In the early 70's I was attending the University of Kentucky in the honors program as a geology major. Coins were rapidly becoming much more fun than rocks. By working flea markets and coin shows on weekends I came to the conclusion that I could earn $2,000 a year doing my hobby as a business, and I could survive on this income. Frugal living was acceptable to me if I could be my own boss. I dropped out my second semester of my sophomore year to get married and do coins full time. I apprenticed under the expert coin repair master, Paul Stockton, for 3 months. We were mutually compensated since I was running his over the counter Pioneer Coin Shop for $1.00 an hour for his 35 hour Monday through Friday work week. The importance of a college degree could still not be overlooked and I probably knew that if I didn't do it soon I might not ever graduate. I am very grateful that academia had entered the "Age of Relevancy". The honors program offered tailored majors for a Bachelor's degree if several criteria were met. All the course work for the usual Bachelor of Arts, Science or General Studies degrees must be met. Courses related to the chosen major or independent course work at the junior and senior levels must be taken to meet the major requirements. Any independent work in the chosen major needed a faculty advisor capable of evaluating the quality of the study or research. So I went back for my junior and senior years and got my Bachelor of Arts with a major in Numismatics in June of 1973. The normally offered courses that I took in the College of Arts and Sciences related to numismatics included art appreciation, economics, ancient, medieval, and modern history, economics, chemistry, and radiochemistry. Eighty per cent of my independent study credits were devoted to my undergraduate thesis. My thesis was a thermal neutron activation analysis of silver coins from the Colombian mints of Santa Fe de Bogota and Popayan during the Spanish Colonial Period. Silver from the mining regions around these mints was largely a by product of the gold mining activities. Refining materials were scarce and contemporary sources mention possible gold impurities in the silver coins. To verify these statements non©destructively I used a high thermal neutron flux generated by a Californium©252 source to make my sample coins radioactive for a short period of time. By identifying and measuring the radiation emitted by the coins the gold impurities could be quantified. Many of the samples had a 5% gold content, which raised the intrinsic value over face value. This could easily have contributed to the numismatic scarcity of the silver coins from these mints. My chemistry professor, Dr. Ehmann, evaluated the radiochemistry scholarship, and my history professor and honors advisor, Dr. Scarborough, evaluated my numismatic research. I was fortunate that Dr. Scarborough was interested in the archaeological uses of numismatics and appreciated research into this specialized field. I do not know if this topical major program is offered at any universities today.