esposizione della moneta

For two years, (1989-1990) I was the Commanding Officer, US Naval Support Office, La Maddalena, Italy. It was called a Naval Support Office because the Italians would not allow an "official" US Submarine Base in Italy.

Although I was the senior US Naval Officer in La Maddalena, there was an Italian Admiral there. It happened that he was a numismatist, and one day he told me that in a few weeks there was going to be a local "esposizione della moneta" (coin show) , at which the Americans were invited to participate with an exhibit. I was made an offer I couldn't refuse. But, none of us had our collections with us in Italy!

So, what to do? A few days before the show I still had nothing. I was taken into the exhibit hall and shown two large, vertical display cases with a large sign on top reading Esposizione Americana (American Exhibit).

That night among my books I found a folder which I had not realized was shipped with my library. It was my very small collection of US paper money which included a dozen or so Pennsylvania colonial notes, I also found a box with US mint products (proof sets and commemorative sets).

With this eclectic assortment, and cut outs from a stack of auction catalogs we (my staff graphics designer, my personal translator, and me) put together an exhibit - complete with bi-lingual descriptions. It had great eye appeal, but broke all the rules for American style exhibits. The ANA judges would have disqualified me!

But the exhibit was a modest success, and I did receive a prize trophy from the Bishop of Sardinia (so did all of the non-commercial exhibitors).

This reminded me of a recent soccer match in which one of my Grandkids participated, and ALL received a trophy.

Coin Man

Several years ago (1995) I came across two large bank bags filled with over 2000 old style British pennies ( Victoria to Elizabeth II) which I had purchased while living in London in the early 1980's.

On a whim, I decided to dristribute them along the route of my ritual early morning walks. Since I usually walked through Old Town San Diego and past a middle school, there were plenty of places to drop the coins so they could be easily discovered by the kids and tourists.


After several weeks of placing about 50 coins each day, my wife told me that there was a human interest story on the local evening TV news about a "Coin Man" in the Old Town area. I did my best to remain covert. However, a follow-up story reported that someone had spotted the Coin Man, and that he was an elderly man with a white baseball cap, who carried a large coffee mug. I was busted! (But my name was never exposed until now).

About that time I was off to the ANA summer seminar. So, I took the remainder of the large English pennies with me and distributed them around the buildings and campus of Colorado College. The reaction was not all positive. At one point I overheard one YN student remark that "It is criminal to throw a coin down on the ground. That guy should be shot".

That ended my career as Coin Man. Anyway, all 2000 of the coins were gone by this time. I know that at least some were enjoyed and appreciated.

Chinese Military Note (1943)

(left click to enlarge)

I recently bought this note from a seller in BeiJing, China.
What attracted me to the note was the vignette on the back of a combination steam/sail warship. Also, it was listed as: 1943 JinSuiJun Defece Tick Military Coupon. This would make it a WWII Military Numismatic item. And, the note is scorched, which indicates to me that it was retrieved from a burn. I asked Joe Boling and Fred Schwann about it. Joe's response best summarizes what the note is.

The main title reads Yin-sui chun [Yin-sui military] defense section/region circulating note. Yin-sui could be either a local name, a commander's name, or an abbreviation for a geographical region. For instance, sui is the first character of Suiyuan, a province. Yin does not match up with any region I am familiar with. The English on the back is a poor transliteration and translation of the Chinese to English - Yinsui-chun Defence Ticket. Ticket is not unknown as a term for paper money in China. .........there are thousands of Chinese local notes that are not cataloged.

My thanks to both Joe and Fred for shedding light on this note, which to me was an intriguing mystery.