By, buy or bye-bye?

Did you ever try to have a conversation with three people at once?

Sometimes that is what it feels like to read my email.

When I think I am responding to something in one direction, I then get something from another direction and when I turn to address that, a third party weighs in.

For example, on Friday we sent out our usual weekly e-newsletter.

A major bit of news concerns the April 25 Heritage auction that will feature 150 pattern U.S. coins from the Eric P. Newman Education Society.

One of the featured pieces is an Morgan dollar pattern dated 1877.

It’s an amazing offer and I look forward to seeing the catalog and attending the sale.

On Sunday I received an email from price guide editor Harry Miller forwarding me an earlier email about an 1877 Morgan shown in a photograph and asking where it can be purchased.

The email forwarded to me was dated before the Friday e-newsletter was sent.

It could be a straightforward question posed in the email. It could be sarcastic. Was something about the 1877 pattern somehow associated online with a Harry Miller commentary about regular issue Morgan dollars? Errors of that kind do occur from time to time.

In the few words in the email there is no way to tell. It doesn’t even describe where the writer saw the photograph. Harry Miller’s forwarding message to me says nothing to help me out.

So do I ignore the inquiry, assuming it was answered by the e-newsletter that was sent Friday?

Do I ignore it because it might have been a sarcastic poke?

Do I send an email asking for more information?

Or do I simply go crazy?

Buzz blogger Dave Harper is editor of the weekly newspaper "Numismatic News."