It has been a sweltering summer so far in Ohio, but one can only imagine what it must have been like 150 years ago on Pennsylvania farm lands where the Battle of Gettysburg was waged.

This month Fred Reed — who writes a monthly column on tokens in Coin World’s weekly publication — shares the story of this battle and the numismatic legacy of Gettysburg. In the February 2012 Coin World Special Edition Reed published his research on the photo of President Abraham Lincoln that served as a model for the Lincoln cent.

Interestingly, Reed’s interest in the subject of Lincoln and the Civil War is not just scholarly, it’s also personal.

He writes, “One of the young Pennsylvania troopers in the field those days was my great great grandfather James Louis Reed, although none of us had any inkling of this fact when I first visited the Gettysburg battlefield as an impressionable 10-year-old on a family vacation in 1958. Grandpa Reed served in the 16th Pennsylvania Cavalry.”

The National Park Service has a full calendar of activities planned for July 1 to 4, helping mark the 150th anniversary of the Battle of Gettysburg, but collectible reminders of this battle, and the Civil War more generally, are available to collectors of any means.

Also this month, Paul Gilkes takes you behind the scenes at the West Point Mint in New York where he spent a day at the facilities and saw, among other things, the first Reverse Proof 2013-W American Buffalo gold coins being produced.

Finally, Jeff Starck’s world coin feature on the many coins from around the globe that display famous works of art shows the fantastic diversity of coins being produced from mints around the world. Whether you prefer the opulence of Gustav Klimt, Edvard Munch’s unique brand of Expressionism, or more formal modes of representation as characterized by masters of the Italian Renaissance like Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo Buonarroti, expanding your collection with coins from around the world opens up a new collecting adventure.

Happy summer collecting!

Best,

Steve Roach

sroach@coinworld.com

COIN WORLD ... anywhere, anytime!