When the world and I were younger, I acquired a 1 Peso Banco de Occidente note dated Augusto 1899, with "99" underlined and stamped in, PS173a. I don't remember where I got it from....! The note was in the last stages of disintegration. Its saving grace was the contemporary repair along the length of the reverse. The repair ws a strip of newspaper, 11/16" wide by 6 3/4" long (16cm X 17.6cm), all measurements within a micron or two.

I soaked the repair off carefully, probably with CC14, which at that time was sold over-the-counter in pharmacies. (Now, lighter fluid does a comparable job). With that operation, the note almost, but not quite, fell into four sections.

The repair was from the top of the newspaper page, the strip reading, on one side,

[text] among them being Willie Sehrt, who has grained considerable prestige by his sparring with Johnny Dundee, Joe Rivers and other crack professional boxers

The other side of the strip reads:

I found an address for the Times-Picayune. My former place of employment had the technology to reporduce the note and the strip of newspaper in glorious color. After convincing the techs that mine was an exotic research project of some significance, they copied the items. The reproductions looked facntastic - better than the originals!

I mailed the copies to what I hoped was the descendant of the original Daily Picayune, explaining my quixotic quest to get a copy of that periodical. My request must have been too quixotic for their pedestrian minds, I never got an answer. Other, more important events eventuated in my life, so I filed the bits and pieces in a long envelope and they remained on the back burner of my mental stove.

What eventually brought them to the front burner? My retirement and the subsequent retrospective of things past and not accomplished, plus the information available by surfing the web concerning the Daily Picayune or its heir(s). I might try again to get a copy of the paper. Unless you, amiale lector, would like to do some forensic detective work and share the information?

To add insult to injury, I do not have either P173a or b! (Except for the pitiful remains of the above.) I am mortified!

8/23/2005

After some correspondence with Ms. Nancy Burris, head librarian of the New Orleans Times-Picayune, on Thursday, 20 April 2005, she sent me copies of page 9 of The Daily Picayune of Wednesday, 26 November 1913. This was the culmination of a project which I pursued with an intensity second only to my procrastination for two or three decades. The final resolution will be the acquisition of page 10.

When I get a copy of LANSA with this story, I will forward it to Ms. Burris with my reiterated thanks and the respectful request that she supply a copy of page 10 as well. It would be another project completed if the Times-Picayune could use the item in the newspaper. Full Circle!