“I love mankind – it’s people I can’t understand!” – Charlie Brown I’ve long maintained that everything I know about writing I learned from MAD Magazine and everything I learned about philosophy – from Agnosticism to Zen – I learned from Peanuts and Good Ol’ Charlie Brown. The latter has been on my mind much […]
The Coin Geek #3: Nickels and Vending Machines
The vending machine was restocked at work today, giving me a bit of inspiration for this post. This year marks the centennial of the Buffalo nickel, struck between 1913 and 1938. The Buffalo nickel’s design, by noted sculptor James Earle Fraser, made 21st-century comebacks to appear on both a 2001 silver commemorative coin and […]
You Paid $13,000 for WHAT!? – A Look at Collecting VHS Tapes, Part One
On May 31 of this year, someone paid $13,220 for an original MEDA VHS video tape of John Carpenter’s Halloween. No, that’s not a joke. Well, it might be a hoax, but more on that later. For now, we have to assume, since the eBay item page is still up, that it really happened. I […]
I Love Calvin & Hobbes
(The following blog entry is written by 10-year-old Emily Shipman, daughter of our CIO Brian Shipman. It is presented here, unedited and unaided. Perhaps we have a new contributor!) My dad (who works for Heritage) and I used to read Calvin and Hobbes every night. We would laugh at them and have a great time. I always […]
Advertising Illustrations of Edgar Church
While I’m a professional coin geek, I have plenty of amateur interests, including a small but growing collection of illustration art. My search for quality illustrations on a bachelor’s budget led me to a famous name in many collecting circles: Edgar Church. Mr. Church’s vast collection preserved some of the rarest Golden Age comic books in […]
Shagreen and Art Deco’s “Great Gatsby” moment
With the anticipation that built up to the release of Baz Luhrmann’s The Great Gatsby this year, Art Deco is having a revival moment – not that it ever really goes out of style. It seems that the stores are filled with beaded frocks with drop-waists, perfect for your evening jaunt to your local juice joint […]
The Coin Geek: a Potentially Staggering Loss in the Art World
(A mother’s act of love in defending the crime of her child? Or an even worse crime than the one she was trying to cover? Those are the questions that hit me, and likely millions of others, when news of this crime in Romania broke. What a gut punch on a Friday morning. These are […]
