NNP

Recently added to the Newman Portal is The Mint Master, journal of the Utah Numismatic Society, for the years 2009-2019. State publications typically have a focus on local numismatic emissions, and the Mint Master is no exception, with extensive coverage of 19th century Mormon issues as well as Utah obsolete currency. Local events, not always covered by the national numismatic media, are also featured. The November 2016 issue includes an article by Tom Davis covering the opening of a hundred-year old time capsule at the State Capitol Building. Newman Portal acknowledges editor Doug Nyholm, who is also a frequent Mint Master author, for his assistance with this title.

Link to The Mint Master on Newman Portal: https://nnp.wustl.edu/library/publisherdetail/533919

Lianna Spurrier is well-known to NNP users and has completed two video series for Newman Portal, including same-day coverage of the 2019 World’s Fair of Money and a group of videos aimed at young numismatists. Spurrier now starts a new video series focused on publications of Eric P. Newman. The first entry focuses on Newman’s 1959 work The Secret of the Good Samaritan Shilling. One of the most notorious fabrications in American numismatics, this piece sold for $650 in the Bushnell (1882) sale. By way of comparison a Birch cent from the same collection sold at $290. Newman demonstrated that the Good Samaritan counterstamp on a Pine Tree shilling was not contemporary, and hoped that he would be a “Good Samaritan” in having set the record straight. The work combined Newman’s interest in colonial numismatics and expertise in counterfeit detection, and is neatly explicated in this new video by Spurrier.

Link to Secret of the Good Samaritan Shilling video on NNP: https://nnp.wustl.edu/library/book/570537
Link to Ford/Hamelberg copy of the Bushnell sale on NNP: https://nnp.wustl.edu/library/auctionlots?AucCoId=21&AuctionId=510831

Recently added to the Newman Portal is the Daily Blog from Gerry Fortin Rare Coins (GFRC). After retiring from the semiconductor industry, Fortin launched GFRC in 2014 as a specialty dealer of Bust, Liberty Seated, and U.S. gold coinage. Fortin challenged himself to create fresh content on a daily basis, and the result today is essentially the business diary of a specialized, Internet-based coin dealer. Today’s culture is less  formal than that of fifty years ago, and the ubiquity of information has created an expectation of transparency. Professional secrets, once closely guarded by practitioners of any specific craft, are fewer are far between, and the occupational mysteries of nearly any profession can be uncovered with a simple Google query. Fortin embraces all of this and opens his business to daily scrutiny – consignments come in, clients are served, and the challenges of travel, IT, photography, accounting, and inventory control are on full view to the reader. Given such an approach, it is no surprise that Fortin agreed to contribute his archive to the Newman Portal repository. This is a unique view of a particular coin business in a numismatic market that is becoming more and more defined by the Internet Age.

Link to Gerry Fortin Rare Coins Daily Blog archive on Newman Portal: https://nnp.wustl.edu/library/publisherdetail/534276