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Message:: [QUOTE="kaparthy, post: 35632, member: 57463"]AN OVERVIEW OF MY ACTIVITIES IN NUMISMATICS (C) Copyright 2000, 2005 by Michael E. Marotta Since about 1965, when I was introduced to Ayn Rand and Objectivism, I have always been facinated by  money.  I was not always into numismatics.  I did not collect coins as a kid.  I tried stamps and found them curious but not satisfying.  My hobbies were reading, looking through my microscope, and looking through my telescope.  I did not come to collecting until 1992.  From 1965 to 1992, my only view to coins was in objective values for savings: US silver and common foreign gold.  To me, two kinds of Engelhard bar were a type set.  In 1992, I wanted to suggest to my employer that Good-For tokens would be an excellent advertising campaign.  So, I joined Mich-TAMS and bought a bunch of industrial tokens and medals.  I then pursued Mercury Dimes and other "classic" U.S. type, but it was not satisfying.  It was not until I realized that ancient Greek coins are available and affordable that my appetite for collecting was whetted.  I selected them by the cities of philosophers.  I looked for a day's wages for the time and place, generally an obol, or sometimes a drachmon. In essence, my interest was ignited by Carl Sagan's lecture, "Backbone of the Night" from Cosmos.  My passions are science, philosophy, and history.  My other hobbies include foreign languages and art.  The ancient Greek coins touch all those buttons. Eventually, I came to practice numismatics not by collecting but by writing on a wide range of topics.  I worked my way up from the letters pages of Numismatic News and Coin World, to a Heath Award for Best Article in Numismatist (On the Origins of Coinage).  In 1999 and 2000, I was employed by Coin World as their International Editor. Since then, I was awarded another Heath prize (Sir Isaac Newton: Warden and Master of the Mint) and I now write the "Internet Connections" column for Numismatist magazine.  Also, along the way, I quit collecting actively and sold off all of my holdings except for one small box of about 25 items.  In that are coins that I consider representative of the forms and uses of money, from an archaic electrum sixth stater to a plastic token good for a beer at Scuff's Saloon in Tomahawk, Wisconsin. My collection still includes trade beads, stock certificates, and bank drafts.  (I have another interest in aviation and as a consequence, I have coins and banknotes with aviation themes, but these are in my Aviation materials, not with the "coins.") As an objectivist, I always had a suspicion of paper money.  More recently, I came to understand that paper promises are more important to capitalism than gold coins were.  We talk about collecting "coins" and give a nod to other forms of money.  Do you have an electricity bill in your collection? I refer to THE MYSTERY OF CAPITAL: Why Capitalism Triumphs in the West and Fails Everywhere Else by Hernando Desoto (Perseus Books, 2000).  In most of the world, most of the people steal the electricity they need, because their residences have no legal standing.  One consequence of this is that electric companies can never plan adequately and --- more deeply, they can never CAPITALIZE the demand for electricity: they cannot borrow money against their future expectation of income.  They have no way to measure demand and no way to collect for delivery.  Capitalism recognizes that your address -- whether you own your home or rent a space for your trailer -- has legal status that allows you and the entities with which you contract to capitalize on the relationships about your address.  Your electricity bill represents a subtle and powerful form of money. "Money rests on the axiom that every man is the owner of his mind and his effort."  -- Ayn Rand.[/QUOTE]

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