NNP

With over 30,000 documents and 2,500 videos, the Newman Portal content can be at first daunting. Lianna Spurrier makes sense of it all with her recent video “Newman Numismatic Portal Beginner's Guide.” Newman Portal divides library material into several major categories – auction catalogs, periodicals, books, archives, etc. Auction catalogs are divided by auction house, with nearly 10,000 sale catalogs representing several hundred auction firms. Periodicals cover anything from state and regional organizations to well-known titles such as The Numismatist and the American Journal of Numismatics. The archive section includes a quarter million pages of U.S National Archives & Records Administration (NARA) material, categorized by the NARA record group and entry classifications. In addition to library holdings, Newman Portal includes an image and biographical database, based on Pete Smith’s American Numismatic Biographies. Spurrier breaks it down further with additional examples in this useful video.

Link to Newman Portal Beginner’s Video: https://nnp.wustl.edu/library/book/577584

The Eric P. Newman Numismatic Education Society (EPNNES) announces the opening of the application period for the 2020 Newman Grant program. Newman Grants are designed to financially assist numismatic authors and organizations pursuing original research in American numismatics. This is the second year of the program. In 2019, the Newman Grant program supported research projects related to colonial numismatics, U.S. federal coinage, counterfeit detection, and other areas.

Authors, researchers, and numismatic organizations are encouraged to apply for amounts between $1,000 and $5,000. Awards may be applied toward related research costs including but not limited to photography, reproduction of research material and graphic art services, database access fees, and travel. Electronic publications will be preferred as EPNNES wishes to direct funds toward expenses specifically related to numismatic research, rather than the print publication of research. Newman Grant awardees agree to non-exclusive publication of their research on the Newman Numismatic Portal (NewmanPortal.org). EPNNES intends to make approximately half a dozen grants in 2020.

The Newman Grant program is administered for EPNNES by the Newman Numismatic Portal (NNP). Applications may be found on the Newman Numismatic Portal at

https://nnp.wustl.edu/library/archivedetail/530553?Year=2020

and should be submitted to NNPCurator@wustl.edu. The application deadline is April 1, 2020, with the grant awards to be announced on May 25, 2020, coincident with the late Eric P. Newman’s birthday.

It is the hope of EPNNES that this program will continue the legacy of Eric P. Newman in a way that would reflect his high standards for numismatic research.

Yahoo.com hosted hundreds of message groups dedicated to coin collecting, from the launch of the Yahoo Groups service in 2001 until recently, when Yahoo announced that all groups were being converted into email distribution lists. The C4 colonial coin collectors group in particular generated significant traction with many recognized experts regularly posting to their group. Over 100,000 posts were made to the C4 group, and these are now archived on Newman Portal. These may be searched via the Newman Portal advanced search page by first selecting “articles” as the content type and then entering a search phrase. For example, a search on “18-l” (a rare Maris variety in the New Jersey copper series) delivers 77 posts related to the subject. Newman Portal acknowledges C4 member Craig McDonald for his assistance with this project.

Newman Portal is interested in working with other Yahoo coin collecting groups to similarly archive their content. Contact NNPCurator@wustl.edu for more information.

Link to Newman Portal advanced search page: https://nnp.wustl.edu/library/advancedsearchform