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The David Lisot Video Library on Newman Portal, numbering about 2,000 videos, is a resource that will be mined for a long time. In 1988 Ed Rochette interviewed former U.S. Mint Director Eva Adams, who served from 1961 to 1969, and this video has recently been added to NNP. Adams speaks on a number of topics, including the Mint’s relationship with coin collectors and concerns related to public acceptance of coinage changes. Adams covers the introduction of the Kennedy half dollar as well as the 1960s coin shortages and subsequent introduction of clad coinage. The former Mint Director opposed legislation that would have removed presidents from U.S. coins and replaced them with figures emblematic of Liberty. Adams concludes with a few remarks on the construction of the (fourth) Mint in Philadelphia, which opened in 1969 during the final year of her administration.

Link to Eva Adams video on Newman Portal: https://nnp.wustl.edu/library/book/578942.

Through the generosity of Syd Martin, Roger Siboni, and Tony Terranova, the ANS library has acquired the Robert Martin notebooks on Connecticut coppers. These recently appeared in the Stack’s November 2019 Baltimore sale (lot 5056), and are there described in part “These eight binders represent Robert’s life’s work—nearly five decades of research on the Connecticut copper series. Robert would copy, cut and paste onto sturdy 8.5”x11” 3-hole punched pages auction appearances, fixed price listings, reports from fellow collectors, images, emails, articles, photocopies from the Hall manuscripts and just about any information he could find about Connecticut coppers—die marriages, history, and technical details.” The value of this material is self-evident, and anyone collecting or researching Connecticut coppers will find much of interest.  These eight binders have been digitized at ANS and are now available on Newman Portal.

Link to Robert Martin notebooks on Newman Portal: https://nnp.wustl.edu/library/archivedetail/536317

Image: Sample page from Robert Martin notebook 4, depicting condition census M. 27-a.1 Connecticut copper.

The congressional serial set, essentially the proceedings of the U.S. Congress for over 200 years, runs on the order of 20,000 volumes, a challenge most collectors would not even think to attempt. While this content has been digitized by ProQuest and others, most of it resides behind firewalls, and typically only academic libraries have access.  Numismatic literature collectors typically encounter this material in the form of reports running several pages, which been extracted from bound volumes. 

Washington University in St. Louis, a federal deposit library, holds a hardcopy of the entire set, and the Newman Portal has been scanning the bits of interest to numismatists. This material include legislation related to the production of coins and medals and well as formal reports on various coinage matters. A 1966 report, for example, discusses the sale of silver dollars from the U.S. Treasury, which throughout the 1960s and 1970s had significant impact on the numismatic market.

Link to U.S. Congressional Serial Set on Newman Portal: https://nnp.wustl.edu/library/publisherdetail/512550

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

Lianna Spurrier has created the second (of five) videos in the Getting to Know Eric P. Newman series on Newman Portal. Apropos of Black History Month, this video covers Newman’s paper “The Promotion and Suppression of Hard Times Tokens,” from the 1995 Coinage of the Americas Conference proceedings, which centered on the AM I NOT AND BROTHER American hard times token (Low-54A). Spurrier intersperses video of Newman discussing his research at the 1989 ANA convention (video captured at the time by David Lisot) and explains the rarity of the piece, noting that only four examples are known. The real treasure hunt here is Newman’s quest to discover the origin of the piece, ultimately uncovered in a 19th century anti-slavery newspaper after a substantial search.

Link to Getting to Know Eric P. Newman, Part 2 video on NNP: https://nnp.wustl.edu/library/book/574413
Link to Newman’s 1989 ANA presentation, Promotion & Suppression of Hard Times Tokens: https://nnp.wustl.edu/library/book/544892
Link to the ANS Coinage of the Americas Conference Proceedings (1995): https://nnp.wustl.edu/library/book/512500

While the story of the frontline portion of the George H. Clapp large cent collection is well known (stolen from the ANS by William H. Sheldon and largely recovered), few collectors realize that Clapp also donated (c. 1946-1947) nearly 500 large cent duplicates to the Carnegie Museum in Pittsburgh, PA. These have been recently photographed by Lyle Engleson, under joint sponsorship of Newman Portal and Early American Coppers (EAC). Although certain delicacies such as the S-48 “Starred Reverse” variety are not present here, the Carnegie holding does include four strongly detailed chain cents in addition to the rare S-80 Jefferson Head. Engleson’s imaging is superb as always and will serve as the definitive photographic record of this collection for the foreseeable future. An exhibition of the Carnegie collection will be a highlight of the 2020 EAC convention, to be held in Pittsburgh April 30 – May 3, 2020. Newman Portal acknowledges EAC President Bill Eckberg for his coordination of this project.

Link to Carnegie Museum / Geroge Clapp U.S. large cents on Newman Portal: https://nnp.wustl.edu/library/imagecollection/515508
Link to 2020 EAC Convention announcement, including an exhibition of the Carnegie collection, in Coin World: https://www.coinworld.com/news/us-coins/eac-convention-highlight-visit-to-clapp-collection-of-large-cent-duplicates

Olin Library at Washington University in St. Louis recently opened an exhibit, Worlds of Imagination, including a case on play money. This exhibit largely draws on material loaned by the ANA and traces play money from the 19th century to the present day. The ANA play money collection was donated in 2018 by Richard Clothier, whose 1985 monograph, Play Money of American Children, explores the subject in depth. The Washington University exhibit, created by Olin Library exhibits manager Jessi Cerutti and Newman Numismatic Portal project coordinator Len Augsburger, runs through June 2020 and is accessible to the public on the ground floor of Olin Library.

Olin Library acknowledges Doug Mudd and Andy Dickes of the ANA for their assistance with this exhibit, and Richard Clothier, who has made Play Money of American Children available on Newman Portal. Also recommended is the book Playing With Money by Robert Bracey, available through Spink. This volume coincided with the British Museum exhibit of the same name, which ran from April to September of 2019.

Link to Richard Clothier’s Play Money of American Children on Newman Portal: https://nnp.wustl.edu/library/book/569665
Link to Playing With Money on the Spink website: http://spinkbooks.com/index.php?route=product/product&product_id=630

Recently added to Newman Portal is a slide deck presented by Heath MacAlpine at the January 15, 2020 Central Ohio Numismatic Association (CONA) meeting. Franklin Delano Roosevelt was the subject of a surprisingly large number of U.S. Mint medals, and MacAlpine’s presentation makes sense of it all, detailing a number of medal series that portrayed Roosevelt. These include the inaugural medals, presidential pieces, assay commission medals, the U.S. Mint visitor medals, and finally the Roosevelt memorial medals. MacAlpine’s die variety analysis of the presidential and memorial series is especially helpful. In all, MacAlpine counts nearly 30 varieties of Roosevelt medals produced by the Mint, and anyone who wishes to collect this material will do well to study the images in this presentation. Newman Portal acknowledges Gerry Tebben for his assistance with this content.

Link to The United States Medals of Franklin Delano Roosevelt on Newman Portal: https://nnp.wustl.edu/library/book/574213