NNP Blog

4 DECEMBER 2021

Latest Updates

Content Update - the scanning operation at the Newman Numismatic Portal (NNP) is in full gear, and we have processed over a thousand items to date. Readers can follow our progress at archive.org/details/newmannumismatic. Our most recent addition is a group of bid books from the auction firms of Samuel and Henry Chapman, Philadelphia coin dealers in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. This collection was formed over many years by Dan Hamelberg and we thank him for his generosity in loaning the material for scanning. We have scanned over a hundred Mint Reports, and we anticipate further growth in our government documents collection thanks to the assistance of Katrina Stierholz (Federal Reserve Bank Librarian) and Tove Klovning (Assistant Law Librarian at Washington University). Government documents reveal details of the Mint operation not found elsewhere (such as employee names and salaries) and heretofore have not been easily accessible to numismatic researchers. Partnerships – a number of specialty clubs have partnered with the NNP to digitize back issues of their journals, including the Numismatic Bibliomania Society, Liberty Seated Collectors Club, and Numismatists of Wisconsin, all of whom are now “online” with NNP. This is done at no cost to the partner organizations and enables them to expose their content to a worldwide audience. Back issues for these groups can all be viewed at the URL referenced above. We also recognize the Missouri Numismatic Society, Colonial Coin Collectors Club (C4), and the Barber Coin Collectors Society, all of whom have agreed with NNP to digitize material. Any organizations desiring similar services are encouraged to contact NNP Project Coordinator Len Augsburger at leonard.augsburger@wustl.edu. Community Engagement - the NNP team attended the Internet Archive Leaders Conference in San Francisco in October, and made public presentations regarding project status at the American Numismatic Association convention in Chicago (August), and at the Whitman Expo in Baltimore (November). A video of the August presentation is available at: https://archive.org/details/CoinWeekNewmanNumismaticPortalSoftwareAndWebDesign.VIDEO818. Milestones - as noted above, documents that we scan appear on the Internet Archive site nearly in real-time. At the same time, we are developing our own site (http://newmannumismaticportal.org) which will act as a user friendly front end to our Internet Archive collection, and in addition, will include content not available on the Internet Archive site such as numismatic biographies, auction prices realized, and an encyclopedia of United States coins. This site will be accessible to the general public in January 2016.