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Unofficial Dentuck Baltimore Report
Dentuck
Posts: 3,812 ✭✭✭
UNOFFICIAL BALTIMORE SHOW REPORT
I was in Baltimore most of last week for the Whitman convention. Here are some reflections.
Wednesday: In Which Dinner is Served and Tales are Told
Wednesday afternoon was the usual blur of travel, with nothing strange or exotic to report, other than an unusually chatty cab driver from the airport to the Inner Harbor. “Seems there’s always a coin show over at the convention center,” he said. This suggests good media saturation and top-of-mind awareness, which will please the suits in the Whitman Marketing Communications and Public Relations Department, Baltimore Division. The cabbie regaled me with a story of a passenger who recently paid her fare with a Series 1928 green seal $10 Federal Reserve Note (I’m paraphrasing).
Wednesday evening was dinner at Morton’s with Q. David Bowers and David Sundman, who, speaking of paper money, were coauthors of 100 Greatest American Currency Notes. Shortly before our steaks and lobster arrived (but after the drinks), we were invited into a side chamber where * was being feted for his **th birthday. Urged to speak, QDB shared two relevant anecdotes—one ribald and one poignant—with the assemblage of numismatic luminaries.
Dinner lasted four hours. It was one of those meals that fly by with great conversation and great food. The perfect start to a Baltimore show!
Thursday:Rich With Commemoratives and Kaisers, Light on Kraljevichii
Thursday morning I attended the launch ceremony for the Louis Braille silver dollar, at the National Federation of the Blind, on Johnson Street. This was a very moving event. Did you know that 90 percent of blind children in the U.S. are Braille-illiterate? They can’t read or write in Braille—which of course has a profound impact on their education, and ultimately their chances of being employed and leading independent, self-confident lives. The unemployment rate among blind Americans is a shocking 70 percent. Sales of the commem silver dollar will raise funds for Braille education. If you haven’t already ordered one of these great coins, get in on the ground floor! I bought mine at the launch ceremony, and was honored to have its certificate of authenticity, and the event program, signed by Mint Director Ed Moy. I also spoke with several NFB folks about Braille publishing.
The rest of Thursday was mainly a series of in-depth discussions, meetings, and intellectual grapplings with various numismatic and publishing-world elite, interspersed with off-the-cuff conversations with the hoi polloi.*** One moment marveling with a longtime specialist at his incredible newp, a 1724 Rosa Americana twopence pattern in 66 . . . the next moment handing a shiny 2009 “Log Cabin” cent to a bright-eyed youngster. . . both of these collectors important to the hobby.
The cases at JK Americana appeared to be full of intriguing material, as always, but the crowd was three groupies deep, so I waved from a distance and promised to stop by later. Elsewhere I picked up a silver memorial medal of Kaiserin Friedrich (first name Victoria) for my collection of Hohenzollern memorabilia. “Vicky” was the eldest daughter of Britain’s Queen Victoria (they died the same year, 1901) and the mother of Kaiser Wilhelm II. Also found an interesting Wilhelm I medalet in the jam-packed boxes at Paul Cunningham’s table.
Thursday evening I reluctantly declined another dinner at Morton’s, in favor of retiring to my spacious hotel suite to put the finishing touches on Saturday’s “Abraham Lincoln: The Image of His Greatness” presentation.
Friday: In Which Various Heavy Meals Prove Enlightening
Friday was off to an early start: breakfast at Burke’s, with Coinosaurus. No doubt this will become a favored watering hole and breakfasting spot for the numismatic cognoscenti, now that I’ve revealed it’s among Coinosaurus’s favorite venues. (It was so good I also dined there Saturday morning, with prolific Whitman author and Red Book valuations editor Jeff Garrett.)
Now, Dentuck realizes that 80% of his numismatic gravitas comes not from being a serious student of obscure German medals, but from simply being in the right place at the right time.**** That said, he and Coinosaurus do traverse some of the same corridors of the numismatic world, and breathe the same rarefied air of numismatic publishing. Together with Whitman Publishing, Coinosaurus and the distinguished Dr. Joel Orosz have teamed up to produce a groundbreaking book on [+], currently in the research-and-writing phase. Our breakfast conversation ranged from various arcane professional topics to miscellaneous scuttlebutt, happenstance, and goings-on.
It was too early for cigars and brandy, so after breakfast Coinosaurus was off to the Liberty Seated Collector’s Club, and Dentuck to the bourse to visit with various Official Red Book Contributors (about 60 of whom were at the show).
This Baltimore show brought a unique confluence of space and time: Longacre and I were actually going to be at the same show, on the same day. Early in the week, I arranged to have my secretary’s assistant communicate with Longacre’s assistant secretary to set up a meeting. Lunch on Friday was open; I suggested (through a complicated system of administrative liaisons) that we aim for 11:30, to avoid the turkey-sandwich-and-crabcakes rush. Secretly I was planning a surprise event that, I suspected, would make Longacre’s day. All I told him was that “QDB will be at the show until about 3:00 p.m. Friday; I’d be happy to introduce you to the undersecretary to his assistant charge d’affairs, which is as close as I’ve ever gotten to the man himself.” Little did he know what was actually in store.
(For those who are new to the board, “QDB” is Q. David Bowers, the most prolific and entertaining numismatic writer of our [or any] generation, and famously one of Longacre’s numismatic heroes.)
A few days earlier, QDB told me that, yes, he would be free for lunch on Friday, but only as long as ++ and +++ weren’t at the show, in which case they would naturally take precedence, given their excessive prominence in the world of numismatics. As it turned out, they were not at the show Friday afternoon, leaving the path clear for a frothy feeding frenzy.
Around 10:00 I ran into noted gold specialist Doug Winter at the Whitman Publishing booth, which is the place to see and be seen among those in the numismatic know. He was perusing the new Whitman Encyclopedia of Colonial and Early American Coins. I mentioned to DW that I would be having lunch with one of his biggest fans and most famous customers later; he immediately knew that I must mean Longacre, and he said, “[#] is a nice guy.”
Around 11:20 I stopped by the Stack’s tables to check in with QDB, who was discussing colonial coppers with a longtime collector. Then I continued on to the Whitman booth for the Longacre rendezvous.
I was surprised to see that Longacre had shed his legendary velvet smoking jacket for a more sedate three-piece bespoke suit from Savile Row, London’s famous “golden mile of tailoring,” complete with a fashionably curly-brimmed derby hat and diamond-tipped cane. (Would-be strong-arm bandits will quickly learn—the hard way—that Longacre can transform the cane into a razor-sharp sword by pressing the MS-67 Grant dollar on the handle.) Dentuck, who is accustomed to being among the better-dressed dandies on the bourse, felt like a hobo nickel among double eagles in comparison. Nevertheless I soldiered on, apologizing that the wardrobe trunk from my New York tailor’s had been delayed in transit at the Mason-Dixon Line. After exchanging pleasantries I dropped the bombshell: QDB would be joining us for lunch.
After the paramedics revived Longacre, we made our way back to the Stack’s table.
… To Be Continued …
* . . . Name redacted for privacy.
** . . . Age redacted for privacy.
*** . . . “hoi polloi”—not a term I would normally use, but it’s become standard forum lingo.
**** . . . A tip of the Dentuck derby to Longacre, for licensing use of his patented third-person perspective.
+ . . . Book subject redacted in order to afford Coinosaurus the flexibility to maneuver in numismatic circles without being deluged with inquiries, and to keep the frothing to a minimum.
++ and +++ . . . Names redacted for security and privacy.
# . . . Real-life name redacted to maintain excessively private privacy.
I was in Baltimore most of last week for the Whitman convention. Here are some reflections.
Wednesday: In Which Dinner is Served and Tales are Told
Wednesday afternoon was the usual blur of travel, with nothing strange or exotic to report, other than an unusually chatty cab driver from the airport to the Inner Harbor. “Seems there’s always a coin show over at the convention center,” he said. This suggests good media saturation and top-of-mind awareness, which will please the suits in the Whitman Marketing Communications and Public Relations Department, Baltimore Division. The cabbie regaled me with a story of a passenger who recently paid her fare with a Series 1928 green seal $10 Federal Reserve Note (I’m paraphrasing).
Wednesday evening was dinner at Morton’s with Q. David Bowers and David Sundman, who, speaking of paper money, were coauthors of 100 Greatest American Currency Notes. Shortly before our steaks and lobster arrived (but after the drinks), we were invited into a side chamber where * was being feted for his **th birthday. Urged to speak, QDB shared two relevant anecdotes—one ribald and one poignant—with the assemblage of numismatic luminaries.
Dinner lasted four hours. It was one of those meals that fly by with great conversation and great food. The perfect start to a Baltimore show!
Thursday:Rich With Commemoratives and Kaisers, Light on Kraljevichii
Thursday morning I attended the launch ceremony for the Louis Braille silver dollar, at the National Federation of the Blind, on Johnson Street. This was a very moving event. Did you know that 90 percent of blind children in the U.S. are Braille-illiterate? They can’t read or write in Braille—which of course has a profound impact on their education, and ultimately their chances of being employed and leading independent, self-confident lives. The unemployment rate among blind Americans is a shocking 70 percent. Sales of the commem silver dollar will raise funds for Braille education. If you haven’t already ordered one of these great coins, get in on the ground floor! I bought mine at the launch ceremony, and was honored to have its certificate of authenticity, and the event program, signed by Mint Director Ed Moy. I also spoke with several NFB folks about Braille publishing.
The rest of Thursday was mainly a series of in-depth discussions, meetings, and intellectual grapplings with various numismatic and publishing-world elite, interspersed with off-the-cuff conversations with the hoi polloi.*** One moment marveling with a longtime specialist at his incredible newp, a 1724 Rosa Americana twopence pattern in 66 . . . the next moment handing a shiny 2009 “Log Cabin” cent to a bright-eyed youngster. . . both of these collectors important to the hobby.
The cases at JK Americana appeared to be full of intriguing material, as always, but the crowd was three groupies deep, so I waved from a distance and promised to stop by later. Elsewhere I picked up a silver memorial medal of Kaiserin Friedrich (first name Victoria) for my collection of Hohenzollern memorabilia. “Vicky” was the eldest daughter of Britain’s Queen Victoria (they died the same year, 1901) and the mother of Kaiser Wilhelm II. Also found an interesting Wilhelm I medalet in the jam-packed boxes at Paul Cunningham’s table.
Thursday evening I reluctantly declined another dinner at Morton’s, in favor of retiring to my spacious hotel suite to put the finishing touches on Saturday’s “Abraham Lincoln: The Image of His Greatness” presentation.
Friday: In Which Various Heavy Meals Prove Enlightening
Friday was off to an early start: breakfast at Burke’s, with Coinosaurus. No doubt this will become a favored watering hole and breakfasting spot for the numismatic cognoscenti, now that I’ve revealed it’s among Coinosaurus’s favorite venues. (It was so good I also dined there Saturday morning, with prolific Whitman author and Red Book valuations editor Jeff Garrett.)
Now, Dentuck realizes that 80% of his numismatic gravitas comes not from being a serious student of obscure German medals, but from simply being in the right place at the right time.**** That said, he and Coinosaurus do traverse some of the same corridors of the numismatic world, and breathe the same rarefied air of numismatic publishing. Together with Whitman Publishing, Coinosaurus and the distinguished Dr. Joel Orosz have teamed up to produce a groundbreaking book on [+], currently in the research-and-writing phase. Our breakfast conversation ranged from various arcane professional topics to miscellaneous scuttlebutt, happenstance, and goings-on.
It was too early for cigars and brandy, so after breakfast Coinosaurus was off to the Liberty Seated Collector’s Club, and Dentuck to the bourse to visit with various Official Red Book Contributors (about 60 of whom were at the show).
This Baltimore show brought a unique confluence of space and time: Longacre and I were actually going to be at the same show, on the same day. Early in the week, I arranged to have my secretary’s assistant communicate with Longacre’s assistant secretary to set up a meeting. Lunch on Friday was open; I suggested (through a complicated system of administrative liaisons) that we aim for 11:30, to avoid the turkey-sandwich-and-crabcakes rush. Secretly I was planning a surprise event that, I suspected, would make Longacre’s day. All I told him was that “QDB will be at the show until about 3:00 p.m. Friday; I’d be happy to introduce you to the undersecretary to his assistant charge d’affairs, which is as close as I’ve ever gotten to the man himself.” Little did he know what was actually in store.
(For those who are new to the board, “QDB” is Q. David Bowers, the most prolific and entertaining numismatic writer of our [or any] generation, and famously one of Longacre’s numismatic heroes.)
A few days earlier, QDB told me that, yes, he would be free for lunch on Friday, but only as long as ++ and +++ weren’t at the show, in which case they would naturally take precedence, given their excessive prominence in the world of numismatics. As it turned out, they were not at the show Friday afternoon, leaving the path clear for a frothy feeding frenzy.
Around 10:00 I ran into noted gold specialist Doug Winter at the Whitman Publishing booth, which is the place to see and be seen among those in the numismatic know. He was perusing the new Whitman Encyclopedia of Colonial and Early American Coins. I mentioned to DW that I would be having lunch with one of his biggest fans and most famous customers later; he immediately knew that I must mean Longacre, and he said, “[#] is a nice guy.”
Around 11:20 I stopped by the Stack’s tables to check in with QDB, who was discussing colonial coppers with a longtime collector. Then I continued on to the Whitman booth for the Longacre rendezvous.
I was surprised to see that Longacre had shed his legendary velvet smoking jacket for a more sedate three-piece bespoke suit from Savile Row, London’s famous “golden mile of tailoring,” complete with a fashionably curly-brimmed derby hat and diamond-tipped cane. (Would-be strong-arm bandits will quickly learn—the hard way—that Longacre can transform the cane into a razor-sharp sword by pressing the MS-67 Grant dollar on the handle.) Dentuck, who is accustomed to being among the better-dressed dandies on the bourse, felt like a hobo nickel among double eagles in comparison. Nevertheless I soldiered on, apologizing that the wardrobe trunk from my New York tailor’s had been delayed in transit at the Mason-Dixon Line. After exchanging pleasantries I dropped the bombshell: QDB would be joining us for lunch.
After the paramedics revived Longacre, we made our way back to the Stack’s table.
… To Be Continued …
* . . . Name redacted for privacy.
** . . . Age redacted for privacy.
*** . . . “hoi polloi”—not a term I would normally use, but it’s become standard forum lingo.
**** . . . A tip of the Dentuck derby to Longacre, for licensing use of his patented third-person perspective.
+ . . . Book subject redacted in order to afford Coinosaurus the flexibility to maneuver in numismatic circles without being deluged with inquiries, and to keep the frothing to a minimum.
++ and +++ . . . Names redacted for security and privacy.
# . . . Real-life name redacted to maintain excessively private privacy.
0
Comments
Didn't wanna get me no trade
Never want to be like papa
Working for the boss every night and day
--"Happy", by the Rolling Stones (1972)
Dentuck,
Excellent read! I believe your reporting is topping that of Mr. Longacre. Very nice work. Thanks for taking time to share
Dentuck modestly failed to mention that he picked up the check
I give away money. I collect money.
I don’t love money . I do love the Lord God.
<< <i>Damn! You out-Longacred Longacre!
My thought exactly!
Admirable, is putting it mildly.
Respectully, is touching the surface.
Simply put,
Kudos & "book 'em, Denno"
Joe
<< <i>I can't believe I never finished this show report. >>
That reminds me of a joke...
A guy was cleaning out his closet and in a jacket pocket, he an old receipt for some shoes he took to the shoemaker to be resoled.
He noted the date on the slip was about 20 years ago.
Just on a lark, he drove by the store and it was still in business.
He went in, showed the receipt to the shoemaker, and said, "This is pretty old, but I wonder if you have these shoes?"
The shoemaker said, "Give me a minute to look."
So the shoemaker went into the back room and a few minutes later he came back out, handed the receipt back to the patron, and said,
"They'll be ready next week."
I am STILL waiting!
all the best,
Oreville
<< <i>Hold yer horses --- I'm workin' on it! >>
Talk about procrastination.
No sense rushing things.
<< <i>Damn! You out-Longacred Longacre!
...and left him nearly speechless.
Thanks for the report (shouldda seen it while it was more current.
given QDB his "Official RED BOOK Contributor" lapel pin (an annual honour
distributed, under the tightest of security precautions and with great pomp
and circumstance, to the Red Book's contributors, who also receive a
Ken-Bressett-autographed limited-edition Contributor's Copy of the
famous scarlet tome).
At lunch, Longacre either espied the pin on QDB's lapel and asked about it,
or he may have observed the great numismatist twirling it around his fingers
like a legerdemain magician. At any rate, QDB --- ever the gentleman and
generous to a fault --- noted Longacre's interest and said, "Here, you can
have it."*
!!!!
As you can imagine, Longacre nearly swooned into his crabcake gumbo.
* Naturally I immediately motioned for a Convention Center employee to
bring a telephone to the table so I could call our Atlanta office and have
a replacement lapel pin couriered to QDB's home office in [location redacted].