Welcome to the latest edition of my Notes.

Arrangements are being finalized for our Schaumburg Sale to be held at the Renaissance Schaumburg Hotel, Schaumburg, Illinois, on Thursday, June 25th. This will be an interesting sale with varied material in many series. The catalogue will be posted on the Internet and also sent in hard copy version to our subscribers. Mark the event on your calendar. You can attend in person, which would be great, or you can bid by telephone, Internet, or by mail or fax.

Interestingly, the sale itself will be held in the Utopia Room at the Renaissance Schaumburg Hotel, and lot pickup is in the Euphoria Room. We might hope that Utopia and Euphoria are applicable to the sale itself and to numismatics in general. Certainly, the world has been going through some interesting transitions.

Our sale will be held in conjunction with the MidAmerica Coin Expo, for which we are the official auctioneer. Many dealers will be on hand with displays of interesting and desirable coins, tokens, medals, and paper money for sale.

It is a great time to buy coins in many series, at prices less than you would have paid a year ago. And yet the coins themselves are just as interesting, historical, and desirable. Take advantage!

Be sure to check our listing of books for sale here on the Internet. Budget, say, $100, and see how many different and useful titles you can obtain. This relatively small amount of money -which would not go very far in buying rare coins for your collection- will bring a week or more of enjoyable reading. There is no substitute for knowledge, and to gain knowledge there is no substitute for books. The Internet has its advantages, but in my own experience if I want to look something up quickly -say the mintage and values of a certain Morgan dollar, commemorative, or gold coin- nothing beats getting a copy of the Guide Book of United States Coins and taking about ten seconds to find the information. Locating it on the Internet would probably take the best part of ten minutes, perhaps more.

If your summer travel plans include New York City, be sure to stop by and visit the Stack's office. A warm welcome awaits you.

All good wishes to you until next time.

Best Wishes,