This is a simple page
designed to broadcast the numismatic objets d’art from Nichtsburg and
Zilchstadt. I am extremely glad you found it on the Internet and I hope it
is of intense interest to you!
Some of the most
captivating coins in my collection come from self-declared micronations,
non-territorial states, pseudo-états, nonexistent countries, and
secessionist movements. Philatelists may be at an advantage, for they use
the term “cinderella” stamps to categorize issuers of fantasy, apocryphal,
spurious, and pretender items. For us, however, these entities are hard to
define; but many of them can be found in Colin R. Bruce II's exceptional
Unusual World Coins catalog. I encourage you to read my introductory
essay about this specific genre of coinage.
I am referring to sites
from which I have acquired at least one coin: Abemana, Adélie Land,
Adventure Club, Afro Coin Mint/“United States of Africa”, American Open
Currency Standard (AOCS), Amsterdam and St. Paul Islands, Ankh-Morpork,
Empire of Antoninia, Kingdom of Araucania-Patagonia, Independent Republic
of Arequipa, Atlantis, Atlantis (ATCOPS), Kingdom of Atlantis, Empire of
Atlantium, Australia Fair, Grand Duchy of Avram, Axarquía, Azad Hind,
Balleny Islands, Sovereign State of Barbe Island, Benelux, Kingdom of
Bermania, Kingdom of Biffeche, Boys’ Republic of Civitavecchia/Boys’ Town
of Rome, Isle of Brechou, Dominion of British West Florida, Buck Island,
Burk/Grant/Pine/Siple Islands, Republic of Camala/Republic of
Malaca/Republic of Amalia, Campione d'Italia, Carney Island, Castorland,
Cat Cay, Catalanist Union (Unió Catalanista), Sovereign Barony of Caux,
Celestia (the Nation of Celestial Space), Cherokee Nation, United Cherokee
Nation, Free City of Christiania, Conch Republic, Confederate States of
America, Confederation of Antarctica, Ile Crescent, Crozet Islands,
Federation of Damanhur, State of Deseret, Dixie Dollar, Republic of the
Earth, Kingdom of Elleore, Enderbyland, Euskal Herria (Basque Country),
Evrugo Mental State, The Most Serene Republic of Excelsior, Ferdinandea
(Graham Island), Flanders, Free State of Flaschenhals, Foundation for
Cosmonoetic Investigations, Frederikssund (Møntklubben), Principality of
Freedonia, Friesland, Friuli Homeland, Gaferut, Gallery Mint, George
Junior Republic, Global Country of World Peace, Gold Standard Corporation,
Graceland, Great Underground Empire (Kingdom of Quendor), Greenpeace,
Grand Duchy of Greifenberg, HADEF (Hunger Aid and Development Foundation),
Hutt River Province, International Foundation for Independence, Islamic
Mint, Kaliningrad, Kingdom of Kamberra, Kerguelen Islands, Klef Raraha,
United Federation of Koronis, Kumalongoola, Lasqueti Mint (Lasqueti
Island/Gabriola Island/Cascadia), League of Nations, Regency of Lomar,
“Luna”/“der Mond”, Lundy, Mägi Päiväine, Mattole Free State, McMurdo
(Station), City of Microna (Republic of Veshault/Kingdom of TorHavn),
Republic of Minerva, Republic of Mirage Islands, Republic of Molossia,
Republic of Monte Cristo, Free Commune of Moresnet (Neutral Moresnet),
Na-Griamel Federation, NERO (New England Roleplaying Organization),
Commonwealth of New Island, Principality of New Utopia, NORFED (Liberty
Dollar), Northern Forest Archipelago, Nova Roma, Nuikviss Aoi, Sultanate
of Occussi-Ambeno, Principality of Outer Baldonia, Federal Republic of
Padania/Lega Nord (Unione del Nord)/Repubblica del Nord, Pampapana,
Principality of Paradise, Republic of La Parva Domus Magna Quies, Peter I
Island, Phoenix Dollar, Piedmontese Federalist Movement, Sovereign Nation
of Poarch Creek Indians, Purple Shaftieuland, Québec, RCC
(rec.collecting.coins), Kingdom of Riboalte, Rio-Grandensse Republic,
Riviera Principality, Kingdom of Robland, Kingdom of Romkerhall, Royal
Hawaiian Mint, State of Sabotage, Salt Spring Island, San Blas Islands,
Republic of San Serriffe, Principality of Sealand, Principality of
Seborga, Sovereign Nation of the Shawnee Tribe, Shenandoah Valley Free
Money, Sherman Island, Shire Post Mint, Historic Silver Valley, Society
for Creative Anachronism, Ultimate State of Tædivm, Tarim (Arabia), Tender
Island, Republic of Texas, Texas Mint, Thurston Island, Kingdom of Torgu,
Empire of Trebizond, Tyrolean Hour, Union of North America, United Maxxico
America, United Nations, United Transnational Republics, Universala Ligo,
“Utopia” (Mundus Unum), Viinamarisaar, Principality of Vikesland,
Vinland/Midhgardhr, Vostok (Station), Kingdom of Wallachia, Grand Duchy of
Westarctica (Antarctic Territory), Principality of Wikingland, Xenostrov,
Nation of YAN, Kingdom of Zamunda. For more information about most of
these coins, please view the invaluable links I've compiled.
I must also respectfully
honor the unprecedented labor of Richard D. Kenney, whose posthumous
compilation appeared in the ANA's The Numismatist between 1962-64.
Even in the early 1950s, Mr. Kenney realized the beauty and collectibility
of these unique coins. Mine are merely a couple of the latest examples,
and I humbly imagine maybe receiving a nod of approval from the
ground-breaking scholar. After all, my coins are also an intentional
homage to the places and “places” listed above.
The inaugural Nichtsburg et Zilchstadt 1 Miden, dated 2003:
As a writer of poetry, I am intrigued by
language. Years ago, I toyed around with a character named Zero MacNaught
(Mac meaning “son of”; hence, “son of Naught”, in an Irish/Scottish
Gaelic vein) and his hometown, Zilchstadt (I liked the Germanic suffix
-stadt, meaning a small/medium-sized “city”, because it was
reminiscent of the municipal notgeld coins which fascinate me). It took
time for all the other elements to slowly come together and to form a
well-rounded theme, but ultimately, the idea for an attractive coin
emerged, tying together my best-loved avocation (verse) and this most
favored diversion of mine (numismatics). Once I actually put pencil to
paper, in the summer and fall of two-double-aught-two, the preliminary
sketches gradually took an inventive course of their own. I then allowed
those drawings to take me on a slow journey, fraught with variations and
revisions, until they led me to a gratifying final version. Nichts
is the German word for “nothing(ness)/naught/none/nil”, and Nichtsburg (I
also liked the -burg suffix; this placename signifies a “castle”,
“walled town”, “stronghold”, “fortress on the high”, “fortified place on a
hill”) became Zero's birthplace as well as the sister-city to Zilchstadt.
Miden is the modern Greek word for “zero”, and this is the
fictitious monetary unit. The reverse features a stylized rendition of our
contemplative protagonist. Above him, forming an arc between his two
outstretched hands (as if he were literally juggling the very theory),
appears the epigrammatic Latin adage Ex Nihilo Nihil Fit: “out of
nothing, nothing is made”, “from nothing, nothing is created”, “nothing
arises out of nothing”, “from nothing comes nothing”, “nothing begets
nothing”. Also emphasized is the dictum Ouden, Ad Infinitum: in
ancient Greek, ouden signified “nothing”.
The language is meant to be
playful, in a metaphysical sort of way. Perhaps Zero MacNaught is a
nihilist, a non-entity, a cipher. Or perhaps the very “existence” of His
Royal Bupkisness is a negation of those notions. Furthermore, the coin is
dedicated to the void from which all creativity emerges: the blank sheet
of paper, the untouched canvas, the pristine silence. In order to create
something that pleases the senses, artists must wrest meaning and form out
of nothingness.
This coin is 30mm in
diameter, and 3mm thick. It was minted by the Northwest Territorial Mint, in a run of
65 copper and 10 silver. I am sold out of all 2003 pieces.
The Nichtsburg y Zilchstadt 11 Midenika, dated 2005: Midenika is the plural of Miden.
In essence, the spirit of this coin is harmoniously faithful to the
original premise. The obverse is crowned, in Devanagari script, by the
Sanskrit word sūnya/shūnya/śūnya/śūnyá (void, empty, vacuum,
hollow, nullity, non-being, insignificance/absence). It is the term from
which our revolutionary “zero” evolved; yet due to its enormous antiquity,
there is insufficient consensus among scholars as to when this innovation
genuinely arose. Incidentally, there's also a doctrine of vacuity called
Shūnyatāvāda, closely associated with the Mādhyamika sect of Mahāyāna
Buddhism. The reverse centrally highlights kyomu. This is the
Ch'an/Zen Buddhist designation, written in Japanese Kanji
ideograms/logograms, for “nihility” or “empty/vacuous nothingness”. It is
also a key tenet of the Kyoto School of philosophy (Nishida Kitaro, Tanabe
Hajime, Nishitani Keiji). Symmetrically flanking it are two terse
aphoristic phrases culled from Kabbalistic ontology: ayin me’yesh
(emptiness from fullness) and its converse, yesh me’ayin
(somethingness out of nothingness).
This coin is 38mm in
diameter, and 2.3mm thick. It was minted by Pressed Metal Products, in a run
of 51 copper-nickel and 5 silver (plus 3 pre-production samples: one
commercial bronze, one cartridge brass, one 24k gold-plated brass). I am
sold out of all 2005 pieces.
The Nichtsburg und Zilchstadt 1 Miden, dated 2007: The trilogy concludes with this coin.
Stylistically, whilst it is entirely in keeping with the pre-established
motif of its two predecessors, it is more of a “sequel” to the 2003 piece
than was the 2005 piece. It is also its antithetical counterpart, insofar
as it accentuates a statement, Omnia Fint ex Nihilo, which
seemingly contradicts the one on the first coin. This motto means
“everything is created from nothing”, “out of nothing, all things are
made”. Also on the reverse, one of Zero MacNaught’s forebears is given
prominence: Bisabuelo Zeuero is our protagonist’s great-grandfather.
Zeuero, along with zevero/zefiro/zepiro, is the Italian
equivalent of “zero”. Etymologically, the word can be traced back to the
Latinized zephyrum/ziphirum/cephirum, derived from the Arabic
sifr/syfr (vacant), which was a literal translation of the meaning
for the Vedic shuunya. Other forms include tziphra,
tsiphron, ziffra, cifra, cifre,
chiffre, chiffer, ziffer. Also present on the reverse
is the motto E Pluribus Nemo. In Latin, the word nemo (a
contraction of ne-homo, “no-man”, “no-one”) signifies
“nobody”. After I had already made a
decision to somehow incorporate Nemo on this coin, I encountered an
enthralling passage, written by Max Black, in the Encyclopedia
Americana article entitled ZERO: “Although 0 has no reference
in isolation, a temptation remains to treat words like ‘zero,’ ‘no,’
‘nothing,’ and ‘nobody’ as standing for extraordinary entities having a
shadowy kind of existence. An ancient example is found in the sect called
Neminians, established by one Radulfus at the end of the 13th century, who
worshipped Nemo (that is, Nobody), the supposed person referred to by that
name in religious and classical sources. Similar tendencies may be
detected in the preoccupation of some modern existentialists such as
Germany’s Martin Heidegger with ‘Nothing’ and the alleged ‘encounter with
Nothingness.’” Based on the scanty information which I’ve been able to
gather, Radulfus Glaber composed a sermon entitled Historia de
Nemine (“History of Nemo”) circa 1290. This medieval monk (not to be
confused with Raoul Glaber, the 11th century Benedictine chronicler from
Cluny) searched Biblical and Patristic texts, perhaps as a devotional
exercise, for sentences containing the word nemo. He interpreted
the scriptural Nemo Deum vidit (“No one hath seen God”), along with
many other references to No-one, to mean that Nemo was a certain person.
The supposed members of the Secta Neminiana worshipped Nemo because he had
seen the face of the Father. It has been suggested that the heretical
Neminians — with their unorthodox cult of the immortal Nemo — were perhaps
a fictitious bunch. And speaking of
No-one in particular, I was extremely fortunate to later discover (on the
Internet) a small but tantalizing excerpt from Gerta Calmann’s The
Picture of Nobody: An Iconographical Study, which was published in the
Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, Vol. 23, No. 1/2
(Jan.-Jun., 1960). For a complete copy of the magnificent 44-page article
(plus an additional 8, filled with plates/illustrations), I am indebted to
Mrs. Jenny Boyle, the JWCI’s Publications Assistant. In the ensuing
paragraphs, I shall attempt to share some of this precious information
with you. Calmann’s monograph begins
thusly: “‘Nobody is my name, I bear everybody’s blame.’ With these words
Joerg Schan, a barber of Strassburg, introduced his hero in a broadsheet
published about 1507, and went on to show how Nobody, eternally innocent
yet eternally guilty, patiently bears the blame for the misdeeds of the
whole household, particularly the servants. Schan was merely giving a new
twist to an ancient jest, but in placing his Nobody among the pots and
pans he created a literary and pictorial type which, as I hope to show,
persisted through more than a century. The jest itself is almost inherent
in the structure of language, and depends upon the impossibility of
defining or depicting a negative except paradoxically. In some languages
the negative seems to invite this kind of ambiguous usage, while for
instance in French personne…ne virtually precludes it. The first
recorded person to employ it to advantage appears to have been Odysseus,
as Homer tells us in the ninth book of the Odyssey.” When the
cunning Greek found himself trapped in Polyphemus’ cave, he made his
getaway from the clutches of this Cyclops by cleverly giving his name as
“No-man”/“No-body”/“No-one” (Outis, a shortened form of his name).
Therefore, “when the blinded monster called on his fellows for help, he
was met with indifference (if Noman was tormenting him, why did he make
such an outcry?) and Odysseus escaped.” The Homeric joke was repeated in
other Greek literature: Euripides, Cyclops; Aristophanes,
Wasps; Demetrius, On Style. “Lucian of Samosata refers to
the same story in the Downward
Journey”. Calmann deemed it unlikely
that Schan knew any of these versions before writing his own
Niemand, “but it seems probable that he was acquainted with the
mediaeval ‘Saint Nemo’”, whose spiritual persona had gradually evolved
from his humble origins in the ecclesiastical musings of Radulfus Glaber
(she refers to him as Radulphus the Angevin; other variants of his first
name might also include Radulfus, Rodulfus, Rodulphus, Radulpha,
Rodulphe). Calmann even jests that Schan the humorist and Nemo the mystic
share “an interest in the absurdities of language”. Radulphus’ “sermon
joyeux” (which was “apparently meant seriously”) was so devoted to
proving the unequivocal divinity of St. Nemo that it “threatened to cast
Nemo in the rôle of a heretic…It suffices to say that Nemo’s character was
saved and he lived on as a mock-saint in a number of manuscripts. His
praise appeared in print for the first time at Augsburg in 1510 under the
title Sermo pauperis Henrici de Sancto Nemine cum preservativo eiusdem
ab epidemia…The mock-sermon was translated into German, French and
Dutch and various authors made free Latin versions up to the seventeenth
century. We may assume that its fame spread even to the humble barber of
Strassburg.” In a nutshell, Calmann’s
treatise “attempts to characterize the traits of Schan’s creation in word
and picture and to describe the rôle it played in popular and in humanist
satire, in Protestant pamphlets and in Peter Bruegel’s drawing ‘Elck’ [or
‘Nemo-Non’], as well as to sketch the history of Nemo in England, where in
various forms he survived longer than anywhere else.” In Schan’s era, the
“Nollbruder” or “Nollhart” was a name given to a particular type of German
vagabond/vagrant. “They were lay-brothers belonging to the order of the
Hieronymites, the same that exercised a powerful influence through the
devotio moderna. [Jacob and Wilhelm] Grimm thought it possible that
their name was derived from nullus, signifying their low position
in the order and in the opinion of other people. Paracelsus alone praised
them for their humility. This may have been a word-association that
contributed to Schan’s invention of
‘Niemand’.” “The particular use Schan
made of the negation was a brilliant invention entirely his own. His jest
had great success amongst both learned and unlearned in his time and has
been repeated continually ever since.” Basically, Schan’s “poem tells us
about the servants in a household of the time and of their numerous
misdeeds.” The excuses employed by the maids, butlers, and men-servants
are the same for every single transgression: Nobody did it…it is Nobody’s
fault…Nobody is the culprit. “The master invokes a plague on Nobody and
begs him to stay away. Yet — and this is an important point which gives a
new twist to the word-play — Nobody pleads for the servants, saying that
good treatment and sufficient food might improve them. If only his mouth
were not locked he could answer their accusations, ‘lies as tall as three
storeys.’ Yet if they would keep within the bounds of modesty, he would
willingly remain their shield. Schan foresees at the end that the
servants, like everybody else, will not like to hear the truth about
themselves.” Apparently, there were “numerous manuals of household
management which appeared all over Europe during the fifteenth and
sixteenth centuries.” Much later, in 1657, “the anonymous Ergoetzliche
Buergerlust contains a poem to this effect: “Nobody does everything,
Nobody does nothing. How often the householder is heard to say: ‘If I do
not work, Nobody works.’” Calmann
describes, in great detail, the woodcut which accompanied Schan’s comedic
verses: “Niemand in Schan’s picture haunts the kitchen; he is the ‘basest
of all humans’, the wayfarer, who, in late mediaeval literature, played
the rôle of a fool…Nobody wears all the attributes which at the time were
considered typical of his class. He looks revoltingly ugly. His clothes
are torn, his bare feet are in pattens, signifying their owner’s low
social status; his bag has a hole, since, as a proverb said, ‘A beggar’s
bag has no bottom.’ He carries a sword, but the scabbard is in tatters;
his pilgrim’s bottle is cracked. His left hand is raised in the
characteristic gesture of the street-hawker or pedlar and his cry is:
‘Nobody is my name, I am blamed for everybody’s deeds.’ The padlock in his
mouth, the spectacles on his nose, the bird’s wing in his cap, mark him
for a fool. This is not immediately obvious, and will need some
explanation.” Calmann then offers an analysis of all of the motifs
pertaining to the image of Nobody. For instance: “A padlock in the mouth
was a symbol of silence. Plutarch, widely read by the humanists, quoted
Pythagoras as saying that silence was a divine quality and advised men to
close their mouths as if with a lock or key. The slanderer was shown in
woodcuts as prevented from uttering wicked words by a padlock. In the
mouth of a ‘wise woman’ it signified that she knew how to be silent. ‘The
monk on the cross’ and the pious simpleton were represented in woodcuts of
the fifteenth century with padlocked mouths…But in popular usage the
person who could not speak was a fool; as an old French proverb said, such
people should stay at home, for only the man who has the ‘gift of the gab’
goes far. Nobody must be silent, otherwise he would be Somebody. This the
padlock signifies; but at the same time, it underlines his inability to
say anything or defend himself, and therefore he was considered a fool.”
According to one of Sir Francis Bacon’s Apophthegms, “Silence is
the virtue of fools.” Calmann also states that “It is probably no
coincidence that the 13th-century Spanish saint Raymond Nonnatus — unborn
— has a padlocked mouth and that he is the patron of ‘innocent persons
falsely accused’.” Furthermore, Niemand “is innocent of self-love” and “He
is referred to by later imitators of Schan as an image of patience. But
patience such as his, in the face of false accusations, is folly.” Calmann
later continues: “The character of folly is ambiguous. Those who deride
the fool only for being exceptional, do it for the wrong reasons and are
themselves laughed at in the end. This notion of fun already emerged from
the stories of ‘Eulenspiegel’, and corresponded to the idea that ‘the
madman is wiser than the man of sense’. The wise fool was altogether a
popular subject as in Solomon and Marcolf. And Lazarus — the beggar
on earth, living the ‘vita afflictiva’, but compensated in Paradise — was
adopted as the saint of the poor. The conviction that poverty, formerly
only praised in a religious, was a virtue, was strengthened in the
sixteenth century through the influence of mystics and Spiritual
Libertines like Paracelsus and Sebastian Franck. They proclaimed that God
and the world are incompatible opposites; the patient poor whose very
existence threw doubt on accepted worldly values, was therefore at times
identified with ‘God’s fool’.” Everywhere, the right-minded poor were
contrasted with the wicked well-to-do. In the words of Paracelsus
(Liber prologi in vitam beatam), “Become poor and a beggar, then
the Pope will desert you, the Emperor will desert you and will think you a
fool. Now you are quiet and your folly is great wisdom before God.” But
Nobody, as it turns out, is a much more perplexing figure than this.
“Nobody is superior to his environment. Schan leaves no doubt about it; we
are faced by no common beggar-fool. The padlock stresses his saintly
patience in the face of false accusations, and we are invited to take his
side and to realize that Nobody is innocent. Nevertheless the evil has
been done. The rubbish-heap of domestic equipment manifests the neglected
state of the house where Nobody takes the place of the ‘master’s eye’: in
the last resort the householder who allows Nobody to be blamed is himself
the culprit.” In the earlier pictures, the main characteristic of Niemand
“was that he was falsely blamed for what everybody did. All through his
history he is innocent of the crimes of those who took cover behind his
name. They, not he, were the guilty ones: the neglectful householder and
his servants and the corrupters of the affairs of the world. Even the
pauper claimed identity with ‘God’s fool’, Nobody, in order to gain
recognition for his rights on earth.” Many versions of the Niemand image,
some of them genteel, followed Schan’s original. “Personifications of
‘Nobody’ independent of the household context, but originating in it, were
numerous in the first half of the 16th
century.” The work of Ulrich von Hutten
provides an example. This young knight, whose ambition was “to be a poet
and an adept in the liberal arts”, had joined the humanists because he
admired their principles. Though familiar with Schan’s broadsheet, “Hutten
was not interested in admonishing householders; this kind of pedestrian
moralizing belonged to the small townspeople despised by the aristocratic
scholar. But he was anxious to be widely known and may therefore have
harnessed the popular Nobody to his learned purpose. Besides, his nature
was rebellious. Schan’s outlaw touched off a response in him. The
word-play encouraged search for those who were guilty of corrupting the
affairs of this world. Neither the person of no importance nor the
anonymous powers that be — not ‘Nobody’ — but individual man was made
responsible for the bad conditions which were allowed to prevail in Church
and State, in the household, the workshop and the universities. Negative
words in general held a poetic fascination for the humanists; the ‘What is
not’ was felt as a challenge to oppose the ‘What is’ with the imaginary
‘What ought to be’, untrammelled by restraints of religious and social
traditions.” Dissatisfied with society, Hutten engaged himself “in the
controversies of the day, inspired by an ever-increasing anger…He was
conscious that his contemporaries held to a wrong scale of values and
convinced that the future was with him and the humanists.” Hutten wrote
the successful Nemo (first published in 1510). “Nobody, no longer
fettered about the mouth by his padlock, is represented as a well-dressed
man, raising his hands in comic despair.” In later editions of the same
poem, the padlock is re-introduced. Calmann provides us with a phrase from
Jacob Spiegel, Secretary to the Emperor: “‘Hutten,’ he writes, ‘a mere
nothing in the eyes of blind admirers of popularly acclaimed literature,
has consequently produced a nothing about Nobody.’” Hutten eventually
“rewrote his Nemo, changing it so as to add to its bite”. Nemo
II (first published in 1518). The absence of a padlock in his mouth
finally indicated that his virtuous Nobody “was free to speak, was not
dumb, frightened or patient”. Hutten used his tracts “to introduce his
religious and political ideas”. His “Nemo became a catchword among
the literati…The humanists turned the Nemo conception to refer to
the burning questions of the day.” At the centenary of the publication of
Nemo II, the humanist joke was revived. “Here Nobody was celebrated
as the perfect man.” Niemand, in
pamphlets of the Reformation, “was always on the Protestant side.” The
earliest example was “an attack on Luther’s followers by Johannes
Atrocianus in 1528…This may have induced Schan to re-cast his
Niemand as a Protestant broadsheet in 1533.” Schan was older now,
and seemingly “ran no risk, therefore, in publishing his Niemand in
the new rôle of a rebel, relying on truth to defeat his spiritual
oppressors. His two poems reflect the change that took place during their
author’s lifetime. He bitterly accuses the Catholic Church of evil
practices, attacking the mass, the adoration of relics and the sale of
indulgences; he turns against the pretensions of the Pope, especially
against the kissing of his foot, and denies purgatory and the efficacy of
good works. He joyfully declares his faith in the redeeming power of the
word of God if it is received by a pious heart. The woodcut is a slightly
changed and technically improved version of the first broadsheet; the
pedlar looks less ferocious, his clothes are not only torn but have the
leafy fringes of the fool’s costume…Niemand still wears spectacles; he has
two wings on his head instead of one; but one thing is missing: the
padlock. The new title of the poem and its first words draw attention to
this fact. Der wohlredendt Niemant (The welspoken Nobody), begins:
‘God has given evidence of His power through me, and has taken the padlock
from my mouth.‘” A certain mutinous quality had matured in the “mendicant”
known as Niemand (variants of his name include Niemants, Niemantz,
Niemandt, Nyemands, Nyement, Nymant, Nemanth). “Nobody had become the type
of man that was put upon” and his complex image had acquired a social
connotation. In fact, “Nemo”/“Nobody” quickly “became a frequent disguise
for anonymous writers” who addressed their offensive letters to the
authorities. Schan’s prototype had been radically transformed. “The pedlar
had become a revolutionary.” Though a
shortened English version of this German Protestant poem (“a very close,
though extremely clumsy, contemporary translation”) was also printed that
same year or shortly after, “whether the household scapegoat with his
picture had ever been published in England before, we do not know. The
rebellious Nobody of the Protestant broadsheet is proof of how closely the
religious reformers collaborated across national boundaries, in the same
way as the humanists. It would be intriguing to find out who took the poem
across the Channel…In his rôle of a foil for the follies of mankind — a
mirror of perfection reflecting nothing — Nobody lived on in
England.” It must be noted that “Schan’s
original poem on Niemand had been almost simultaneous with the first
appearance of Everyman, the morality play, which had been performed
and re-written in every language in the course of the sixteenth century.”
By the time Nobody (now an international phenomenon!) arrived in England,
“Everyman — man related to absolute values — was no longer Nobody’s
counterpart. Somebody — man in his social setting — took his place. He was
a person of consequence, whose name was perhaps intentionally suppressed
or to whom importance was at least sarcastically conceded (O.E.D.). His
evil character was seen as the real cause of all the abuses of society,
though he denied all responsibility. Nobody, ‘a person of no importance,
authority of social position’ (O.E.D.) was good. He made no pretensions
and at times he even attempted to set wrongs right. The English form of
his name permitted a pun which is not possible in other European
languages, and by the seventeenth century he is pictured as a manikin
composed of head and limbs only, without a trunk. This type, which
gradually established itself as the dominant one in England, appears for
the first time in 1606 on the title-page of the play Nobody and
Somebody. With the true Chronicle Historie of Elydure who was fortunately
three severall times crowned King of England…‘Printed for John Trundle
and are to be sold at his shop in Barbican at the sign of Nobody’. The
woodcut shows a bearded man with a little hat holding a short staff in his
left hand. His most conspicuous feature is his enormous trunk-hose
starting at his shoulders and reaching down to his knees; his servant, the
clown, reproaches him for his strange attire: ‘Master, why do you go thus
out of fashion? You are even a very hoddy doddy, all breech.’
Nobody: ‘And no body…’” His arch-rival “Somebody, on the other
hand, was all body and had very small legs. His consequential air was
enhanced by the fact that he carried a baton, and, unlike Nobody, wore a
sword.” In a sense, Somebody and Nobody “form part of man’s paradoxical
nature” and aptly illustrate this “psychological phenomenon.”
(materialistic obsession isolates the individual, while the other part of
man’s nature, divine reason, annihilates this isolation). As for the story
itself, it hinges on the notion “that Nobody is persecuted for the
misdeeds of Somebody. He is accused of oppressing widows and orphans,
impoverishing farmers and living ‘in goodly manor-houses fit to receive a
King’. These were general complaints on economic conditions.” By the end
of the play, “the two adversaries, Somebody and Nobody, are forced to
confront each other in court. Nobody bases his defense on the familiar
revolutionary statement: ‘Whatever was done, must have been done by
somebody, else things could have no being.’” In German broadsheets, Nobody
continued to appear “as the original tatterdemalion, for the English pun
makes no sense in German. In England No-Body remained a bodyless
personage.” As such, he is seen in No-Body, his complaint, a 1652
pamphlet by George Baron. “It consists of a ‘Dialogue between Master
No-Body and Doctour Some-Body’. The patient, No-Body, suffering from a
thousand-year-old disease, asks the doctor’s advice. He teases him for a
long time with contradictory symptoms, until it emerges that Some-Body
himself is the cause. His unfailing habit of denying guilt has made his
patient ill. He promises never to blame No-Body again and the latter
thereupon ‘takes comfort in nothing’.” Even though Schan’s “padlocked
‘Nobody’ has never been used in English pictorial tradition”, the
household-Nobody “was well known in seventeenth-century England…and this
Nobody survives in a nineteenth-century nursery rhyme and in popular
songs.” There, his picture appeared “on the lids of warming-pans together
with the words: ‘Who burnt the bed Nobodie 1632’ and ‘Who burnd ye Nobodie
1635’.” As far as is known, Schan’s pictorial type was never used in
England to represent Nobody. “There can be no doubt that Nobody remained a
stock joke and the figure was therefore commonly known. [William] Hogarth
exaggerated its characteristics by leaving out the body altogether in the
tailpiece of his Peregrination, and Mr. Somebody likewise had his
head and legs cut off, ‘pushing the notion to its furthest length’…He also
took over the tradition of representing the ‘general publick’, the common
man, as Nobody, and in his last years he opposed him once more to the
pretentious Somebody.” A brilliant sentence comes from “Hogarth’s
draft-dedication of a book on the state of the arts and artists in
England: ‘But if for once we may suppose Nobody to be everybody, as
Everybody is often said to be nobody, then is this work Dedicated to every
body.’” From the mid-18th century “until about 1832 English satires abound
with No-Bodies.” Calmann concludes with
the following brilliant paragraph: “For centuries the joke served to point
a moral and to express patient or rebellious misery, confronting the
individual with his perfect counterpart in the shape of a poor fool, of a
mock-hero or of a person without body. Nobody was consistently endowed
with innocence; this of all possible characteristics the individual could
not claim to possess. Nobody appealed to him, roused his conscience and
encouraged him to face his self. But the relationship between individuals
entered a new phase with the rise of organized mass-movements in the
nineteenth century. ‘Nobodies of the world unite’ would have been a
contradiction in itself. Now, as ‘average man’, the ‘common man’ may be
said to have lost his individuality and to have become an abstraction. The
person in the ‘picture of Nobody’ was forgotten. And so, alas, […] Nemo
has almost vanished from our lives; the least the historian can do is to
remember gratefully the good fellow — that never
was.” Even today, No-one is still the
perennial scapegoat conjured up in situations that require a denial of
guilt: who amongst us, when faced with an accusatory question like “Who
did that?” (especially after childhood lapses and slip-ups), hasn’t
hurriedly replied “Nobody!” Poor chap. This innocent bloke is always
getting blamed for one’s
misdeeds. Calmann’s essay contains
another fascinating quotation, which I thought bore an uncanny allusion to
my 2003 coin: “In 1814 there appeared a small illustrated volume called
Something concerning No-Body edited by Somebody. On the title-page
is the hero, a fey creature inside a zero, with the words: ‘Ex nihil nihil
fit’ and ‘Since Nothing is with Nothing fraught, the Nobody must spring
from naught.’” It is amazing how this
entire Nichtsburg & Zilchstadt project has been the result of
extraordinarily serendipitous moments, all of them stupendously timely.
When I designed the original Miden, I deliberately placed a halo
(representing a saintly, radiant light) atop the head of Zero MacNaught (I
actually borrowed the entire image from one of my sketchbooks from about
10 years earlier). I don’t know exactly why I kept the delicate nimbus. I
guess it looked and felt right to me. At that point, I honestly had no
idea that there ever was a historical Saint Nemo. Over the years, I was
truly astonished at the number of disparate elements — all of them
perfectly suited for the overall theme of the series — that appeared out
of the blue from seemingly Nowhere (from Nichtsburg and/or Zilchstadt
itself?) and converged unexpectedly upon each of the coins. Gerta Calmann
mentions one other pertinent citation, from Gil Vicente’s The Ship of
Hell: “Here the fool tries to enter the Ship of Heaven; asked who he
is, he answers ‘I am Nobody’ and is eventually admitted.”
This coin is 30mm in
diameter, and 2mm thick. It was minted by Pressed Metal Products, in a run
of 51 bronze and 10 silver (plus 4 pre-production samples: one brass, one
copper, one copper-nickel, and one 24k gold-plated brass). I am sold out
of all 2007 pieces.
At first, I never thought
I'd design a coin myself, nor take the necessary steps to see the fanciful
venture come to fruition (much less provide it with its own destination in
cyberspace). The entire experience has been a veritable dream-come-true
for me. It turned out to be a success with many collectors, including some
international ones (Andorra, Argentina, Australia, Austria, Canada, Czech
Republic, England, France, Germany, India, Ireland, Israel, Italy,
Morocco, Netherlands, New Zealand, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Spain, Ukraine).
I am also indebted to Michael E. Marotta, who has given it generous
mention in the pages of the Georgia Numismatic Association’s GNA
Journal (Autumn 2003), the ANA’s Numismatist (“Internet
Connections”, November 2003), and the Michigan State Numismatic Society's
The Mich-Matist (Winter 2004). Now, my initial accomplishment has
expanded and grown unexpectedly, culminating in the production of more
than one highly anticipated follow-up. I wish they continue to merit a
positive response. The primary aim is to share my ebullience with other
enthusiasts. I'd simply like to get these conceptual coins out there,
inexpensively and in a fun way, to those whose particular interests may be
similar to mine. Of course it would be nice to financially “break even” in
this endeavor, but if I don't, that is fine as well.
So if you are in a
Zilchstadt state of mind, I hope there is a rightful spot for these
handsome coins in your collection; right next to your Adelas, Decas,
Ducals, Cali, Skaloj, Steloj, and all the other uncommon, privately-made
coins of the unofficial “world”. Additionally, I joyfully invite you to
find your trusty parasol and spring on over to L’île
d’Héliopolis, for which I've also produced coins.
Personally, I am always
eager to learn of little-known or newly-surfaced objects that pertain to
this alluring category, so if you are aware of an ou-topos (Greek
for “non-land”, “non-place”, “non-locus”) or any other other peculiar
localities (countercountries, microstates, “new country” projects,
online/cyber-nations, virtual republics, quasi-states,
phantom/imaginary/ephemeral/unrecognized governments, or model countries)
which distribute their own coins, please let me know. Also,
feel free to contact me if you just want to chat with another aficionado
about these types of coins. To make your research easier, be sure to visit
my extremely detailed list
of e-mail addresses and Web-sites. Let's hear it for coins from
the “Lands-of-almost-but-not-quite”!
Danke tausend
mal!!
Erik
Victor McCrea Der Ministerpräsident
E-mail: [email protected] |