMMENTS by William Stone T he Officers and Board appreciation of our hobby . members of NENA are Again we expect to have a continuing to expand and Youth Program for the reenergize our programs. To youngsters (ages four through this end please review this ninety-four or our adult mailing carefully. Read the membership). This is a articles, and notices many ideas learning program for are being advanced and some everyone, we each can gain old ones are being rethought. If from seeing a new thought or you have and suggestions please idea. Gifts and prizes are forward them to our email awarded for correct answers address listed below or our to questions. These gifts mailing address listed in this come from the dealers and (and every) mailing. The board participants of the show, who has given much thought to support this worthy project family participation, where the every year. And note of entire family can enjoy a day or thanks to each of these two together, see some new (and individuals and companies old) numismatic and willing to help us expand our bibliographic material which we membership, if not in this hope will expand your Association, maybe a local 4 Nena News coin club can be the beneficiary regional program scheduled of this generosity. for Boston, MA in the not so At our annual meeting distant future. Help is always and election of officers we welcomed by the existing elected a new slate of officers workers as they are sometimes but not all positions were filled, hard pressed to fill all the jobs as you will note in the listing of that need to done. officers section. We are still If you wish to serve looking for interested members this Association in any willing to serve this capacity; please mail us a Association. Please consider letter, or go online at: offering you time and [email protected] knowledge to our association. we (as all organizations need Speakers for our and want new blood, and programs are in demand. Many new ideas. The scheduled individuals have great meetings of the officers and knowledge which they could directors are held in Auburn impart to others but I guess MA. on selected Saturday s on they don t think what they have a bi-monthly basis and are learned is of interest to others. held at 10:00 A.M. and are NOT SO. Your research and limited (by by-law) to a findings are of interest to many, maximum of two hours. please consider acting as a tutor We are looking (teacher if you will), explain forward to seeing more faces, the finer points of your members and prospective specialty. Knowledge is a (new) members at the next wonderful thing, but sharing it annual meeting in October makes it available to more 2007 in Bedford, New people who can then learn more Hampshire. Come and plan about the topic. on making it a weekend event Discussions on the next for the family. annual meeting as to what artwork should be on our NENA metal is up for Sincerely, suggestions. We are also in the planning stages for the ANA NENA News 5 find Now for Something Completely Different Book Review by Jan M. Dyroff Colin R. Bruce II, Ed. Unusual World Coins. Iola: Krause Publications, 2005 $39.95 T his tome has been de matter, Colin R. Bruce II scribed as the classic bravely attacks the question, guide to those mysteri¬ What exactly is a coin and ous coin issuers from the realms what isn t? ° He notes that there of Fantasy, the borders of micro¬ once was a very clear definition nations, the halls of exiled covering this ancient invention.0 royalty, the shady backrooms of It was created to accommodate imitators, the creative minds of commerce and wages.0 Then, numismatic promoters and the during the last two centuries, shores of islands yet undiscov¬ there were all sorts of coin¬ ered. like emissions.0 Some were Its scope is novel non¬ salesman s samples while circulating coins (including others were privately struck fantasy issues), mini-states, patterns that would hopefully medallic types and pseudo¬ be adopted as traditional de¬ states.0 While the items, de¬ signs for general circulation. scribed in the catalog and, And that (or those) is amazingly enough, evaluated, what this book is devoted to.° may be struck in copper, bronze, Its purpose, according to Cliff silver, gold or platinum, none of Mishler, is to chronicle the them are real. sometimes confusing, often ° To get to the nub of the deceptive numismatic emis- Continued on Next Page 6 Nena News sions, principally created with the commercial marketplace in mind, which purport to represent sovereign governmental agencies. Now, this is a very strange subset of numismatics.0 For the most part all the items look good, even though you may not recognize the issuer or the denomination (which often looks like it should be in some language you know but isn t).° If you try to them originate from venues think about this stuff rationally unknown — where, for instance, and logically, applying your is Christiana (other than in the years of experience in coin book)?0 It would have been nice collecting, you re going to get a if someone took a stab at headache. answering this sort of question. So, that having been And, much to their noted, if you specialize in a credit, the editors do list the particular topic (like mermaids, manufacturers or issuers when or John F. Kennedy, or popes — known, like Richard Lobel you choose which one), I m (Coincraft, London) and his sure you 11 find references to it extensive series of Edward VIII here.0 After all, most of the crowns for many of the lands items are made for a market and which were then part of the with a particular buyer in mind. British Empire.0 The same Many of the items holds true regarding Joseph purport to be from a particular, Moore and his curious and actual country, like Denmark, or varied offering of Model France, or even the United Pennies during the reign of States of America.0 But a lot of Queen Victoria. Continued on Next Page NENA News 7 It should be noted that 1A las, the revolution only lasted while some series of fantasies £a very short while before a are silly, others can potentially IB ritish paratroop force restored be dangerous, as in the point tt he island to the Crown. where fantasy leaves off and ° And there are a few counterfeit begins." For ex- ii nconsistencies." There is a good ample, in addition to all of the <c overage of the Danish West genuine Euro issuing nations Indies (now the U.S. Virgin (with new additions coming Islands) and the countermarked soon), there are a host of other nineteenth-century coinage with Euro patterns carrying designs the crowned monogram of very much like the circulating Frederik VII — but there is no coins allegedly issued by a warning that as has been ascer¬ host of countries including tained by the eminent Aruba, Belarus, the Balearic Danishnumismatist Jorgen Islands, Bulgaria, the Canary Somod, all such items are Islands, Cape Verde, Carthage modem concoctions." On the City (where?), Crete, Cyprus, other hand it is observed that the Faeroe Islands, Georgia, the countermark for Guadeloupe Gibraltar, Wales you get the (supposedly 1774-1791) is picture." The list just keeps on indeed a modem invention. going, and you have to wonder ° As for products and why. producers listed in this book, Sometimes you come the heaviest hitters are China, across buried gems of real, Cuba, Germany, Hawaii, the factual information, as in the United States and, everybody s entry for Anguilla, which de¬ favorite, the Hutt River Prov¬ clared its independence on July ince." Then, when you get to 11, 1967." The Provisional Middle Earth, things really get Government authorized a firm, weird, with various, shires, presumably in San Francisco, to towns, kingdoms and even an countermark Liberty Dollars Evil Empire, replete with a on crown-sized coins of Mexico, Monetary Reform of 1404, in Peru and elsewhere." These were2 which the farthing was replaced monetized and to be redeemed by the hlokarpeni but I guess at ten United States dollars." you knew that anyway. A 8 Nena News Women In Power by Prue Fitts Women in Power — not such a new Reproduction. For millennia, this thing today as the Glass Ceiling process was shrouded in mystery — becomes more porous. Being there was no connection with the smaller and less physically robust, role of the male. Not until very how did Women first begin to get late in our history when men as and exercise power — and how do Doctors were judged the best we know about it? One of the facilitators at birthings, women clues is coinage. There are many were not only the producers of women who appear on coinage that life, but also were the sole reposi¬ were simply political appendages tory of the mysterious process. to their husbands - but there are We do not know the exact role of more than you might expect who the 7-pound statue, but she was were real action figures seizing and certainly important. wielding power. Some even are Coins were not minted portrayed in your face on until the mid 7th C BC by the coinage or in art. Lydians. . The first representation of Made of Woman that we know of is the the natu¬ Willenburg Venus, a stone figure rally from 25,000 BC (you read that occurring right —BC), discovered in what is mixture of now Austria. gold and silver called electrum, we call these pieces staters. Earliest ones were unmarked lumps which were of equivalent weight, telling us this was not an accidental No poster image for Weight occurrence. Others were incused Watchers, she leaves no doubt of with the very simplest of designs. the ultimate power of women. Continued on Next Page NENA News 9 Within a century, there were A real warrior, no goddess possibly a half dozen or so mints, or myth was Boudicca. She was requiring identification. Animal Queen of the Iceni (Norfolk, symbols were added to one side Suffolk and part of Cambridge) - the last Celtic tribe to be indepen¬ dent of Roman domination in the first century AD. Her husband, Prasutagus, an autonomous prince under Rome willed his kingdom to his daughters, having no male heirs. One source tells us that he included Nero in the mix, hoping no doubt for Rome s protection. Instead, taxes and conscriptions with the incused mark on the other. increased, and concessions from One of the earliest repre¬ earlier years were revoked. We do sentations of woman on coinage not know whether Rome chose was the Goddess Athena. The this time to annex Iceni believing Goddess of War as well as the that the rulers were too weak or patron saint of Athens, her birth inexperienced to resist, but we do was one of the more creative know that the pillage and plunder legends. Zeus, the God of all were horrific. The women were Gods, was married to Hera but his raped — even the two reigning promiscuity was legion (one way daughters. Their mother, to explain all those gods and Boudicca, waited until the Roman goddess!) He impregnated a governor and his troops were mortal and then swallowed her to absent to make her move; then keep his wife from finding out. It s rallied a huge force in Britain to not nice to fool Hera. Zeus rebellion. Marching at the head developed a headache that was the of her troops, she burned migraine of all times. Hephaestus, Colchester, London and St Albans God of Fire and the Iron Smith, killing more than 70,000 Romans offered to cut a wedge in Zeus and almost annihilating the 9th head to relieve the pressure. Legion. In time, however, sheer Imagine his and everyone else s Roman numbers prevailed and she surprise when Athena leapt out, and the rebellion were defeated in full-blown and grown and no doubt 61 AD. as grateful as he to be free. A lady There are many kinds of to be reckoned with. Goddess of power. There has always been War — she is most often seen power — overt or covert behind helmeted. the Throne be it a stone, wood or 10 Nena News