‘CoinWeek explores the Mark Penny’

      

Courtesy CoinWeek

CoinWeek, an online periodical devoted to numismatics, occasionally addresses topics orbiting Freemasonry in articles about Masonic persons, places, and things commemorated on U.S. money. Last Friday though, it ran a piece not on coins or cash, but on a facet of exonumia well known to Mark Masons: the Mark Penny.

I recommend the article for the art that accompanies the text, because most of Tyler Rossi’s reporting is annoyingly bad. We can pardon the outsider’s nescience with our jargon, but it also sounds like he wants to misrepresent, such as when he claims the Craft has “a vitriolic opposition to the Roman Catholic Church.” He does cite sources, listing seven references in a bibliography, but he could have done better.

The value of this article is based mostly on the research delivered in Masonic Chapter Pennies (Vols. 1&2) by Dr. B.P. Wright from 1903 (a reprint from the July 1901 edition of The Numismatist). From there, I suppose, it is impossible to materially err.

Anyway, the article shares some exotic variations on the Mark Penny. Great, because if you’re like me, you know only the commonplace coinage from catalogs.

I’m rambling when I need only provide the link. Read all about it here.

Courtesy CoinWeek

Courtesy CoinWeek