From: mpcgram-owner@papermoneyworld.net on behalf of MPCgram [mpcgram@yahoo.com] Sent: Wednesday, October 04, 2006 11:01 AM To: mpcgram@papermoneyworld.net Subject: *****SPAM***** MPCGram 1504 ------------------------ / MPC Gram News Letter / ----------------------- =========================================== MPC GRAM =========================================== Vol 7, no 1504 Wednesday October 5, 2006 Save those Safe Deposit Box Receipts! by Jim Downey Many Grams ago, there were a few articles concerning the Validation Board for German Dollar Bonds. The Validation Board was created in 1953 as a result of certain agreements among the United States, West Germany and the Western European countries to verify the legitimacy of dollar denominated bonds issued by certain German industries, cities and state governments in the 1920s and 1930s.     The history and procedures of the Validation Board are found in the U.S. court case of Abrey v. Reusch. Abrey attempted to register and validate 245 $1,000.00 bonds issued by the United Steel Company. Abrey, a citizen of Poland, claimed that he acquired the bonds in Poland in 1940 and fled with them to the United States in November 1940. He claimed to have held them in a safe deposit box at the Chemical Bank in New York. He then claimed to have given them to a friend for safekeeping. The friend held them until 1950 when they were returned to Abrey. In 1953, he submitted the bonds to the Validation Board. The Validation Board ruled against Abrey. The strongest evidence against his claim was the fact that the bonds he attempted to validate were included on a list of bonds that had been redeemed in 1940. (To give you an idea of how detailed the investigation of a claim could be, one of the other pieces of evidence against Abrey’s claim was the fact that his safe deposit box was not big enough to hold 245 bonds.)    There were 150 different entities that issued dollar denominated bonds. Some of these were retired or defaulted prior to the beginning of WWII. In the mid-1930s, the German government prohibited the direct payment of these obligations. This scheme which was operated through the Conversion Office for German External Debt (Konversionskasse fur Deutsche Ausslandschulden) has been discussed in previous Grams as well.   During the 1920s and 1930s many of the dollar denominated bonds were repurchased and reacquired by the issuers for retirement or amortization. The bonds were issued using US institutions as underwriters who had the sole authority to cancel the bonds. During the war it was impossible for the bonds to be sent from Germany to the United States for cancellation by the underwriters. Instead, they piled up in the vaults of the Reichsbank.   At the end of the war, the Russian forces in Berlin looted the Reichsbank offices and made off with $350,000,000.00 worth of retired bonds. Approximately $250,000,000.00 of legitimate bonds was still held outside Germany by investors. In order to verify the legitimacy of these bonds, the Validation Board was created.   The Validation Board consisted of three members: a German member, a U.S. member and a chairman. Initially, the German member was Walter Reusch, the U.S. member was Douglas W. Hartman, and the chairman was David A. Stretch, all of whom were lawyers. Sometime after 1956, Walter Reusch was replaced as the German member by Walter Skaupy.    The U.S. and German members of the board were charged with examining the claims of legitimacy made by holders of bonds. The chairman sat as an umpire in the event of disagreement between the two members. Claimants originally presented written evidence of their claims and were entitled to a hearing before the Validation Board if requested by the Board or the claimant. An adverse determination by the Validation Board could be appealed to a court in Germany or the United States or to an arbitrator.    In order to have a Bond validated, a claimant had to first register the bond with the Board. The bond and any information or documents pertinent to its registration and validity had to be presented to the Board. Once this information was submitted, the issuer and paying agents had an opportunity to take a position as to the validity of the bond. The Validation Board could make whatever investigation of the facts it deemed necessary. It had the right to take depositions and subpoena witnesses. A bond would be validated if the Validation Board was satisfied that the requirements of validation were met. The decision on validation was then sent to claimant.   Pursuant to the international agreements implementing the Validation Board process, there were 100 different bond issues that could be validated for redemption. Initially, there were 92 bond issues from West Germany but 8 issues from entities in East Germany were added in 1960. Only bonds held outside Germany on January 1, 1945 could be validated.   The Swiss, Dutch, Belgians, Swedes, French and English also had Validation Boards for bonds issued in these countries. Unlike the dollar bond validation system, these other countries did not implement systems where individual claims were heard. Instead, these Validation Boards made general determinations as to the validity of classes of bonds. MPC Fest 8 Fest headquarters has [finally] announced dates for MPCFest 2007. They are March 23-25. These dates are later than ever and break with the tradition of being tied to the Chicago Paper Money Exposition. The later dates should reduce weather complaints by Southern and Western Festers. Hopefully, the later dates will also allow some AWOL MPC collectors who have never atteneded with weather excuses to attend. In making the announcment, Fest organizers thanked everyone who provided input on the dates. Reservations for Fest 8 are now being accepted at MPCGram@yahoo.com. ***************************************************** Championship Question Corner Question: Question 161, difficulty 2. What is the geometric figure that dominates the Durchgangslager Amersfoort notes? Yesterday's Question 160, difficulty 2. Whose signature appears on Series G US war bonds? Comments from the field: Kathy Myers wrote: Greetings Gram! The main gram question "champ" in our household is away preparing to go for his tour in the sand, so I guess I'll take a guess at the question of the day. I've never even seen a Series G bond, but since they were produced when the series E bonds were, I would assume the signature was Henry Morgenthau's, the secretary of the treasury at the time. However, he did not stay "in office" the entire run of the bonds, so I would then assume his signature was replaced by Fred Vinson's and then John Snyder, who would have served at the point the bonds stopped being produced. Here's hoping I've done my gramster hubby proud. [You have done him proud and really start to thing like a numismatist! The question was carefuly (??) selected to account for the possiblities that you raised. The $10 Series E war bond is indeed found with BOTH the Morgenthau AND Vinson signature so we could not easily use that Series for the question. Series F on the other hand has only been seen in the Morgenthar signature, but has some myteries concerning it status as a war bond so it was out. Good job.--Ed.] By the by, I am confused by question 158. Was it ever really answered?? I thought it might have been the MPC you purchased from David Seelye at FUN?! Thanks, [Hm, well your editor tried to get a little clute with this question then failed to give the answer. No, the most expensive US military note is definately NOT the Series 591 50c replacement that David Sold. It is definately NOT a MPC. It is the North Africa Series 1934 $10 star at $100K plus--Ed.] ========================================== Editorial ========================================== Have you been sufferring from Gram anxiety? Certainly you have had Gram loss the past two weeks. Has it really been two weeks? Yikes. Yes, we have missed some Grams. We are extending all paid subscriptions by FOUR weeks to make up for the missing days. Of course I have all of the old, tired excuses about being busy etc., and although they are TRUE they are no excuse. Everyone is busy. To make Gram loss worse, Doug Bell has determined that we are having trouble with AOL (again). Somehow the wizards at AOL have determined that the Gram when sent via the papermoneyworld computers is spam. Late yes, spam no. That is the sad state of affairs. We found out about it when Louise Boling said something to Joe about a Gram number that he had not received. Thereafter, Doug researched the it and found the sad state of affairs with AOL. I have added a few known AOL addresses to the distribution list sent direcetly from Fest HQ when the Gram is sent to PMW for retransmission. In the past, this service was reserved for premium subscribers and VIPs. Such delivery assures early delivery by at least nanoseconds. Everyone has been quite gentle about the missing Grams this time. I am not sure if we are mellowing or what, but there were relatively few calls and emails about the situation. While it was easier to not have to deal with so many of those, bit also makes us feel unloved. There just is no easy answer is there? In the news section was the notice of the 2007 Fest dates. Of course these are not the perfect dates for everyone, but as near as we could tell from the feedback that we received, they (the dates) did not exclude anyone. We also think that moving later will be better, but we are braced for the comments. We are also ready to receive your reservation. For those of you at Fest 7 who told me to put you down, If you are not on the list below, I forgot. Please send your reservation in now. ========================================= Mail Call =========================================== Dear Gram, I have had an interesting month. I spend 6 days in Ft McCoy, WI working with the unit I will be deploying with. We did mock casualty treatment. The hospital members seem to be well trained & a good group. I have been in Ft Bliss, TX prepping for deployment. It has been very little sleep & long waits. An old fart like me failed the hearing test but I am suppose to get a waiver tomorrow & head to Iraq. (can't say when due to OPSEC). I can say I hope to be in the land of POGs by next week. Kathy will take over my role answering the championship questions. I left medical books behind to I could fit WWII Remembered in my duffle bag. Bill Myers Dear Bill, Thanks for the report. There are a few more in the inbox from our vacation. We will get them caught up in the next few days (we hope). Editor Dear Editor, As many of you already know I have been the caricature artist at several MPC Fests and have provided art for MFC and MFC bonds. I have recently started my own caricature company called "Ugly Duckling Art" at www.uglyducklingart.com I am writing this email to ask for your help in promoting my company as I work to get it off the ground. You don't have to do any work, so don't worry! :) I just want to make sure you're aware that it exists, so if you hear someone interested in a caricature, you'll know where to point them. If you get a chance to visit the website, please let me know if you see anything that is confusing, or misspelled, or anything you think could work better a different way. Or, if you have any great suggestions for how to market the website, please let me know! I'm always up for suggestions! Lastly, I recently added my site to the Top-Site-List for caricatures (list of caricature sites ordered by the number of votes they get) If you think my site is good enough to get a vote, or think it's so terrible that it deserves a pity vote, please click this link below, then click "Click Here to VOTE for Ugly Duckling Art". http://caricatures.top-site-list.com/vote7.html I greatly appreciate any and all support. Sincerely, Dave Schwan Ugly Duckling Art Dear Dave, I am sorry, we cannot run your letter. It is contrary to our editorial standards about commercialism and self promotion. Other than that, good luck. We look forward to seeing you at Festate. Editor ========================================== 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: Nov 26. see: www.britishnotes.co.uk or www.londonpapermoneyfair.co.uk Nov 16-19, 2007 Pcda St Louis 2007 MPCFest: March 23-25 2007 details TBA. [Reservations received: Harold Kroll, Louise and Joe Boling, Warner and Jane (auxilliary), Ian and Bella Marshall, Fred and Judy (auxiliary) Schwan. [Totals: festers 7, new Festers 0, Tiger lillies (auxilliary) 2] Memphis 21-23 June. ANA Summer semnar Session I: June 24-29, 2007* Session II: June 30-July 6, 2007 ANA Convention, Milwaukee. ========================================== for dealer Hot Contact list, ANA MPC museum holdings and other static information please click this link: http://www.papermoneyworld.net/Gramattichments.htm ========================================= 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 !DSPAM:4523dc23281672137763980!