Dear Friend Of Bill K~ethe: This letter is being sent to all persons uho contributed aryicles to the final issue of Bill Kuethe's Journal Of Necromantic Numis­ matists. Please excuse the form letter. As a thank you to Mr. Kuethe for all the pleasure we've , recieved from his magazin~, I would like to, with you~ help, ~ssemble a special gift: The gift would be a 'second final issue' of the Journal, the contents beinq your articles, and supp­ lements hopefully. When Itve recieved all the arti­ clas, thay will be Xe1:ox8d L•y :nt- on LG bonJ pape·.r, not the usual 'slick' paper usually used, and bound into a special cover. The gift will hopefully be pr2sEn­ ted to Mr. Kuethe at the 1978 Collectors' Weekend ~ THE SUCCESS OF THE SURPffiISE DEPENDS ON YOU~ AR1ICLES AND SECRECY.!!!!! Do not tell anyone about this surprise, not even oth­ ers you are sure contributed to the last Journal,just to maintain secrecy. Also, as a contributor, you will recievs your copy of the Journal through the mail. Your copy will be Xeroxed onto regular paper, to keep costs down. Only 20 copies of this issu~are going to be made. Thanks. ~~-. If 1;:.,.A. ,_-·,_.~ eI ' ~·tr.. I{(}.;~'!\J v Friends Of Kuethe c/o Todd Karr 23500 Coventry Woods Lane Southfie.ld~ 48034 P.S.Some recieving this u.s • .c:. letter may not have con­ tributed to the final Journal, but for previous issues. DEADLINE FOR PU B L~CATION: March 1, 1978 The Journal of NECROMANTIC NUMIS A IGS FORMERLY I :!.~U i;!'d by Vnl1.1 ml! SECOND F. WiHi<Hn Kuethe. Jr. FINAL N~.Mrnber 1ssuE 7·00 G I en vtaw AY:e 111.1 e, $.'W. 1 Dete APRIL, 1978 C~ l en 81.i ril~. Mo yloCld 21061 FROM: Todd Karr, Editor, 2nd Final Issue, JNN WELCOME TO THE SECOND FINAL ISSUE OF THE JOURNAL OF NECROMANTIC NUMISMATICS! Twenty copies of this issue are being made. Since not all people who were sent the form letter responded, the extra copies will be sent to whoever Bill Kuethe advises, which I think is a fair way of doing it. Special credits should go to the following people: MILTON KORT, who paid for half the cost of the Xeroxing of this issue BRUCE DUNN, who put together the special copy of this issue for Bill Kuethe and JOAN KARR (Todd Karr's Mother), who paid for the mailing costs of this issue Enclosed with this issue are the followin g : ******************************************* MAX GOO DALL PO KER CHIP from Max Goodall THIN PALMING DISK from Todd Karr HEY PRESTO! PROGRAM from Jon Marshall via Eddie Da@es TINY l20 BILL from Tommy Windsor via Todd Karr MOO N MONEY from Tommy Windsor via Todd Karr TOMMY WIN8SOR BRAZILIAN DOLLAR from Tommy Windsor via Todd Karr LEW DIC K DOLLAR from Lew Dick via Todd Karr *REVEE N STAGE DOLLAR from Bill Kuethe via Todd Karr *TOPPER MARTYN STAGE DOLLAR from Bill Kuethe via Todd Karr Fl.EDWIN MAIFELD STAGE DOLLAR from R.Edwin Maifeld via Todd Karr HOUDINI ELONGATED DOLLAR from Bruce Dunn HOUDINI ELONGATED DOLLA R BOOK MAR K from Bruce Dunn MAGIC LUCRE UNITS SHEET from Bruce Dunn STRETCHED KUETHE from Bruce Dunn ILLUSTRATION SHEET fOR DUNN ARTICLE from Bruce Dunn *These were originally sent to me for use as a sup­ plement to my Periodical For Collecting Con,jurors, but because the amount s ent was too low, they were used for this issue. ***************************************************** Also, special t.haril<s go to all those who contributed articles to this is~ue.: George Daily,Jr. Robert Lund Mont Davis, Jr. 0 r b r a J • l'l a t h e ws E d wi n A• Daw e s r•1i l to n Ko r t Terry Roses Bruce Dunn Arthur Setterington Max Goodall II Byron E.lJalker TO F.lJILLIAM KUETHE, JR. AND ~THER READERS: II - - - ENJOY!.... f:,~ _ . ,,- _J ! L - - Faking it again To be honest with you, I'm not sorry the Journal is no more. (To be honest with you, I wouldn't trust anyone who leads off with, "To be 11 honest with you ••• ) I'll miss it, of course. I learned just about everything I know about magicians' coins and tokens from the Journal, not to mention all the pieces I added to my collection, compliments of the publisher arrl contributors. Contributors, not subscribers, be­ cause no real money ever changed hands. Bill sent the mngazine gratis if you wrote for it. No charge beyond that. But no free ride, P.ither. No article, no copy of the m,gazine. I didn't know spit about coins and tokens before Bill started t•e Jour­ nal. Still don't, except what I pinched from other people. F~gar Heyl, Kuethe and Jay Marshall are the only genuine, certified, bottled-in­ bond experts in the United states on magicians' coins. Imagine, out of a population of 200-and-some million, only three guys qualified to oarry journeyman cards. Other guys, myself included, knew bits <ind pieces. Little of this, little of th<lt. But most of us faked it. We didn't really know. We winged ito Dig up some obscure, who-gives-a-damn and try to fudge a page out of it so we could get on the mailing list for the next issue. I remember sit­ ting down Milt Kort's basement, chewing our fingernail5 8nd wondering wh~t we'd write for the next issue. I imagine it was that way with mo5t of the guys. Beg their pardon if I'm wrong, but the stuff sure read like it was written off the wall. Bill knew what we were up to, that we were a bunch of bluffers. .Hatter of fact, he served notice on us in one issue that if we didn't 5tart turtling in some solid stuff, he was going to pack it in. So I'm not sorry the Journal has been discontinued. It's a relief not to have to concoct another fake to get on the mailinp, list for next time. Near the end, Bill carried the magaaine almost by himself. Edgar Heyl disappeared somewhere along the line. Where the hell are you, Ed? Eddie Dawes wrote some intelligent pieces and Jay Marshall was good for anr in­ teresting piece if you could tie him down long enough to get it on paper. But they were the only people Bill could count on. Time to quit. ~o he did. I think a file of the. Journal is going to be a pearl beyond price in years to come, if it isn't already. I say that for two reasons: (1) the very limited circulation list and, (2) because most of the contributors were coin collectors, not magazine collectors. I would guess they ~tripped the coin5 out of the magazine to put them with their coin collections. To my way of thinking, the coins were an integral part of the magazine, so if you don't have the coins, it's like having a magazine with pages missing. But that's just my notion and you don't have to go along with it. End of page. Faked it again. Robert Lund 1869 WASHINGTON, BIRMINGHAM. MICH.48009 VARIATIONS OF THS KORT COIN. I originc:illy had the ~"lea of baving tb.e c:ive-ci-;1ciy riade up in the usual manner. fhis consisted of cin aluminum rin~ with a regular copcer nenny insert. Then I han the idea of having the coin vanish bit by bit so I had several variations mride 11p, n lri tbe ghost co1 n, The~e con~ist of thP following. (1) Ghost ring with the reRular uenny. (2) Regular rimg with R ghost penny. (3) Both the ring an~ the uenny were ghost coins. (4) To do a few other effects I had the reqular aluminum ring with a conner plated 1943 penny insert so it would be used with a m;:ignet. (5) For the v ~ ry special give-a-wav I then t·arl ~ome made up with ~ol~ plRted pennies in the aluminum ring. Thus a complete set of the Kort coins consist of six different types. r·rn GI L c 0 I N s I\ N D T 0 K E N s RECENTLY COME TO LIGHT by Todd Karr *-l<--ll-**7'" *-X-*-K--X-* THIN-DISK PALMING COIN This is the type of disk that Jay Marshall described in his article in Volume 11. I picked these up at a construction site. One is includ­ e d in this issue for each contributor, in the same envelope as Max Goodall's poker chip. OLJl :E :~ TERN/Fl ~·JS T[flLJALD GO OLJ L!JCK PICC [ This coin was is s ued at the suggestion of Uuke Stern, 1,d10 worked at Finsterwald Clothes. Th e occasion was their 50th Anniver~ary (1898-1948). St~rn, who may be familiar to many of you, gave these away with purchases and used them for palming. The coins ore ha lf-dol.l :ir :>ize, have no mil­ ling, and are brass. The obverse rea J3 :1898-194B/FINSTERLJALD/ CLOTHES/ 50th/1HH.!IVEHSAfiY/ F. The reverse pictures a wish­ bone, a horseshoe, and a four-leaf clover, anr says 'GOOD LUCK Tm~ EN' around the circumfl ~ rence. A Xr.rox is above. - ~ . "" My piece, however, has the loop for the ribbon filed off, perhaps to be used as coin I knoLJ very little ab ou t this partirular piece, except what I can observe from the button its~lf.It appears to be ma d e o u ~- o f l e a d b e c a u .s e o f i ts we i g h t a n d co l o r , b u t t here is a hole through the center, and looking closely, one can se e a copper color on the sides of the hole.