From: mpcgram-owner@papermoneyworld.net on behalf of MPCgram [mpcgram@yahoo.com] Sent: Monday, April 24, 2006 11:31 PM To: mpcgram@papermoneyworld.net Subject: MPCGram 1455 ------------------------ / MPC Gram News Letter / ----------------------- =========================================== MPC GRAM =========================================== Vol 7, no 1455 Monday April 24, 2006 Commentary by Paul Garner, The Old Sarge As an old retired GI I must take exception to the comment Second, only in the military is it necessary to state the obvious, "Good looks good, bad looks bad." Remember, in 1948 most of the military was left over from the mass of draftees from the WW2 years. The average education at the time for the enlisted ranks was 11th grade and had yet to advance to HS graduate by the time that I enlisted in 1954 (I was a dropout with three years of high school). The EUCOM Weekly Directive No. 26 issued in July 1948 excerpt was a masterpiece of clear writing and did what it set out to do which was to communicate. Using "Good looks good, bad looks bad" set the theme for the excerpt which was that detecting counterfeits is easy if you know what to do. It accomplished its purpose which was to educate. What impressed me, as an old administrative type, was the complete lack of gobblydegook. The excerpt was clear, concise and did what it set out to do. Capitalizing military payment certificate is actually a bad habit. Technically (and I expect to get a good arguement from others on this) is that the term is actually a pronoun and should not be capitalized. If they had referred to Series 472 Military Payment Certificates, then it would become a noun and be capitalized. Just military payment certificate by itself is generic and, therefore, is a pronoun which is not capitalized. [See editorial] Sometime in the late 1940s or early 1950s it became habit to capitalize all sorts of pronouns or semi-pronouns in correspondence. Damned if I know why but I spent many an hour sweating over an old Smith Corona typewriter trying to get a piece of correspondence past the Adjucant [not a proper noun and should not be capitalized--smile--Ed]. The rules of English that I had learned in school were no longer quite correct. It was a case of "There is the Military Way and there is the civilian way...guess which is right and do it!" There were a number of instances in which the counterfeit note was better than the original and circulated side by side with the good ones. The Confederate $500 comes to mind. I am sure that there are others and, with a little thought, I could come up with them. "Good looks good and bad looks bad" is not always a good rule of thumb nor obvious. On another note, on behalf of the Texas Numismatic Association I would like to invite ya'll to hold one of your MPCFests [Paul, you are a Gramster--that is close enough to make it your mini Fest! --Ed] at the convention celebrating the 50th Anniversary of the TNA in 2010. The exact date and location is yet to be determined, but it will be sometime in the month of May and probablly in San Antonio since clubs there have agreed to host it. We will furnish you a meeting room and you will have free admission to the bourse. You will be most welcome. *********************************************************** Championship Question Corner Question: Overprints stating "withdrawn from circulation September 18th 1941" appear on notes of what bank? Question 115. Yesterday's Question: Answers: see below Comments from the field: Bill Myers wrote : well, it should be easy to get the question from Gram 1454 (no he did not write anything--we (I) just goofed and forgot to put a question in. ========================================== Editorial ========================================== I bet you think that I put Paul up to talking about capitalization! I did not, but I will write a little bit about it here. Numismatists in general are terrible about capitalization. I do not agree with Paul's reasons, but I agree that military payment certificates should not be capitalized, but even I fall into using it with capital letters sometimes. I hate the way that many publications capitalize (for example) the names of the names of grades or condtions like very fine, uncirculated and the like. You might not think that this is important, but I think that it is on many counts. The most important of these is that what we publish represents us to those who read what we write. Educatned newcomers must be either puzzled or amazed when they read our publications. ========================================== Mail Call =========================================== Dear Gram, Just finished reading your article on the German barter notes and Carlson's on the numbering of 691 and 701's. And I must say, I am impressed with both. I noticed one (OK two) small errors in Carlson's article, the first could have been a typo, and is not really that big of a deal. The numbers mentioned for a production run of 8000 sheets to a unit and 84 fractional notes to the sheet still adds up to 672,000 notes, but the quoted number in the article says 684,000... Unless I read it wrong. The other error, he states that the series 691-$20.00 note was an "allegorical design not previously utilized on paper money." That is incorrect. It could (should) be said that it was not previously used on MPC. The central vignette of an allegorical woman, has been used on an old "broken banknote" circa 1860. I will get the specifics on this note tomorrow, as it will soon be added to my collection. Other than that, two great articles! One thing you should do, seeing as how you have their ear, so to speak, campaign a little about having MPC prices included in the "Paper Money Market" supplement. Tell them they are missing the boat on this deal and stop treating us like red-headed stepchildren. You, Fred, can make this happen. Just imagine, you could do a monthly up to the minute price guide on MPC! Heck, maybe someday they will have to change the name to "MPC Reporter" ! ;-) 21 =========================================== Calendar =========================================== 2006 The London Paper Money Fair has moved to: Victory Services Club, 63 Seymour Street, off Edgware Road, Marble Arch London and the dates are: May 7, July 2 and Nov 26. see: www.britishnotes.co.uk or www.londonpapermoneyfair.co.uk June 1-3 Long Beach, mini fest to be announced 16-18 June Memphis 1-14 July ANA summer seminar 16-20 August ANA convention, Denver September 14th-16th, Long Beach, mini fest to be annuonced The World Paper Money Fair, organised by the London chapter of the IBNS will be September 30/October 1 at the new venue: Hotel Russell, Russell Square, Bloomsbury, London.  see: www.ibnslondon.org.uk Oct/Nov Pcda St Louis ========================================== for dealer Hot Contact list, ANA MPC museum holdings and other static information please click this link: http://www.papermoneyworld.net/Gramattichments.htm ========================================== 2006 scholarship fund Donations of cash and numismatic material will be gladly accepted. Generally the numismatic material is auctioned at MPCFest, but might be sold via ebay or other places. Your scholarship donations help the hobby by sending qualified individuals to the ANA summer seminar military money class. Except for unavoidable charges like ebay fees, 100% of your donation goes to scholarships. Donations are now being accepted for the 2006 scholarship fund. Applications are also being accepted for the 2006 scholarships. Donors to 2006 scholarship fund: Sue McCarty (list pending) Contact me at: "Marcus Turner" mail to: maturner@indy.rr.com Checks should be made out to the "Military Numismatists Scholarship." or Marcus Turner Marcus Turner PO Box 191 Danville, Indiana 46122 USA Contributors to the 2005 scholarship were: Ed Hoffman, Warner Talso, RA Medina, John & Nancy Wilson, Keith & Sue Bauman, Dan Freeland, Tom Koch, Doug Bell, Cuneyd Tolek, David Seelye, Brian Giese, Larry Smulczenski, Joe Boling, Dick & Loretta Freyser, Mark Watson, John Cheney, Roger Urce, Harold Kroll, Al Glaser. (also Memphis Belle note purchasers and summer seminar participants. irie Harris, Robert Connell, William Benton, Ed Beaman, Frank Clark, Howard A. Daniel III, Dick and Loretta Freyser, Dan and Kathy Freeland, Jack Hunter, Harld Kroll, Tim Kyzivat, Leo May, Robbie Robinson, Joel Shafer, Neil Shafer, Larry Smulczenski, Steve Swoish, Roger Urce, Ron Waddell, Pam West, John and Nancy Wilson, Adolf Witzke, Wendell Wolka. IMPORTANT SCHOLARSHIP INFORMATION Additional information can be found at the link below. We encourage everyone to print copies of this information and distribute it to those who might be interested. Further you are encouraged to e-mail the pdf document to anyone you see fit. Thank you http://www.papermoneyworld.net/news/Military Numismatists Scholarship Fund 2003.pdf Scholarships from the ANA: See the following location for an application for financial aid to the summer seminar: http://www.money.org/sumsemfin.html ========================================= POST / BASE EXCHANGE(PX/BX/NEX) Dump your dupes! Your classified advertisement for items for sale, purchase or trade 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. In all cases confirm your order via email first. WANTED SECTION: 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 for sale in the above section as a reply. Wanted listings will run for a period of 1 month. ============================================= MPC Gram Staff: Publisher, editor: Fred Schwan fred@papermoneyworld.net; Subscription Manager:Doug Bell- doug@papermoneyworld.net Tuesday Columnist : JoeBoling- JoeBoling@aol.com Friday Columnist: Warner Talso: wtalso@aol.com Fest Auctioneer: Larry "Ski"Smulczenski - skitex@cox.net, Critic:Harold Kroll - HARBONS@aol.com Scholarship Coordinator: Marcus Turner- marucs@papermoneyworld.net; Webmaster and Technical Advisors:Doug Bell "Wiz" - doug@papermoneyworld.net Russ Walsh - russ.walsh@gte.net Fact Checker: Warner Talso -Calendar Coordinator: John and Nancy Wilson -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. Your suggestions, criticisms, complaints, editorial contributions, letters, and even praise are very welcome. The entire contents including linked illustrations are copyright protected by the publishers. In the case of contributors, the copyright is protected on behalf of the creators. Please send all correspondence regarding the gram to MPCgram@yahoo.com. Thank you very much for your participation. __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com mpc gram mail list To subscribe to a list, send a mail message to "imailsrv@papermoneyworld.net" at this address with the following in the body of the message: subscribe mpcgram your_full_name To unsubscribe from a list, send a mail message to "imailsrv@papermoneyworld.net" at this address with the following in the body of the message: unsubscribe mpcgram if you have any problems please report then to doug@papermoneyworld.net