NI Bulletin NI Bulletin A Publication of Numismatics International Inc. Volume 41 No. 10 October 2006 $2.00 BOARD OF GOVERNORS Chairman & Past-President: David Gracey e-mail: [email protected] President: Howard L. Ford e-mail: [email protected] Phone: 940-243-5523 Fax: 817-421-6567 Vice-President: Stewart Huckaby Recording Secretary: Christopher Carson Corresponding Secretary: Gordon Robinson e-mail: [email protected] Treasurer: Don Douglas At-Large Directors: Craig Burrus, Pat Holladay, Michael Jones & James Terry All past Presidents are members of the Board of Governors. APPOINTED STAFF Curator, NI REFERENCE COLLECTION Librarian, NI LIBRARY Philip L. Lawrence Position open Editor Emeritus, NI BULLETIN Marvin L. Fraley Editor, NI BULLETIN Librarian Emeritus, NI LIBRARY Herman Blanton Granvyl G. Hulse, Jr. P.O. Box 247 57 Pleasant St. Mount Vernon, OH 43050 Colebrook, NH 03576 e-mail: [email protected] e-mail: [email protected] Chairman, NI PUBLICATIONS Auction Manager, NI MAIL BID SALES John E. Vandigriff Carl Young P.O. Box 1481 P.O. Box 810521 Lewisville, TX 75067 Dallas, TX 75381-0521 e-mail: [email protected] Moderator, NI EDUCATIONAL PROGRAMS Index Editor, NI BULLETIN Howard A. Daniel III Christopher D. Carson P.O. Box 989 Deltaville, VA 23043-0989 e-mail: [email protected] Archivist fax: 413-826-3087 Ross Schraeder Book Orders: Elmore Scott: [email protected] NUMISMATICS INTERNATIONAL e-mail: [email protected] Internet: http://www.numis.org Correspondence should be directed to those persons and addresses above for departments indicated. All other correspondence should be mailed direct to NUMISMATICS INTERNATIONAL, P.O. BOX 570842, DALLAS, TX 75357-0842. OBJECTIVES OF NUMISMATICS INTERNATIONAL Numismatics International is a non-profit educational organization. Its Objectives are: to encourage and promote the science of numismatics by specializing in areas and nations other than the United States of America; to cultivate fraternal relations among collectors and numismatic students; to encourage and assist new collectors; to foster the interest of youth in numismatics; to stimulate and advance affiliations among collectors and kindred organizations; and to acquire, share, and disseminate knowledge. MEMBERSHIP FEES: Individual & Club Memberships, $20.00 annually; Junior Membership (18 years of age and under), $15.00 annually; Senior Membership (70 years of age and older), $15.00 annually. Numismatics International Bulletin Volume 41 October 2006 Number 10 Letter to the Editor ……………………………………………….…………... 199 Additions and Corrections……………………………………………………. 199 Simcha Kuritzky Lion of Megiddo………………………………………………………………… 200 Herman Blanton The Big Barrel…………………………………………….................................. 202 Significance of the Design Austria Double Thaler of 1857………………………………………………… 207 John Kallman 17th Infantry "Buffalo" Token................................................................................ 205 Kent Ponterio The Durango Mint Pattern 8 Reales of 1840…………………………………… 209 8 Reales of the Republic of Mexico (Part 1)……………………………………. 211 Christopher Carson Terms Used in Coinage………………………………………............................. 210 Roger deWardt Lane Quebec Taken Medal…………………………………………………………… 215 Fernando Laborde Napoleon III Medal, Expedition to Mexico……………………………………... 217 Bob Forrest St. Meinrad & Our Lady of Einsiedeln…………………………………………. 218 Howard Ford FYI Items Associated with the Coinage of Charles I of England…………………… 220 Member Notice……….………………………………....................................... 220 Letter to the Editor John Kallman writes "I read with great interest the article on Military Unit Coins by Francis J. Gerner in the (May 2006) NI Bulletin. In the article he makes mention that there are no known items which were issued during the Korean War. While not a typical issue, there is one series of items that were issued from 1951-1955 by the 17th Infantry Division." (John supplied information on the issue and is found beginning on page 205 of this edition of the Bulletin—ed.) Additions and Corrections To Volume 41 No. 8, August 2006. On page 169 in the article about Abd Al Halem Hafez the fifth coin mentioned (no illustration) is not commemorating the singer Abdel Halim Hafez (1929-1977) but rather Hafiz Ibrahim (1871-1932), the Poet of the Nile. See Egypt, S#598-601 and S#266, respectively. Thanks to member Gerhard Schoen for the information. ISSN: 0197-3088 Copyright 2006 Numismatics International P.O. Box 570842, Dallas, TX USA 75357-0842 199 Lion of Megiddo Simcha Kuritzky NI #LM108 Israel 5 Lirot, 30mm (image Bob Reis) Modern Israel's trade coinage uses designs millennia old. The prohibition against idolatry has resulted in most coins portraying Temple vessels or plants. The only animal portrayed on trade coins was the lion on the cupronickel five lirot (pounds) and equivalent half sheqel. The roaring lion with curved tail held high was based on a jasper seal found at Megiddo in 1904 and subsequently lost in Constantinople (but not before copies were made). The seal includes the words in Paleo-Hebrew "of Shema, servant of Yereboam." Yereboam II ruled Israel from about 790-750 BC. He briefly united the northern kingdom with Judea through conquest, hence the use of a Judean symbol (in Genesis, Israel's blessing of his son Judah describes him as a lion). The name "Shema" means "to hear," and is the root of the name Ishmael. The coin design itself has a rather long history. The Bank of Israel introduced their second series of notes in 1958, portraying workers on the front and archaeological artifacts on the back. The five pound note had a Yemenite laborer with hammer paired with the Seal of Shema. This note was issued for a decade. The Bank introduced the fourth series of notes in the mid-1970s, each showing one of Jerusalem's gates on the back. Was it merely coincidence that the five pound showed the Lions Gate? In 1978, inflation forced the Bank of Israel to replace the note with a large coin, and the Lion of Megiddo was returned to use, the only design to transfer from a banknote to a non-commemorative trade coin. The lion design survived the transition to the sheqel coinage in 1980 (with ten lirot to the sheqel), but inflation caused coinage of the half sheqel coins to cease in 1984, a year before Israel introduced the new sheqel. The Bank of Israel gave the design a special send off, the only souvenir sheet Israel has issued. The sheet is engraved with the 1950s banknote along with pictures of the two coins, all showing the lion side. The lion of Megiddo design survives today only on the Megiddo medals of the Holy Sites series, which were first issued in 1990. 200 1984 Souvenir Sheet Close-up from Souvenir sheet NI 201 The Big Barrel Herman Blanton NI #LM115 The world's largest wine cask, the Heidelberg Tun, is today and apparently has been a tourist attraction for four centuries. There have been four tuns, built or rebuilt, in 1591, 1664, 1728 and 1751, each housed in the cellar of Heidelberg Castle, in Heidelberg, Germany. The current tun is reported to have taken 130 oak trees in its construction and has a volumetric capacity of 220,017 liters (58,124 gallons), which should be enough to satisfy even the largest thirst. g r o a. i d e p i k wig e.jp ://drel. pr ta htB a. e_ in di eW p o_ yclstle ca nC E_ e rg ee rb Fl e de hi Te H a, : id dl eBi p / ii kk ii Ww / Reformation era pastor Anton Praetorius (1560-1613) wrote the earliest surviving description of the tun. He described the tun in his poem Das Heidelbergense, written shortly after seeing it first hand in 1594. In the UBS Auction of 5 September 2006 there were several medals related to the Heidelberg Tun, which is what sparked this brief article. When I first saw the medals I became interested because the tun resembled some kind of machine, perhaps a boiler for steam. Since the medals were dated 1664-1667 (though some in the 18th century) I looked closer. It turned out to be a wine cask instead of a machine, but still I could not resist the temptation to write it up. Even Mark Twain wrote a description of it, which I quote at the end of this article. The following medal images are from UBS Auction 65 and used with permission. 202 UBS Auction 65 lot 267 (image reduced to 85% actual size) Large octagonal silver medal 1667 by Johann Linck. Obverse: Heidelberg Castle with inscription around ARCIS PALATINAE HAEC IMAGO EST ET SITVS QVAM VINDICANT GRADIVVS ET PALLAS SIBI, in banner over the castle DO- MINVS PROVIDEB-IT and at bottom ANNO / 1667 and IL (for Johann Linck) Reverse: The giant tun (barrel) with inscription around IMAGINEM VIDES PALATINI CADI QVO MAIOR HAVD VLLVS NEC EXPOLITIOR. Mass 63.59g. Another beautiful medal in the same sale featured Charles I Louis Elector Palatine (1617 1680) and his son Charles (II). UBS Auction 65 lot 264 Oval silver medal of 1666 by Johann Linck. Obverse: Charles I Louis with inscription around CAR. LVD. D. G. COM. PAL. RHEN. ELECT. B. D. Reverse: 16 CAROLVS. D. G. COM. PAL. RHEN. E. P. H. D. B. 66. Mass 24.52 g. Charles I Louis is credited for the 1664 tun. 203 Extract from Mark Twain's A Tramp Abroad published in 1880. For a change, when you wanted one, you could stroll to the Castle, and burrow among its dungeons, or climb about its ruined towers, or visit its interior shows—the great Heidelberg Tun, for instance. Everybody has heard of the great Heidelberg Tun, and most people have seen it, no doubt. It is a wine-cask as big as a cottage, and some traditions say it holds eighteen thousand bottles, and other traditions say it holds eighteen hundred million barrels. I think it likely that one of these statements is a mistake, and the other is a lie. However, the mere matter of capacity is a thing of no sort of consequence, since the cask is empty, and indeed has always been empty, history says. An empty cask the size of a cathedral could excite but little emotion in me. I do not see any wisdom in building a monster cask to hoard up emptiness in, when you can get a better quality, outside, any day, free of expense. What could this cask have been built for? The more one studies over that, the more uncertain and unhappy he becomes. Some historians say that thirty couples, some say thirty thousand couples, can dance on the head of this cask at the same time. Even this does not seem to me to account for the building of it. It does not even throw light on it. A profound and scholarly Englishman—a specialist—who had made the great Heidelberg Tun his sole study for fifteen years, told me he had at last satisfied himself that the ancients built it to make German cream in. He said that the average German cow yielded from one to two and half teaspoons of milk, when she was not worked in the plow or the hay-wagon more than eighteen or nineteen hours a day. This milk was very sweet and good, and a beautiful transparent bluish tint; but in order to get cream from it in the most economical way, a peculiar process was necessary. Now he believed that the habit of the ancients was to collect several milkings in a teacup, pour it into the Great Tun, fill up with water, and then skim off the cream from time to time as the needs of the German Empire demanded. NI 204 17th Infantry "Buffalo" Token John Kallman NI #2189 In September 1950, the 17th Infantry Regiment was deployed from Japan and made an amphibious landing at Inchon, Korea. It took part in the capture of Seoul and was the only American unit to reach the Yalu River in the northern part of Korea. When the Chinese intervened in the war, in October 1950, the regiment was cut off and had to be evacuated on the eastern coast at Hungnaw. The list below is from Military Tokens and Chits of Korea by John K. Kallman. The underlined references are from Military Club Tokens Volume 2 (overseas Locations) by Paul A. Cunningham. Reference numbers without underline are from the series of books on military club tokens by James J. Curto. Type 1 shield has buffalo at bottom. Type 2 shield has five pointed device at bottom of shield. When shield type is unknown, it is listed simply as "shield." The tokens are known brass or plated over brass. 1812 (buffalo – no hole) R -5 17 TH INF REGT / KOREA brass 21mm R -10 17 TH INF REGT / KOREA brass 18mm KR270 1812 (buffalo – holed, as made) R188A 1950 1958 / 1 ST BG 17 TH INF (on shield) / KOREA brass 21mm R188B 1950 1959 / 1 ST BG 17 TH INF (on shield) / KOREA brass 21mm R188C 1950 1961 / 1 ST BG 17 TH INF (on shield) / KOREA brass 21mm R188BV 1950 1961 / 1 ST BG 17 TH INF (on shield) / KOREA plated 21mm KR290 1812 (buffalo – holed, as made) R185 17 TH INF (on shield) / KOREA plated 21mm R185A 1950 1951 / 17 TH INF (on shield) / KOREA plated 21mm R185B 1950 1951 / 17 TH INF (on shield) / KOREA plated 21mm R187 1950 1953 / 17 TH INF (on type 2 shield) / KOREA plated 21mm R187B 1950 1954 / 17 TH INF (on shield) / KOREA plated 21mm R186 1950 1955 / 17 TH INF (on type 2 shield) / KOREA plated 21mm Note: Other dates may exist With permission of the author, Ray Bows, here is a short account of the "buffalo nickels" taken from his article "The 'Buffalo Nickel' of the 17th Infantry Regiment," published in the Token and Medal Society Journal volume 11, Number 2, April 1971. When the 17th went into training in Taegu, the new regimental commander, Colonel William (Buffalo Bill) Quinn inspired the unit's present nickname "The Buffalo's." Proud of its nickname the regiment issued members a "Buffalo Nickel." The Buffalo Nickels were issued from 1951 to 1955 and bear the date 1950 plus the date of issue on the obverse. In 1951 and 1952 the nickels bore the regimental insignia consisting of a blue shield bearing a white cross that was the badge of the V Army Corps under which the regiment served during the Civil War. Below the wall is a five bastion fort which was the badge of the V Corps 205 in Cuba, awarded to the unit for its participation in the battle at Santiago. 17th INF is superimposed on the shield and the word KOREA appears below. The regiment claimed that their nickel was "the only nickel in the world worth 11 cents" which is what the manufacturers in Japan charged them for each piece. In 1953 the regiment was awarded the buffalo symbol for service in Korea on its regimental insignia. Nickels issued in 1953 and 1954 bear the new insignia. For some unexplainable reason the old insignia appears on the nickel issued in 1955. Although 1955 was the last regular issue, of the 1st Battle Group of the 17th Infantry issued a nickel for one year in 1959 in the old tradition. It bears the new insignia and 1st Battle Group 17th INF. Buffalo at bottom of shield (image John Kallman) Five pointed device at bottom of shield (image Roamin' Roman, Inc.) NI 206