NNP

The next NNP Symposium, our tenth such event, will take place at the Central States Numismatic Society (CSNS) convention in Schaumburg, IL, April 23-25. This event will be live-streamed. Featured speakers include U.S. Mint Director Paul Hollis, who will present at 10:30AM on Thursday, April 23 on “The US Mint's Celebration of the Semiquincentennial.” Among others, ANS Executive Director Ute Wartenberg Kagan will speak on “Coin Portraiture in Antiquity and Today,” while Lawrence S. Brown, Jr., former member of the Citizens Coinage Advisory Committee, will present “Congressional Gold Medals: Intersection of Art and History.”

The CSNS “State Showcase” annually features one member state, and this year Missouri will be highlighted with related exhibits and presentations. As part of the NNP Symposium, four presentations are dedicated to Missouri numismatics. A full schedule and Zoom links, for 21 sessions total, will be published on the NNP Symposium website shortly before the event. 

Link to NNP Symposium website: https://nnpsymposium.org

John Lorzeno’s recent paper, “Surface and Grading Issues in Honduran Provisional Eight Reales at the Tegucigalpa Mint: Insights from a Dual Analysis Method: XRF and SEM/EDS Analysis,” is now available on Newman Portal. XRF and SEM/EDS work differently and answer different questions – XRF is better for alloy identification, while SEM/EDS is more useful for analyzing microstructure, including specific particles or spots. Lorenzo’s objective here is to characterize the “signature” of genuine examples.

The paper demonstrates that Honduran provisional eight reales (1856–1861) were struck from highly inconsistent copper–lead alloys, with XRF showing most coins containing ~1–4% lead and occasional extreme cases up to ~14%, while SEM/EDS confirms that lead is immiscible in copper and segregates into discrete inclusions at grain boundaries; these inclusions act as weak points that fracture during striking, producing characteristic micro-cratering, pitting, and surface defects. The study concludes that many surface issues long attributed to environmental damage are actually intrinsic metallurgical and manufacturing flaws—stemming from poor planchet preparation, inadequate annealing, crude minting technology, and alloy instability—while higher lead levels exacerbate but do not solely cause defects such as lamination and fissuring. Overall, the combined XRF and SEM/EDS analysis reframes these coins as products of erratic metallurgy and primitive production methods, explaining both their degraded surfaces and frequent misgrading in numismatic practice.

Link to John Lorenzo papers on NNP: https://nnp.wustl.edu/library/booksbyauthor/524382

Courtesy of Michael Wehner, NNP has added video from the 2001 California State Numismatic Society Symposium, which was hosted by the Pacific Coast Numismatic Society. Speakers include Bill Metcalf on “The Mint at Rome,” David Lange on Philippine coinage produced by the U.S. Mint, Duane Feisal on California saloon tokens, and Joe Boling on “Counterfeiting Paper Money.” 

One of our favorite things to do with NNP is leverage NNP itself to add context to new content. In this case, the Winter 2002 edition of the Calcoin News gives us the full particulars regarding these presentations, and we can now associate the when, where, and why with what started as an undigitized videotape. Thanks to Michael Wehner for making this material available to NNP.

Link to PCNS video on NNP: https://nnp.wustl.edu/library/multimediadetail/545904
Link to Calcoin News on NNP: https://nnp.wustl.edu/library/book/516578

Sponsored in part by a grant from the Eric P. Newman Numismatic Education Society, George Cuhaj’s latest work, Medals of the Hierarchy of the Roman Catholic Church in the United States, is now available on Newman Portal. 

Cuhaj’s work documents medals issued by Catholic dioceses, archdioceses, and church institutions in the United States from 1789 through 2020. Organized primarily by diocese, the work identifies and describes medals that commemorate bishops, cardinals, cathedrals, jubilees, church anniversaries, and other significant ecclesiastical events. The catalog includes medals ranging from small medalets to large presentation pieces and captures both widely distributed commemoratives and more obscure issues from diocesan archives, collectors, and institutional collections.  

The study further situates these medals within the broader development of the Catholic Church in the United States. Beginning with the establishment of the first U.S. diocese in Baltimore in 1789 and the subsequent expansion of dioceses across the country, the book traces how medallic art has been used to commemorate clerical leadership, cathedral construction, anniversaries, and institutional milestones. The result is both a reference guide for collectors and a historical record of American Catholic hierarchy expressed through medallic art.

Link to George Cuhaj books on Newman Portal: https://nnp.wustl.edu/library/booksbyauthor/521

Thanks to the diligent efforts of Lara Jacobs at the American Numismatic Society, Newman Portal now includes 131 auction sales from the German firm Adolph Hess, dated 1875-1914.

Hess (1846-1912) launched his coin business in 1871 in Frankfurt am Main, Germany and handled many important sales before selling his firm in 1894 to Louis Hamburger and his son-in-law, James Belmonte. Hamburger and Belmonte continued the business under the name Adolph Hess Nachfolger. The firm, today known as HessDivo, is currently based in Zurich.

The site rNumis.com lists 240 Hess catalogs total and further links to scans from Gallica (the digital face of the French National Library) and the University of Heidelberg.

Link to Hess catalogs on Newman Portal: https://nnp.wustl.edu/library/auctioncompanydetail/515305
Link to Hess catalogs on rnumis.com: https://www.rnumis.com/house_auctions.php?house=HESS
Link to HessDivo history: https://www.hessdivo.com/history

Between 1883 and 1894 the U.S. post office issued postal notes, essentially postal scrip used to transmit small of amounts of money through the mail. The post office charged three cents for each note, which could be used to forward sums up to five dollars. These items are similar to paper money, and not surprisingly were printed by firms such as the American Bank Note Company. Because most were redeemed upon receipt, few remain today.

Kent Halland has made of study of these notes, focusing on the question of where they were issued and how many remain. By compiling data from over 59,000 known notes and identifying highest serial numbers for 2,679 offices, he is able to account for nearly 48% of all Postal Notes issued, using extrapolation methods to estimate totals for remaining issuing offices.

This work was sponsored in part by a 2025 research grant from the Eric P. Newman Numismatic Education Society. Applications for 2026 grants are currently being accepted, until April 15, 2026.

Link to Kent Halland’s The U.S. Post Notes 1883-1894 on Newman Portal: https://nnp.wustl.edu/library/booksbyauthor/558042
Link to 2026 Newman Grant application: https://archive.org/details/NewmanGrantApplication2026

Courtesy of Steve Martin, Florida United Numismatists (FUN) board member, NNP has added videos from the educational program presentations delivered at the recent January convention. Sessions from the January event include Biana Bart speaking on paper money errors, Bill Jones speaking on U.S. half eagles, David Harper with his ever-popular “numismatic predictions” for the coming year, and others. This year’s FUN convention drew attendance that seemingly attracted the entire U.S. collector base, but, for those unable to attend, these videos are now available.

Link to FUN videos on NNP: https://nnp.wustl.edu/library/multimediadetail/549321

Courtesy of John Ostendorf, NNP has added the American Tax Token Society (ATTS) Newsletters for the years 2011-2025, completing a 50+ year run of the publication that began in 1971. The ATTS concluded its operation at the end of 2025, and the club leaves an extensive legacy of related research. 

For those not familiar, tax tokens represent a short-lived fiscal convenience created to handle fractional sales taxes that arose when states and municipalities imposed rates like 1%, 2%, or 3% on low-priced goods. States authorized inexpensive metal or fiber tokens, typically valued at 1 mill (one-tenth of a cent), to make exact change possible. Retailers used these tokens to collect the precise tax due, then returned them in bulk to state tax authorities or wholesalers for redemption. Their use peaked in the late 1940s and early 1950s, and faded as prices rose, rounding rules were adopted, and tax rates were adjusted to avoid fractions. Today, tax tokens hearken to an era when a penny remained substantial enough that splitting it into further parts actually made sense (pardon the pun). 

Link to American Tax Token Society Newsletter on NNP: https://nnp.wustl.edu/library/publisherdetail/524434

The latest issue of Half Crazy, the newsletter of the Seated Half Society, is now available on NNP. The Seated Half Society is an honorary group whose membership is open to those owning significant collections of Liberty Seated half dollars, similar to the Bust Half Nut Club. This issue reports a newly discovered 1878-S half dollar, the 55th example now listed in the Bill Bugert census. Bugert further calls for census information on the 1849 WB-6 Dramatically Doubled Date and 1873 No Arrows Open 3 half dollar varieties. This issue also includes coverage of the 1877/6 and 1842 Small Date, Small Letters varieties. Half Crazy is edited by Dennis Fortier, for more information on this group he may be contacted at ricajun@msn.com.

Link to Half Crazy on Newman Portal: https://nnp.wustl.edu/library/publisherdetail/548913