The American Numismatic Association presented 60 competitive exhibit awards at the 2010 World’s Fair of Money in Boston. Winners were announced at the Exhibit Awards Presentation and Reception...

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See below for information on each pole

An introduction already aims to summarize a field, but this post aims to be a particularly short summary of some of the material in Hilary Stewart’s excellent introductory book (reviewed in the previous post) Looking at Totem Poles. This post is in part inspired by a very brave and intelligent Japanese student I talked with today in the Bill Reid Gallery who asked about the differences between Haida art and other northwest coast aboriginal art.

Essentially, “totem poles” are columns of wood carved with family crests. Historically, only families with the right to use certain crests would be permitted to use them. Furthermore, certain crests naturally went together, as it were. Thus, the frog is associated with the eagle, but not with all other crests. (Interestingly, Bill Reid, coming as an outsider to this tradition, acknowledged making a mistake in this regard when he placed Eagle on the top of a “mortuary” pole that told the Bear Mother story; Eagle is not associated with the Bear Mother tale.) The figures carved on the poles are not usually “gods,” (though figures like Raven, could be considered supernatural); they are often the founders of a clan, or figures who interacted in some important way with an ancestor of a clan. Three examples serve to illustrate the range of the kinds of figures who could be included on the poles: the supernatural Raven, who brought light to the world and helped the first men to procreate without women; Bear, a magical but seemingly mortal being who married a human woman and produced two children, the founders of the Bear Clan of the Haida; and Ya-l, a human murderer of legend who is credited with founding the settlement at Kispiox during a particularly bad winter.

The totem poles of the past may be classified by their functions:

1. welcome poles, which welcomed visitors to villages
2. house post poles, which gave support to the roof of a longhouse
3. house frontal poles, which stood “against” the exterior of the house with a doorway off to the side
4. house portal poles, which are the same as above, except with the entrance through the pole instead of at the side
5. memorial poles, used to glorify a deceased person
6. mortuary poles, which had a large “cavity” cut into the pole to store the remains of a person at the top end; these poles, while somewhat rare, often were placed with the narrow part of the pole down
7. shame poles, used to shame someone

Stewart is careful to note that not all groups had all poles.

In addition to the above, poles have been carved since the 1920s for other reasons: to function as replacement artworks for aging poles, or to answer to commercial interests. Also–and this is more or less implicit in Stewart–poles may be carved by contemporary artists for historic, political, artistic, and other reasons.

The first pole shown above is a particularly celebrated pole. In the finest sentence in the book, Stewart writes:

“Dr. Charles F. Newcombe photographed it in 1901, Emily Carr did a painting of it in 1928, the Royal British Columbia Museum collected it in 1954, and Henry Hunt and Tony Hunt carved a replica of it in 1966″ (p. 98).

The pole stands at the entrance to the Royal British Columbia Museum. The second pole is a Kwakiutl pole, and this will be the kind most familiar to tourists to and residents of Vancouver, BC, as the collection of poles in Stanley Park is dominated by Kwakiutl designs. It is a memorial pole carved in 1978 by Sam Henderson for his wife, May, and stands in the We-Wai-Kum Band cemetery near Cambell River. The third pole, from 1969, is Gitksan in style, and was carved for the Ksan reconstructed village by Duane Pasco and other carvers.

This short summary is here for educational purposes, and serves as an introduction to Stewart’s fuller introduction; her volume is excellent, affordable, and worth the time of the reader.

Note on the different styles of northwest coast aboriginal art
The poles exhibit several styles: principally Tlingit (pronounced with an initial “k” sound, as “klingit”), Haida, Gitksan, and Kwakiutl (the Kwakwaka’wakw). (There is only a handful of Nuu-chah-nulth and Nisga’a poles in the book, as well as a couple of Coast Salish sculptures.)

Although Stewart does not devote much space to the issue of the differences between the various northwest coast styles, one can say that the appealing Gitksan poles seem to have a lot of limbs wrapped around them. The fascinating Kwakiutl poles are often easily distinguished by means of extravagantly large protrusions such as wings or beaks. The Haida feature an elegant and refined stylistic minimalism in terms of the depiction of each figure, carved as though it were a formline painting on a bentwood box. The Tlingit are similar to the Haida.

“Cash is expensive, we need to be using it less.”This self-serving quote was made by Steve Perry, executive vice president of Visa Europe, in an article that appeared in the Telegraph in the United Kingdom. To justify this statement Perry says that supermarkets in the UK are introducing cashback, a program to promote the use of credit and debit cards over cash because cash is more expensive to

The Freedom of Information Act, signed into law by President Lyndon Johnson in 1966, was born from the notion that "the people" (as in each individual citizen) have a constitutional right to know how the government acts in their behalf. This is of course a democratic notion that nationalist governments do not share. One might wonder at times if it is a notion that the U.S. Government shares? FOIA has been amended and altered in its execution by Executive Branch order or parallel legislation many times during the past 24 years. While a forest of trees have been exterminated in filling FOIA requests, the amount of information provided to the public has been a matter of constant and continuous concern and variability. What the situation boils down to, in a nutshell, is that the Executive Branch of the U.S. government releases exactly and only what it wants to release and when it wants to release it. The public often is obligated to fight in the courts for the most innocuous of details about some item or action of interest.
Filing a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit is an adventure in frustration—fraught with government impediments. The prosecution of a simple suit can be delayed by repeated government requests for extensions of time and the excruciatingly slow pace of the legal system in general. Then, the ultimate judgement is not always a black and white reflection of law. Political persuasion is not a stranger to the bench, and the outcome of litigation can depend, it seems, nearly as much on luck of the draw as on the merit of arguments presented. The consequence of this cumbersome review process is that the impetus for a request may well be moot by the time a judgement is rendered. The suit itself is sometimes more important, as a statement of dissatisfaction with government, and demand for accountability, than the material that might conceivably be released.
Why should any person, or organization, have to endure the trials and tribulations of litigation against their government to affirm basic rights promised by the law of the land?
The cause of this pervasive and untenable attitude of secrecy and unresponsiveness in American government is its very structure. Law is rightly regarded by the Legislative Branch as a means to assure rights and protections. Elected officials within the Executive Branch typically espouse a similar view. However, neither elected officials nor political appointees are directly involved in the execution and enforcement of law. This key, and often most important, element of any law is delegated to an army of bureaucrats that are directly responsible for that part where the rubber meets the road. The technical authority of politically appointed Secretaries and Undersecretaries, etc., means little in a world of revolving doors. Just as bureaucratic agencies can drag an issue on in the courts for years, they also can "stonewall" the most ardent elected or appointed official with relative ease and virtual impunity. The judiciary often seems, perhaps understandably, reluctant to serve as the nation's guardian against government excess.
Do we really have Freedom of Information in America today? Well, that depends on who you are, who you are asking, and what you are asking. Ancient coin collectors and dealers obviously do not enjoy much freedom to examine the workings of State Department processes that threaten their avocation and trade. The State Department's Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs is one of the most secretive and manipulative bureaucracies in Washington. For the past decade, national investigative reporters have exposed that secrecy in the media, legislators have repeatedly expressed concern about that secrecy and one former Chairman of the Cultural Property Advisory Committee called that secrecy "unAmerican". The Ancient Coin Collectors Guild is presently arguing in the U.S. Court of Appeals that the widely experienced secrecy at State is unfounded and rises beyond the limited exemptions allowed by Congress.

U.S. gold prices edged 20 cents higher on Friday, capping a string of four consecutive weekly gains. Gold continued to ride on the back of safe-haven buying driven by recovery concerns. But it was...

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Following on the heels of a $8.57 million World Coin auction at the Boston ANA World’s Fair of Money, Heritage Auctions has announced the promotion of Warren Tucker to Vice President of the...

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The American Numismatic Association urges its members to contact their members of Congress and ask to repeal a law that could significantly increase the paperwork burden on dealers and increase the...

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U.S. gold retreated $3.60 on Thursday, breaking a two-day winning streak and dropping from its 8-week high. Commonly cited for stalling yellow-metal haven buying was a riskier investment environment,...

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The United States Mint placed the 2010 US Mint Silver Proof Set on sale today, August 26, 2010, for a price of $56.95. This year's issue contains 14 proofs as compared to last year's set that...

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Collectors have been busier, purchasing greater amounts of United States Mint numismatic products which translated into nearly across-the-board weekly coin sales improvements. U.S. Mint bullion...

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U.S. gold prices on Wednesday rose $7.90 and toward an eight-week high as new home sales declined to a more than expected 12.4 percent in July, encouraging another round of safe-haven buying. Gold...

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Continuing a series of legal steps, challenges and hurdles, Odyssey Marine Exploration has recently filed it's reply to Spain's response in the highly contested "Black Swan" case. This is...

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Good Morning, Global investors geared up for the release of US new home sales and durable good orders data with the by now ‘normal’ amount of apprehension that they have been exhibiting...

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What’s New This Week……….

Greg Reynolds examines The rise in the number of collectors of rare U.S. coins and the importance of the PCGS & the NGC in his weekly Coin Rarities Column. “At various times since Sept. or Oct. 2008, a substantial number of collectors have stopped buying, not because of lack of interest, but rather because of their own personal financial circumstances. After all, in the middle of 2008, a rather severe recession began that negatively affected almost everyone. ”

Steve Roach Reports that Proof American Eagle gold coins have provided some sparks in the marketplace this past year, but the fast fall in prices over the past several weeks serves as a reminder that what goes up usually comes down. Some major buyers have stopped buying these and prices have fallen sharply.

Doug Winter presents Coin Profile: An Analysis of The Johnson-Blue Collection of Liberty Head Eagles. Every few years, an auction takes place that gives me a bad case of “Dinosaur Syndrome.” By this, I mean the coins bring so much more than what I bid that I think to myself that I’m a dinosaur and am out of touch with current Numismatic Reality. After I talk myself out of this and take a deep breath or two, I find that analyzing the sale is a useful tool for my bruised psyche.

International coin rarities continued to assert their growing numismatic strength during the Aug. 11-16 Heritage Auctions Boston ANA World’s Fair of Money trio of auctions, realizing more than $8.6 million in Heritage Signature® World Coin Auction, part of the overall $46+ million total of the combined auction events.

Paper money as a form of art might seem the makings of a rather small exhibition, to judge from the modern bills of the United States and Europe. Bank notes, however, have constituted one of the dominant forms of visual communication for the past two centuries, and in many cases can be seen as works of art in their own right. Princeton University’s Numismatic Collection is featuring currency worth looking at in the exhibition “Money on Paper” on view in the August 30, 2010, through January 2, 2011.

New Coin Discovery: 1856-O Double Eagle Discovered in Ohio to Be Offered At Long Beach. This recently discovered coin made front-page news in the July 26, 2010 Coin World, with a headline proclaiming “1856-O gold double eagle surfaces in Ohio.” The double-decker headline added, “Rarest New Orleans Mint gold coin in family holdings.” Numismatic researcher John W. McCloskey relates in detail how this rare coin–one of about 20 to 30 1856-O twenties known–was turned over to him for evaluation as part of a “small accumulation of gold coins held by a family in Ohio for nearly 100 years

NEW & UPDATED – Our coverage of rare coin and currency news has expanded with Austin Purvis taking over as Editor of Coin News Daily. This is a special section of CoinLink where we scour the web for items of interest related to numismatics and post a short excerpt and link to these “off site” resources.

CoinLink Welcomes Steve Roach as a New Content Partner. Steve Maintains a Blog called “The Rare Coin Market Report” and we will be including many of his articles and observation in the coming months.

We have also made changes to The Bullion Report with daily news and article updates, and a monthly analysis of the “Premiums Over Spot” for Gold and Silver Bullion products.

View all the latest rare coin news here

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