Official Innumeracy

Cutting tariffs by 115% means that everything gets a 15% subsidy, perhaps by a reduction in declared value. Secretary of the Treasury Scott Bessent certainly must know the difference. He went to Yale and worked for George Soros. I have to wonder why he did not correct his speechwriter. 

In other reports, the number was given correctly as “115 percentage points” to highlight the drop from 145% tariff to a 30% tariff for a net change of 79% downward on the American side. 

The wrong number was repeated by many news copiers ...

"One hundred percent" means "all of it."

... but was given the correct context by others. 

See, especially, The Detroit News.

PREVIOUSLY ON NECESSARY FACTS

The Success of the WEIRD People

Numismatics: History as Market 

The Art of Finance

Money as Press and Speech

Value and Worth

“What’s it worth?” Bill Bradford (Wikipedia here) asked me. That was about 1976 in his store, Liberty Coins, on Abbott Road in East Lansing. He continued: Is it worth what you paid for it? What you can sell it for? What it would cost to replace it? Over the years, I have considered the question. In 1990, I served on the board of ELFCO, the East Lansing Food Cooperative and chose the finance committee for my working task. There, I learned a lot from East Lansing entrepreneur Bruce Roth who sat on the board for many years and chaired the finance committee. Passed over for a job opportunity because I had no stronger experience in finance, I took a seminar in accounting for data processing at Lansing Community College. I do not remember if we did much with cost accounting but I do remember that you debit an asset to increase it. 

Some years earlier, the winter of 1972-1973, I sat in on a presentation on meta-ethics by Dr. William F. Schmidt in the home of Linda and Morris Tannehill. Bill Schmidt planned a futures trading company based on his algorithms for predicting change in the marketplace. He eventually had two satellite dishes feeding data. In 1993, I wrote computer programs for him because his IBM PC/AT computers (upgrades over the HP 9830s from too long before) were at their limit. (Necessary Facts here.).  I do not remember the content of his lecture that night and much of it was over my head at the time anyway. The essence was that in order to have values, you must have a standard of value.

 

To address that question, Ayn Rand posited an indestructible robot, asserting that as nothing could affect it, it could have no values. Any action or none at all would be equally consequential. (See “The Objectivist Ethics” in The Virtue of Selfishness. Ayn Rand Lexicon entry here: http://aynrandlexicon.com/lexicon/values.html)

 

Some years ago (2017), on vacation, I wrote out notes but never was able to wotk through the problems to a solution or a set of them. The essential problem is one of limits: by Rand’s standard, the farther you are from any threat, the more secure your life it, the less consequential your choices. She solves that problem with the open container of “Man qua man.”

 

The Objectivist ethics holds man’s life as the standard of value—and his own life as the ethical purpose of every individual man.

 

The difference between “standard” and “purpose” in this context is as follows: a “standard” is an abstract principle that serves as a measurement or gauge to guide a man’s choices in the achievement of a concrete, specific purpose. “That which is required for the survival of man qua man” is an abstract principle that applies to every individual man. The task of applying this principle to a concrete, specific purpose—the purpose of living a life proper to a rational being—belongs to every individual man, and the life he has to live is his own.

 

Man must choose his actions, values and goals by the standard of that which is proper to man—in order to achieve, maintain, fulfill and enjoy that ultimate value, that end in itself, which is his own life.

 

The standard of value of the Objectivist ethics—the standard by which one judges what is good or evil—is man’s life, or: that which is required for man’s survival qua man.

 

Since reason is man’s basic means of survival, that which is proper to the life of a rational being is the good; that which negates, opposes or destroys it is the evil.

 

“Man’s survival qua man” means the terms, methods, conditions and goals required for the survival of a rational being through the whole of his lifespan—in all those aspects of existence which are open to his choice.

 

("Standard of Value" paragraphs from "The Objectivist Ethics" in The Virtue of Selfishness. Ayn Rand Lexicon here: http://aynrandlexicon.com/lexicon/standard_of_value.html )

 

The statements are synonyms, tautologies, restatements in somewhat different words of the same assertion without evidence or demonstration. 

 

One of my favorite movie scenes (also in the book) is from 2010: The Year We Make Contact.  Curnaw and Floyd are homesick. “What I wouldn’t give for a hotdog at the Astrodome,” says Walter Curnaw. Floyd is taken aback “Astrodome?! You can’t grow good hotdogs indoors! Yankee Stadium. August. The hotdogs have been on the grill since opening day… The brown mustard.” 

 

But are they good for you? Are they pro-life? Are they appropriate to Man qua Man? Made from the lowest scraps of meat, spiced with artificial chemicals, each one is a cancer time bomb. 

 

An old joke goes that the doctor tells his patient that his health is at risk. Says the doctor, “Stop drinking, quit smoking, stop running around the bar scene chasing women.” The patient asks, “If I do that, will I live to be 100?” The doctor replies, “No. But it will seem like it.”

 

Aristotle’s Golden Mean offers some insight. Note first, that a problem underlies the concept of “eudaimonia” because it begs the question: What is the good life? In the Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle gives a shopping list of attributes that a good person will have, such as a measured walk and tone of voice. That being as it may, the Problem of the Stadium Hot Dog does speak to Ayn Rand’s Indestructible Robot. If you are 17 years of age having one hotdog at one game is not going to kill you: you are closer to indestructible than destructible in that context. At the other extreme, if you are 75 years of age, diagnosed with incurable cancer and given a few years (at most), as destructible as you are, the hotdog will not be your demise: you might as well enjoy it. 

 

Rand does indicate a productive line of analysis: “… for the survival of a rational being through the whole of his lifespan …” For Rand, of course, “rational” meant more than volitional or self-aware, though those are requisites to her deeper meaning. The inclusion may be redundant because, for example, rocks have no values. However, I assert that cats do have values. It is easy to assert (being unable to ask them) that cats are not self-aware. Like dogs, horse, etc.,, they do not "have" emotions because they are their emotions. (Unlike horses and dogs, though, cats have three different names.) 

 

Back to the question at hand: the Problem of the Stadium Hotdog can best be evaluated in the context given: through the whole of your lifespan. 

 

What is a hotdog worth? Is it a mistake, an error in judgment? If so, what does it cost to remediate the problem? The fact of future value indicates that any investment now correcting a mistake in the present results in tremendous costs in lost returns on investment in the long future. 

No matter how small the interest rate—the rate of return being some measure of how your life will improve—compounding will make the final answer consequential. 

 

PREVIOUSLY ON NECESSARY FACTS

 

Morality and Ethics 

Choose Your Virtues

Understanding Objectivism 

A Good Place with Inadequate Philosophy 

Virgin Galactic VX01 VX03 

 

World Peace Through World Trade

I stopped at Walmart because they have the best organic salad greens in a box at a price even lower than Whole Foods. Usually, it is a quick trip. This time all of the scanners near the groceries were gone and in their place were large boxes. After paying at a cashier's station, I took some snapshots.

Waiting to be uncrated

Each is half a unit.

Made in India. Over 7000 lbs of convenience.

The half that we consumers care about was made Mexico.

Previously on Necessary Facts

World Peace Through Massive Retaliation 

Chopmarks 

The Shroff 

Awesome Austin Foods at the Wheatsville Co-op 

The Mercury Dime

When I first was given the opportunity to choose my own username on a mainframe computer (actually, a DEC VAX super-mini) in 1989, I asked for Mercury, the Roman messenger god, the patron of merchants (and pirates, it being sometimes hard to tell them apart). Likely inherited from the Etruscans, Mercury is associated with the Greek god Hermes and the Egyptian Thoth, and also, perhaps the Aztec Coyototl, the trickster who invented writing. 

I have been “Mercury” in one form or another on many systems since, and I have held my Gmail account, mike49mercury, for many years. It is true that 49 is my birth year, but to me 49 is the square of 7 for the Mercury 7 astronauts, having lost track of a mercury7 username some decades back. 

 

I sold several articles about the Mercury dime to the American Numismatic Association, the Michigan State Numismatic Society, and others. It does echo the Roman denarius of the Republic with the wings on Liberty’s head modeling the raised face guards on the helmet of Roma. And for better or worse, the coin is in the neo-classical style that was ubiquitous during the gilded age of American aesthetics between the Civil War and the Great Depression. 

As a numismatist, I am a writer, not a collector.
But I can’t make this up from thin air.
So, I do visit coin stores in my town to chat and learn.
And I found this one for myself. 
Very high grade examples like this are extremely common
from the war years 1940-1945
when these were struck in astronomical quantities. 

 

The wings on Liberty’s Phrygian cap (worn by a freed slave) represent freedom of thought. The reverse depicts the Roman fasces, a bundle of rods, the center rod an ax reflecting the absolute authority of the state. In ancient Rome, if found guilty of a felony, the prisoner would be beaten to death with the rods – unless granted the mercy of the ax. Perhaps the best way to resolve that seeming contradiction is to consider the words of the US Supreme Court (Reynolds vs. The United States) in affirming that polygamy is unlawful, regardless of sentiments in the Territory of Utah: You can believe whatever you want, but you cannot do whatever you want. 

 

PREVIOUSLY ON NECESSARY FACTS

Music Makes You Braver 

Numismatics: the Standard of Proof in Economics 

Forgery and Fraud in Numismatics 

Numismatic Truthseekers 

Hallelujah 

The Audacity of Entrepreneurship

"What comes out of a team or a committee is the most daring idea that the least daring man can accept." John Arnold. "Space, Time and Education," Astounding Science Fiction, May 1953, pp. 9–25. Introductory remarks by John W. Campbell, Jr., editor, pp. 9–10.

Earlier this month, I (virtually) attended a conference of the American Astronomical Society. I participate in the History of Astronomy Division. One of the presentations was about Voyager. One of the presenters sighed that the government cancelled several follow-ups to include messages on deep space probes. I asked if they had any contact with Elon Musk. The expert replied that maybe some entrepreneur in the future might launch a mini-satellite with a solar sail, but no private firm can send a one-ton probe out of the solar system. After the conference, I sent him a link about Elon Musk's Tesla two-ton automobile orbiting the Sun. That is exactly the audacity of entrepreneurship. It radiates a fundamental optimism about what is possible in human achievement. 

PREVIOUSLY ON NECESSARY FACTS

Entrepreneurship

Bob Swanson and Genentech 

The Public Good Be Damned

Politics and the Inverse Square Law 

Disruptive Diagnostics and the Business of Science 

Amateur Astronomy for Pay 

 

A Good Place with Inadequate Philosophy

We enjoyed The Good Place. We watched it on disc and look forward to the release of Season 4. The show’s chatty dialogs on moral philosophy were pleasant and satisfying. The characters were engaging. We cared about what happened to them. It would be nice if The Good Place brought philosophy into the cultural mainstream something like what Star Trek’s original series did for science fiction. Like ST:OS, The Good Place had its flaws. 

Although the show namedrops several moral theories, it reverts back to Platonic altruism: your actions can be judged good if and only if (1) the goal is to benefit others and (2) you are not invested in the consequences to yourself.  

“Todd May and Pamela Hieronymi [are] the show’s philosophical advisors. While The Good Place hewed to the demands of a network sitcom—there was hugging and learning and quite a few jokes about farts—it also centered an ongoing debate about moral philosophy, from Aristotle up to the present day, and May and Hieronymi made sure the show stayed true to its grander ideals. Hieronymi, a professor at UCLA, introduced creator Mike Schur to T.M. Scanlon’s What We Owe to Each Other, which would become an onscreen bible for the show’s in-house philosopher, Chidi Anagonye. May, who teaches at Clemson, starred in a series of short videos explaining concepts like existentialism, utilitarianism, and deontology…” (Slate, 03 Feb 2020 here.) 

In addition to Aristotle’s virtue ethics, the show tossed out references to consequentialism and Scanlon’s contractarian  theory. Egoism did  not even get a nod. More deeply, the intention seemed to be to find one absolute standard for all contexts. Although I personally subscribe to Randian Objectivism as the best solution, always bringing all decisions to what is best for me, the fact remains that secondary theories such as contractarianism are useful and important. It depends on the context. And secondary theories can reflect back on primary considerations. It is not generally in your self-interest to habitually break your promises—unless you want to end your life as a hermit, even within a metropolis. 

My first class in criminal justice at Washtenaw Community College in 2005 was Ethics in Law Enforcement. Our professor was Ruth A. Walsh. Once the term was under way, we were given challenges to write about. Ms. Walsh expected us to apply all of the theories we were learning in order to analyze each problem from several viewpoints. Later, at Eastern Michigan University, working on my bachelor’s I tallied about 50 different theories to explain crime. That holistic approach to challenges in morality came in handy in my last class in graduate school (2010), Ethics in Physics.

I accepted that as a validation of the operation of necessary factual truths. At least 300 proofs of the Pythagorean theorem have been published. If an action is moral, then it can probably be justified not only by egoism, but by Kantian deontology, utilitarianism, pragmatism, and other constructs. If attempting that leads to contradictions, then one or more theories would be false on that point. In other words, moral theories are tools. You need to use the right tool for the right job. Do not use your screwdriver for a chisel. 

Can you save the whales? Should you bother? The inverse square law says that I cannot be very effective at that (here). On the other hand, I recently twice spent $20 on five boxes of Girl Scout cookies for the office. Not only does bringing cookies make me popular with my colleagues, but the money supports a local organization that I approve of. And the acts had a contractarian aspect: my first wife was a Girl Scout; and she taught me to always leave a place better than you found it. That lesson prepared me to engage the same behavior when, as a member of the Texas State Guard, I was part of a group using the barracks of the Texas Department of Public Safety, the Texas Army National Guard, and Sea Star Base Galveston.

PREVIOUSLY ON NECESSARY FACTS

Integrating Criminologies  

20% of Scientists are Crooks 

Morality and Ethics
Michael Shermer's Moral Arc 

Teaching Ethics to Student Engineers

Markets Bring Fairness 

Modes of Survival 

The Big Whimper of Modern Philosophy 

Coffee at the Co-op: Tradition and Novelty

Traditional Marxism teaches that capitalist firms attempt to drive each other out of business by seizing markets. On the other hand, the Austrians point out that seldom are any two products identical to consumers. One of the best things about weekend shopping at the Wheatsville Co-op is meeting the vendors. Most are local. All are aligned to health, nutrition, and sustainable economics. This weekend, I met two coffee vendors. 

Catherine from Four Sigmatic with a Lion's Mane Mushroom
and Cory from Third Coast Coffee with (what else?) coffee.

"As a founding member of Cooperative Coffees, Third Coast Coffee directly imports coffee from small farmer cooperatives throughout Central and South America, Africa, Asia and Indonesia. We have gained mutually beneficial, long term relationships with our producer partners in the sixteen years of Cooperative Coffees' existence. Third Coast makes year-long commitments for our green coffee to ensure a reliable and steady supply of many varieties that we offer. 

"All of our coffees are certified Fair Trade and organically grown. The one exception is Colombian coffee from Fondo Paez, which is Fair Trade transitional, grown using organic methods and in the process of acquiring organic certification.

"We control each roast by hand, eye, and nose. Our roasting machines are lovingly maintained 12 kilo drum roasters, each designed and built by Diedrich Manufacturing in Sandpoint, ID. Constant care and attention keeps them reliable. We follow rigorous protocol, including set batch sizes for all roasts that guarantees the results we seek.
https://www.thirdcoastcoffee.com

"We make drinking mushrooms (yes, we said drinking mushrooms) delicious and easy-to-do with our wide variety of superfood (and super-good-for-you) beverages. From Mushroom Coffees, to Matchas to Hot Cacao and multi-mushroom Blends… we have it all.

"We’re obsessed with the everyday magic of mushrooms like reishi, chaga, cordyceps and lion’s mane — Helping you relax, be well, energize and support productivity. Enter your email for healthy recipes, tips and tricks, and learn more about the benefits of these amazing superfoods."
https://us.foursigmatic.com

PREVIOUSLY ON NECESSARY FACTS

Awesome Austin Foods at the Wheatsville Co-op. 
Tofurky for Paleolithic Vegetarians 
The Hat Creek Pickle Company 
Fond Bone Broth 
Hot Dang Vegie Burger Mix
Sunday at the Co-op

The Market is Always Right – About the Market

“Employee Salaries versus Contributions to Society” was a recent poll of 1013 people conducted by CreditLoan dot Com. The survey was not rigorous, but it was not all that bad. At least they had a large number of respondents in their convenience sample. The flaws in the poll reflect common errors in philosophy within our broader culture. 

“Hardly a week goes by where we don't hear about a CEO, professional athlete, or celebrity who's scored a multimillion-dollar salary or bonus. Maybe their talent or skill set is worthy of a hefty paycheck, but considering the small amounts paid to teachers, soldiers, and first responders, it makes us wonder if we are underpaying those who perform outside the spotlight.”  

The survey is long and involved. It ranked eleven occupations:  teachers, scientists, social workers, police officers, military, legislators/elected officials, journalists/reporters, transportation security screeners, artists, clergy, and chief executives. It considered Republicans versus Democrats, Baby Boomers vs. Gen X vs. Millennials. So, it is worth looking at for its detail, again, given some warning about its not being perfectly aligned to the standards of sociology research. They do close with an open explanation of their methodology. For one thing, they grouped occupations so that actors, designers, singers, photographers, writers, and dancers are among the “artists” as are sports figures. Nine kinds of “scientist” are listed, as are four types of “military.” Note that security screeners are considered apart from police and military.

The More You Do for Other People the More You Earn

Survey results here: https://www.creditloan.com/blog/contribution-to-society-vs.-salary

Generally, as the aggregate data shows, the more you do for other people (in their own aggregate estimate), the more you make. That’s how markets work. So, it is erroneous to say that “most people think that teachers are underpaid.”

More to the point, teachers knew the markets before they went to college. They chose teaching anyway.  The same is true of the military. They are not in it for the money—though the money is there if you stop to think about it. 

Occupation	Actual	“Should”
Military	$40,217	$92,033
Farmers/Ranchers	21,076	70,101
Scientists	70,510	109,956
EMT Paramedic	39,675	71,765
Teachers	38,181	70,248

That is one of the problems with this survey. Military people get great healthcare for some ailments such as bullets and burns. Psychological problems have been less well attended. But they get food, clothing, and shelter. On the downside, female Navy officers pay much more than their male colleagues for uniforms. Home mortgages are cheaper; and they can get Basic Allowance for Housing, and Bachelor Officer Quarters subsidy. And housing is determined by cost of living at your home of record. I met a “special forces” kind of guy who was always on the road and whose HOR was Anchorage, Alaska. (Good thinking, Sarge!) After twenty years of military service you can retire and start another career. If you move to another federal agency, you take a lot with you. Even if you go into the private sector, you can cash in on college degrees and other untallied benefits – assuming you live through your employment, a very real untallied cost for many protective services. 

  

And if we could magically triple the pay of teachers or soldiers, what would be the consequences of that? Conversely, if we capped the pay of executives at 60% of this moment’s “average,” would corporations change for the better?

And it is those “averages” that beg so many questions. Granted that “artists” do not make much money on average, Tom Cruise earned $12.5 million for his role in A Few Good Men, which cost $33 million to make. As Deke Slayton said, “Averages only apply to average pilots.” 

Previously on Necessary Facts

Markets Bring Fairness 

Gresham’s Conjecture 

Supplies and Demands 

 2LT Frances Y. Slanger: American Nightingale 

After Action Report: Heartbreak Ridge

Heartbreak Ridge is a good action story with few leadership lessons. Dissenting for the sake of the task is one of the ethical standards that makes businesses (and scientists) successful. The guardian ethos rewards conformance to hierarchy and tradition. So, a story about an unorthodox soldier provides a context for thinking about values. In the case of Heartbreak Ridge, the hero’s values are ultra-orthodox. The complexity is delivered in the contrast between his military work and his successful attempt to re-unite with his ex-wife. When not firing an AK-47 at his men to teach them what it sounds like, GySgt Tom Highway is reading women’s magazines in order to eventually ask, “Do you think our relationship failed because of a lack of commitment?” 

As an actor, Clint Eastwood makes a good Marine. He has said that personally he is a libertarian conservative. He stays in great physical condition. He directed and produced the movie. The writer was James Carabatsos who created Hamburger Hill and Heroes. The story was gung-ho and left me feeling happy, but not any smarter. 

GySgt Highway is assigned to a reconnaissance platoon that has been allowed to lapse. This was 1986. The American military was not yet over Vietnam. “We are 0-1-1: no wins, one tie, and one loss.” The previous platoon sergeant was “retired on active duty.” The men are unmotivated. But that assessment and this assignment come from Maj. Malcolm A. Powers, who has been set up as the antithesis of our hero. Maj. Powers is an Annapolis graduate. He transferred to a combat regiment coming from supply and logistics. Although he expects GySgt Highway to get the platoon into shape, he calls the Gunny an anachronism with no role to play in the modern Marine Corps. In contrast to the martinet, we have 2LT Ring. Ring led his ROTC unit. He wears glasses. He excuses himself from an exercise to make a doctor’s appointment. Nonetheless, he supports GySgt Highway’s actions, speaking up to the Major to take responsibility for the Gunny. He tries hard. His heart is in the right place. He leads the men into combat. 

Under direct fire, the Lieutenant makes a bad choice and his radioman is killed. He is crestfallen. “You won’t make the same mistake again,” the Gunny says. We can believe that; and it might be interesting to write a story about Major Ring in Iraq during the Surge. 

Overall, Heartbreak Ridge charges through a barrage of intellectual bullets. The warrior ethos embraces fatalism. When 2LT Ring is floundering over the death of Private Profile the Gunny tells the Elltee that the man’s time was come and no matter how fast you run when it’s your time there’s nothing you can do about it. But that is not entirely true, or no reason would exist for GySgt Highway’s gung-ho training regimen and relentless pursuit of combat readiness. 

And that speaks to the problem of Maj. Powers. The story line denigrates him for coming from supply. He wants every form filled out, every bullet tallied. He is not the hard-charging Bionic Marine that GySgt Highway is. We get that. It is the story. But the fact remains that while good commanders know tactics and great commanders know strategy, winning commanders know logistics: an army moves on its stomach. But we do not get a lot of hero stories about the 4-shop.

Powers and Ring are college graduates whereas Highway “graduated” from Heartbreak Ridge when he and two others were the only survivors of three days of human wave assaults. (Highway was granted a Medal of Honor. That speaks to other problems with the story line, but let that go for now.) Although GySgt Highway is condemned as an anachronism, we see him learning to understand his ex-wife by reading women’s magazines. It is an emotional problem, not an intellectual one. The Gunny does outfox his wargame opponents by setting a better trap but it is range of the moment, concrete, not something you learn from a book. In point of fact, of course, it is exactly one of the many lessons in the books assigned to those who want to become leaders in combat. It is just that we did not sit with young Cpl Highway at the NCO school.

(For more on the differences between the commercial ethos and the guardian ethos see Systems of Survival: A Dialogue on the Moral Foundations of Commerce and Politics by Jane Jacobs, New York: Random House, 1992, which is cited in several other posts in this blog.)

PREVIOUSLY ON NECESSARY FACTS

Advanced Non-Commissioned Officer Training 

The Fourth Star  

President Trump and the Military 

Soldiers of Peace

Spanish Coins on American Notes

Until 1857, silver and gold coins from Mexico, Spain, France, Brazil, and other nations were legal tender in the United States. We know commonly that that US dollar was modeled directly on the "Spanish milled dollar" or "pieces of eight." However, the influence of international trade on the new republic was very deep and broad.

http://scoan.oldnote.org/

The website linked at left is replete with examples of private banks from the 1830s, 1840s, and 1850s that issued paper money promising American federal dollars (most often, fractions, actually) but showing Mexican or Spanish coins as graphic images. 

We still sometimes call a 25-cent quarter dollar coin "two bits."  Two hundred years ago, one bit was was one Spanish real. Eight reales made a Spanish dollar. When I was in high school in the 1960s, it was a known cheer: "Two bits, four bits, six bits a dollar. All for [our side] stand up and holler." Spanish Mexican culture continued in the West, of course. You can find The Texas Rangers: Wearing the Cinco Peso by Mike Cox (Tom Doherty Associates, 2009). The 5-peso dollar-sized coin of the United Mexican States of 1947 was a much later version of the Spanish dollar and the Republic of Mexico "Cap and Rays" silver 8-reales (1825-1897).

Thames Bank of Laurel, Indiana, 1856, promises Two Dollars
and shows two Mexican 8-reales

The website Spanish Coins on American Notes lists two dozen examples from twelve states. Most of them were "wildcat" banks from the era of unregulated banking. State regulation was no more successful than the constraints of market competition. Even numismatists look askance at that period of rampant laissez faire. A more objective appraisal would put banking in with other businesses. In the frontier era, economies were shaky at best. People enjoyed a lot of opportunity, but few guarantees. We think of "ghost towns" as a consequence of mining in the West, but Michigan has many from the lumber industry, as well from copper mining.

It is also true that along the eastern seaboard, where trade with the United Kingdom dominated, merchants often kept their books in pounds/shllings/pence into the 1830s. The florin and crown coins of the UK were their attempt to bring their currency into some accord with the dollar. Meanwhile the 4-dollar "Stella" gold coin of the United States was our attempt to align with the 20-franc gold coins of France and other nations.

PREVIOUSLY ON NECESSARY FACTS

The Art of Finance

A Man's Home is His Market

City Air Makes You Free

Thank-You Notes

Aaron Feldman:"Buy the Book Before You Buy the Coin"

BUY THE BOOK BEFORE THE COIN headlined an advertisement in the March 1966 issue of The Numismatist. Aaron R. Feldman offered 25 titles, some of which were classics then as now: Sheldon, Beistle, and Bolender. Don Taxay’s book on counterfeits (1964) was a new addition to our knowledge base. The Friedberg family was still in its first generation with Paper Money of the United States. 

(An earlier version of this article originally appeared in the Winter 2008 issue of the MSNS Mich-Matist and is archived at www.CoinTalk.com, here. )

Today, the self-styled "bibliomaniacs" of numismatics easily recognize Aaron R. Feldman (1894-1976) as an iconic literature dealer. He said, “I’ve always thought that if a man doesn’t own one coin, but has the knowledge that is in the books, then he’s a real numismatist.” However, Feldman himself owned many coins.

After returning from World War I with a mustard gas injury, he worked in his uncle’s millinery business. As an astute businessman, his serious collecting began during the 1930s. Like most, he began with standard U.S. issues but soon discovered the untapped markets in Civil War Tokens, Hard Times Tokens, and Presidential Inaugural Medals. He bought whole collections and became known to the dealers. Feldman then moved into paper money, assembling an admirable inventory of U.S. Large Size notes under the tutelage of George Herbert Blake (1858-1955) who was called “the dean of American paper money.” 

The depth of Feldman’s interest can be gauged by the fact that he wrote an article for Coin World (Dec. 22, 1961), “Irish Revolutionists Issue Freedom Bonds.” The sidebar called him an “avid paper student.” Whatever his other interests, this is the only article attributed directly to Feldman. His influence was personal.

He lugged his books to ANA conventions. He entertained customers at “the world’s smallest coin shop” amid the diamond merchants at 1220 Avenue of the Americas (which natives always have called “Sixth Avenue”). 

Q. David Bowers has fond memories of the little store. “He had a small cubicle in the NY Diamond Exchange just off 5th Avenue, where he went during weekdays. It probably measured no more than 8 feet square, with diamond dealers and jewelers all around him. I knew him well and visited many times.” 

In 1991, the Numismatic Bibliomania Society raised $3,000 for an endowment for the ANA convention exhibit awards. 

 Aaron Feldman was a member of the ANA, the ANS, the Empire State Numismatic Association and many other coin clubs over the years. Successful in business, Feldman could afford to indulge his passions. He was known to sell books at cost to beginning collectors.

Feldman endured Parkinson’s disease in his declining years. He closed his shop and did business by mail. When it came time to sell off his literature collection to meet his medical expenses, he was caught by bad timing.

His own favorite literature dealer was Frank Katen (1903-2001) who has been called “the pathfinder of American Numismatic Bibliomania” and the “Moses” of numismatic literature. Unfortunately, Katen could not handle Feldman’s collection immediately. So, impatient because of his failing health, Feldman consigned his library to Swann Galleries, another specialist in books. But Feldman was not impressed with Swann’s appreciation of numismatics as a specialty. Like many coin dealers, their auctions had, in fact, treated coin books as “throwaways." Nonetheless, George S. Lowry, president of Swann’s was happy with the results: the sale grossed $13,000 (November 29, 1973), which, relative to the price of gold or gasoline today would be like a quarter of a million dollars. However, for Feldman, it was a disaster.

 

Boxes of 19th century auction catalogues, back issues of ANS and ANA publications, cartons of catalogs and ephemera from Wayte Raymond, James Kelly, Morton and Jospeh Stack, and Max Mehl all went for fractions of the pre-sale estimates. The two-volume Saxonia Numismatica by Wilhelm Ernst Tentzel, written in German and Latin and published in 1708, sold for $275. Writing this in February 2008, I found the same books for sale from a German dealer for €350 (about $510-$520). Compared to gold and gasoline, these books remain greatly undervalued.

Literature is a tough sell. Coins are shiny; gold and silver are hard money. When you hold a 20¢ piece you can imagine what it bought in 1875. But if coins are “history you can hold in your hand” then without the history, all you have is a melted rock. The imagery, the iconography, the devices and legends, all lose meaning.

Collectors come to the bourse floor armed with price guides, Greysheets, Red Books, or armed with phones and tablets connected to the Internet. They want the best prices – and rightfully so. It is an immutable law of economics that price is a matter of supply and demand. With old coins, the supplies are more or less fixed. All that changes is the demand. Demand begins with literature. One collector writes an article for a magazine. Another collector creates an exhibit. Someone else gives a talk at an ANA convention. Eventually a book comes out. At every step, from original research, to the sharing of information, to the reading of good books, each aficionado enjoys profits not available to later buyers and sellers. The people with the price sheets are the last in line. They pay for the profits not realized in the sales of rare books.

It is perhaps unfair that collectible books are not prized more highly. The advantage is that almost any book at almost any price is a bargain. You cannot buy them much cheaper. The profits come from knowing what is between the covers. 

Sources

• Bowers, Dave, email to author, Wednesday, December 26, 2007 11:13 pm
• Feldman, Aaron, “Irish Revolutionists Issue Freedom Bonds,” Coin World, December 22, 1961, page 56.
• “Frank Katen, 1903-2001” The E-Sylum: Volume 4, Number 5, January 28, 2001, Article 2. http://www.coinbooks.org/esylum_v04n05a02.html
• Smith, Pete, “Names in Numismatics: Feldman Promoted Numismatic Literature,” The Numismatist, December 1998, page 1373.
• “Aaron Feldman dead at 81; famous for book advocacy,” Coin World, April 7, 1976, pg. 3. 
• Hamburger Antiquariat Keip GmbH, Grindelhof 48, 20146 Hamburg, Germany http://www.antiqbook.de/boox/ham/266999.shtml   
• "Aaron Feldman: Buy the Book Before You Buy the Coin," https://www.cointalk.com/threads/aaron-feldman-buy-the-book-before-you-buy-the-coin.129198/)

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