DESERT MOON NEWSLETTER, ISSUE 3, November 14, 2024
- desertmoonnm
- Nov 13, 2024
- 4 min read
Updated: Nov 20, 2024
When in Paris…………….
Hi Folks,
Just back from over a month in Europe. The website was a little slow while away, but we still had some inquiries and sold a couple coins. Thanks for your patience. Since back 2 weeks ago, we are in full acquisition mode and 12 newps have been added to the website today. Some of these are presented below and go to desertmoonnm.com to see all of the new listings. You can email us at desertmoonnm@yahoo.com for inquiring about any coin of interest.
Our trip to Europe had a small amount numismatic content, more on that below. The focus of the trip was to visit friends we had not seen since before the pandemic. After landing in Amsterdam, we had a whirlwind of visits to Brussels, Ostende, Lyon, Provence, Cevennes, Auvergne, Burgundy, Paris, and back to Amsterdam. It was nice to see some of the old haunts again and see our friends. Three highlights beyond numismatics were the following. Our biggest adventure for wine was to go to the village of Gigondas in Provence. We have always loved this small village and the Gigondas wines. It was a sunny and warm day when we drove through the vineyards to this little village on the edge of the Dentelles de Montmirail (limestone spires). On the horizon was my favorite Le Geant de Provence – Mont-Ventoux, that is a legendary climb in the Tour de France and a pilgrimage for all cyclists. The wine tasting was ‘extraodinaire’ and we left with a 6-bottle pack from our favorite winery that came back with us to the US. Another highlight included a walk from Notre Dame, the Louvre, through the Place de la Concorde and then along the Champs Elysees to the Arc de Triomphe. We managed to walk 9 miles that day. Light posts along the Champs were adorned with Belgian flags. We were told it was for the Belgian King Phillipe who came to town for a 30-minute visit to an art festival along the Champs so these were out to welcome him. When we walked into Galeries Lafayette on the Champs there standing in front of a 12 x 12 x 12-foot Rubik’s cube was an ongoing photoshoot – turns out it was Erno Rubik himself, a celebration of 50 years of the Rubik’s Cube ooh la la! And of course, sitting on a park bench next to the Arc to watch the craziest traffic circle in the world is always entertaining. One last highlight is that Notre Dame is almost completely repaired! They have a nice wall panel display on the fence enclosing it and the work site, of the work being done and highlight many of the people doing the work. Nicely done and worth seeing and of course there were tons of folk there viewing the activities and learning about the renovations. Paris never disappoints.
While in France we had 3 numismatic experiences. The first was next to a small Burgundy village Autun. They have an excellent museum there along with the archeological site called Bibracte, where the excavations of an ancient gallic fortified village is ongoing. We spent several hours at the museum and many of the displays had coins in them that were found at the site. Most of the copper and silver coins were in bad shape as one would expect after 2000 years buried in the ground but still informative to see them.
In Paris we saw coins in 2 locations we visited. One was the Musee Carnavalet which traces the history of Paris from the beginnings to current. In fact, they had the Torches displayed from the recent Olympics. Many of their displays of the different time periods of Paris had coins in them and the displays were well put together. In several of these, they showed French Jetons (trade tokens) along with artifacts for different trades such as butchers or blacksmiths. Very well done and the many ancient displayed gold coins were amazing! Wonderful museum we had been to several times in the past but it has been heavily renovated and anyone visiting Paris should have a look and enjoy the numismatic items in their displays.
Our last numismatic adventure was to the Paris Mint on the left bank of the Seine. Alas it is not the mint we visited about a decade ago. They used to have an in-depth display of French coins and jetons, 1000s of them, and a display of old dies. The mint is now mostly turned to other commercial activities unrelated to numismatics and the museum seems to be gone. They still have the Paris Mint store which they were selling the most recent mint products. The front room was full of mint products for the recent Olympics, the back room had all of their other products. There were several groups of French folk buying their offerings, but while interesting to view, were not for us but I could see the appeal to some of their gold coins if priced right.
Last, below are images of 6 of the cool coins newly listed on the website. Other NEWPS can be viewed by going to the website.
Thanks for reading! Desert Moon Numismatics
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