A Special Bowers Book For My Library Really Cool History On This One.

Wow great pick-up there @west!

Very nice!

It looks pretty well written, the reason it was retriggered was when I read that John Ford, Jr. said it was the best book Dave Bowers wrote and maybe one of the best books written on coins period. That had me rethinking the book as well. So when this one came up on eBay in one of my random bored browsing sessions, I decided if it went cheap this would be the best type to have, at that time I still didn't know anything about the contents of the book. IT seem well written though I have only flipped through it with a glance, as I said many books are ahead of it in order to read right now. The subject is Waterford Maine (the town) and the history behind Hydro-Therapy from what I gather. Several companies were pushing this as a cure for many ailments and as a life style. Many of the companies and individuals involved advertised using counterstamps on primarily large cents. John Ford, Jr. wrote the forward in the book, much of the history is on the people involved in the water therapy cures, the Waterford Institute, and the township and people of Waterford, Maine. It does appear that coins are not the forefront of the research, but rather the various counterstamps caused a dive into the rabbit hole of water therapy during research and found a subsection of not often mentioned the history of Maine. Dave can't let a good story get away without trying his best to understand it as well as possible. From my skimming not a lot of numismatic things jumped out, but the writing prose and subjects was still pretty fascinating, I'm sure it will be an enjoyable read. Dave actually explains how he decided why to write this book and how the research began in the early chapters. It's like an insight to he way he begins a project on anything I suppose. Dave has written books on other subjects besides numismatics, like coin operated instruments, nickelodeons, as well as U.S. Presidents and Wolfsboro, New Hampshire history. I'd say this book falls more outside the realms of coin collecting, yet has ties to the hobby of counterstamp collectors, and is certainly appearing to be the most in depth research on how and why various things are advertised on coins through counterstamp markings.