Status: U Return-Path: Received: from web5205.mail.yahoo.com ([216.115.106.86]) by niles.mail.mindspring.net (Earthlink Mail Service) with SMTP id tm1m5k.g75.37kbi1o for ; Thu, 26 Jul 2001 22:57:56 -0400 (EDT) Message-ID: <20010727025754.21143.qmail@web5205.mail.yahoo.com> Received: from [152.163.197.212] by web5205.mail.yahoo.com via HTTP; Thu, 26 Jul 2001 19:57:54 PDT Date: Thu, 26 Jul 2001 19:57:54 -0700 (PDT) From: MPCgram Subject: MPCGram 405/3 To: MPCGram@yahoo.com MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii ============================================== MPC Gram ============================================== Covering the Entire World of Military Numismatics ----------------------------------------------- Series 002-Number 405 Thurski July 26, 2001 More on the Forbes Collection and other things By Larry “Ski” Smulczenski A couple of months ago, I mentioned a letter that was part of a lot in the R.M. Smythe sale conducted at the Chicago Paper Money Exposition. Lot 1218 was described as "A selection of Municipal Mimeograph Issues from Samar: Also a Few Mindanao and Leyte Notes." You will recognize these as being Philippine Emergency and Guerrilla notes but the last line of the description mentioned a letter that referred to four notes. Ray Czahor who does business as Cookie Jar Collectibles was the purchaser of the lot and graciously provided me a copy of the letter. It is dated March 18, 1952. Mr. Allan Forbes State Street Trust Company Boston 1, Mass. U.S.A. Dear Mr. Forbes: I indeed regret that it is not possible for me to send you any more guerrilla currency as most of them have been cashed and during the last 12 months I have been able to acquired only one. Recently I was able to get a 5-centavo note from the Culion Leper Colony. I am a member of the historical committee of the Philippine-American Association and we have our museum in the American Embassy. We have received a large number of books and documents as a donation from your cousin, our very beloved and much adored Governor-General "Caminero" Forbes. We call him "Caminero" Forbes instead of Cameron Forbes because he was responsible for the beginning of our wonderful road system here in the Philippines. I am sending you, with my compliments, some of our recent emergency notes made necessary because of the scarcity of copper and nickel coins. Sometime ago I saw my old friend from your city die at a local hospital. His name is Pius E. Burns, although you may not know him. He had been a principal and superintendent of schools, a devout Catholic but, as in the case with most of our Catholic superintendents, he had more scrapes with the priests than the Protestant superintendents even though he went to communion every Sunday. Yours truly, Gilbert S. Perez The writer of this letter, Gilbert Perez was probably the best known numismatist in the Philippines and wrote numerous articles about Philippine numismatics not only in the P.I. but also in the ANA's Numismatist. Although he had long passed away when I was in the P.I., I remember the old time collectors frequently referring to him. The letter is written to a Mr. Allen Forbes from Boston, Mass. Mr. Forbes was a director at the State Street Trust Company and must have acquired quite a collection of bank notes as witnessed by this Smythe Sale. The Guerrilla notes which we believe all came from the Forbes collection all had little pieces of cellophane tape at the 3- and 9-o'clock positions of each note. A majority of the foreign notes also had this tell tale mark. Therefore we assume that Mr. Forbes had mounted his collection in albums with these pieces of tape. The question immediately comes to mind, was this Allen Forbes any relation to the founders of the Forbes Lithograph Corporation? After all the bank and the printer were both located in Boston. Mass. But Forbes is a rather common name, and I guess I could ask the same question about Steve Forbes. We have not found any evidence that would link any of the Forbes' together as of now. However, the letter does mention that this Allen Forbes was a cousin of Cameron Forbes, who was a Governor-General of the Philippines. If you check your Standard Catalog of World Paper Money you will find the Silver Certificates-- Pick 32-36, signed by W. C. Forbes as the Governor-General. This has to be the "Caminero" that Perez refers to. The emergency notes that he refers to are the 1949 Filipino fractionals (Pick 125-131) that I wrote about in a previous column. My thanks to all of you that added info on the French Box Car that I wrote about last week. Fred and I discussed them on the phone and we agree with 'rjb' that there may be as many as 48 cars out there--one for each state. But where are they? Only Larry Gibbs reported the one in Cheyenne, Wyoming. By the way, no one requested the "IKE" tape. I can't believe that " No one likes Ike". Its a great movie. ============================================== Editorial ----------------------------------------------- You may have noticed an additional number in the subject line of your Gram email. The Gram is sent in four batches (on the way to 25!). When a ocpy of the Gram bounces we often have trouble figuring out the problem. This number tells us the batch which will help us debug the thing. No promises, but we are trying to clean up the lists! ============================================== Mail Call ----------------------------------------------- Dear Gram, Holy Cow! I got my counterfeit note back from you today. I thought for sure it would get lost in that 'Port Clinton Black Hole'. Ha ha. I actually opened the envelope while at the post office, just so I could show it to the postmaster. I do that quite a bit when I have interesting notes coming in (to me they are all interesting). This time I took it a step further and explained to him why this note could not possibly have that position number! (They look at me like I need help sometimes, but they always lend me their ear!). Take care and have a GREAT day!! bill Dear Gram, But you still did not fix the misspelling (or include anonymous in the list of dondors). Joe Dear Joe, Well, it did (does) not seem to important to list anonymous donors if we are not also listing amounts. Guess if we get more than one anonymous donor I will have to number them! Then there was the nagging fear that I would have a typo in anonymous and have to hear about that too! Finally, just do not have time to dig out spelling errors/typos. Editor Dear Editor, Why aren't you updating the list [calendar/show list]? I sent the complete change which includes all the conventions. We are almost into August and if it doesn't get updated quick it does no good. Thanks John and Nancy ================================================ Departments --------------------------------------------------- Calendar of events for Gramsters maintained by Howard Daniel, John Wilson and Gram staff ---------------------------------------------------- June 28-July 1, 2001, Mid America Coin Expo, Sponsored by Numismatic News, Rosemont Convention Center, Rosemont, IL Auction by B & M - No paper money. About 125 tables July 5-8, 2001, Clearwater Coin Show, Clearwater, FL Over 100 tables July 13-15, 2001, Eastern States Numismatic Expo, Brandywine Terrace, Claymont / Wilmington, DE Probably over 100 tables August 2-5, 2001, 42nd Blue Ridge Numismatic Association, Dalton, GA (about one hour drive from the ANA Atlanta convention the following week) Over 150 Dealers Auction by Lucien Birkler, Washington, D.C. from M & M August 4-5, 2001 Meridian Area Coin Club Coin & Currency Show, Howard Johnson Inn, Meridian, MS August 7-12, 2001, ANA Convention at the Cobb Galleria Center, Atlanta, GA The Fourth Annual Paper Money & Historical Artifacts Show. Sheraton Grand hotel at Dallas/ Ft. Worth Airport. 4440 W. John Carpenter Freeway, Irving Texas 75063. August 16-19 2001. More than 75 dealers. Lyn Knight's 40th Anniversary sale August 18, 2001. AUGUST 16-19. 2001, 41st Missouri Numismatic Society Coin Festival, Hilton St. Louis Airport St. Louis, MO August 17-19, 2001, Ohio Coin Expo, Cleveland, OH, 125 tables, August 23-26, 2001, CSNS Fall Convention hosted by the MSNS in Dearborn, MI Auction by NTL/Scotsman Coins, Hyatt Regency Dearborn August 23-25, 2001, New England Coin Expo, Holiday Inn, Mansfield, MA, 130 tables August 25-26, 2001, Golden State Coin Show, CSNS 109th Convention & NASC Masonic Temple Arcadia, CA August 31-Sept. 1-2, 2001, Ohio State Coin Show, Columbus Ohio Host CNS/COINS, Marriott North World Paper Money Fair, run by London Chapter of IBNS October 6/7, 2001 Spink Auction October 5, 2001 Phillips Auction October 4, 2001 My London Paper Money Fairs are: July 15/September 2/November 18, 2001 Important 2002 events Lyn Knight auction of Leo May collection, Chicago, Feb 2002 ANA spring show, Jacksonville FL, 7-9 March 2002. EXHIBIT APPLICATION DEADLINE 11 FEB 2002. [Joe Boling, John and Nancy Wilson confirmed in attendance] MPCFest III, Port Clinton, Ohio March 2002 WWII numismatics seminar at ANA Summer Seminar, July 2002 ANA summer show, New York City, 30 July-4 August 2002. EXHIBIT APPLICATION DEAD LINE 3 JUN 2002. --------------------------------------------------- Donations are now being accepted for scholarships to the 2002 "Military Money" course at the 2002 ANA Summer Seminar. Inquiries and donations should be sent to: Military Numismatists c/o Marcus Turner 8103 East US Highway 36 Suite 163 Avon, IN 46123 Dondors to 2002 Scholarship Fund Steve Feller Harold Kroll R. A. Medina ==================================================== Post/Base Exchange (PX/BX/NEX) Dump your dupes! Your classified advertisement for items for sale will be run here for free. Send your ads to the gram. This service is for everyone, most humble dealer or most advanced collector. The point is to make the gram more interesting. Send in a list of items for sale and we will list them here in the gram. In all cases confirm your order via email first. FOR SALE WANTED Collectors may submit lists of items wanted for their collections for listing here. Dealers and collectors who have these items are then encouraged to list them or sale in the above section. This is a trial, if you like it, send your list. =================================================== Staff: publisher and editor: Fred Schwan - fred@papermoneyworld.com; assistant editor - Phil Goldstein IWANTMYMPC@aol.com Tuesday columnist Joe Boling – JoeBoling@aol.com Thurski columnist Larry “Ski” Smulczenski – ski@papermoneyworld.com critic: Harold Kroll - MPCKid@papermoneyworld.com; index manager: Ed Beaman webmaster & technical advisor: Doug Bell - (Wiz): doug@papermoneyworld.com; The Boss: Judy Schwan ===== MPC Gram is published by BNR Press and papermoneyworld.com as a free service to the community of military money collectors. 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