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Montgomery County Coin Club

December 1997 Bulletin

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Next Meeting: Tuesday, December 16, 1997: An Introduction to the Coinage of Great Britain's American Colonies by Richard Jozefiak

The Club will meet at 7pm on Tuesday, December 16, 1997, at the Senior Citizens Center on Forest Glen Road in Silver Spring, Maryland. The featured event will be a talk by Richard Jozefiak who will present a slide-illustrated introduction to the coinage of Great Britain's American colonies.

Coming Attraction: Wayne Smith of The Black Patriots Foundation

President Wayne Smith of The Black Patriots Foundation will discuss the commemorative silver dollar to be issued in commemoration of Crispus Attucks and African-American Revolution War patriots at the February 16, 1998 meeting. Mr. Smith will discuss the symbolism of the coin's design and the coin's relationship to the memorial the Foundation plans to build near Constitution Gardens on the National Mall.

1998 Nominations for Officers and Directors

The Nominating Committee presents the following slate of candidates for the 1998 MCCC officers and directors. Attending members will be asked to vote upon this slate and any other nominations received from the floor. Any member may nominate a member in good standing for any position if the member being nominated has agreed to serve. The nominees are:
President: Kenneth E. Swab
Vice President: William C. Massey
Second Vice President: Ed Russell
Treasurer: Simcha Kuritzky
Secretary: Jack Schadegg
Sergeant at Arms: John Herman
Directors: Andrew Luck, Don McKee, John Pylypec, Kermit Smyth, Mark Zimmermann.

Goodies for YNs!

Every month, the Club has special door prizes and gifts for Young Numismatists (YNs) who attend, and extra booty for any who exhibit coins, medals, currency, or other numismatic objects. These awards are made possible by the generosity of MCCC members. (More senior members: please consider donating items from your hoards, to encourage new collectors and broaden the base of future numismatists!)

November MCCC Meeting Highlights

MCCC President Ken Swab called the club to order shortly after 7pm. A good crowd was present, about 30 members plus 3 YNs. A new MCCC member was:

Richard Jozefiak, District Delegate-at-Large to the American Numismatic Association, who described the presentations on coin collecting that he makes to area schools, focusing on 2nd-to-4th graders. Richard invites anyone to donate inexpensive items, especially sets of foreign coins, which he will give to the school children he sees.

President Swab encouraged the YNs present to partake of an assortment of coin albums and ANA literature. Treasurer Simcha Kuritzky reported that the Club's finances remain sound. Vice President William C. Massey announced the evening's door prizes --- four silver Kennedy half dollars dated 1964 and 1965. Willy also reported that he recently showed a class of 4th graders The Money Story video, and gave them gifts of wheat cents and buffalo nickels.

MCCC VP Massey appeared in the "Weekend" section of the November 14, 1997 edition of The Washington Post as part of an article about elongated cents (referred to informally as "squished pennies") and other unusual hobbies. Willy is currently President of The Elongated Collectors society, and provided the reporter with a wealth of information about the topic, as well as gracing the newspaper with his photograph as he turned the crank on a press.

Librarian Kermit Smyth announced that the MCCC book collection now contains a new volume on Flying Eagle and Indian Head Cents, autographed by the author Rick Snow, which concentrates on repunched dates and other details of the coins. Kermit also released his personal "most wanted list" of coins (including an 1856 flying eagle cent!) and encouraged other club members to publicize their personal wish-lists. (Your MCCC Bulletin Editor is still seeking world coins of 1852, for example.)

Display Showcase Features

Exhibit activity at the November MCCC meeting included:

Herb Hall showed a new uncirculated Roosevelt Memorial commemorative.
Robin Zimmermann (a YN) displayed two Taco Bell tokens (plastic/cardboard) and explained the Nintendo giveaway contest now underway there.
Ed Russell exhibited two antique cast iron trivets in the shape of large 1878 silver dollars.
Jerry Grzenda presented some paper money, including a $3 Ohio Railroad bank note dated June 10, 1837 with a nice vignette of a passenger train. Jerry also showed: a diamond-shaped 1547 ducat from Leipzig (in Saxony, now part of Germany), struck during a religious war between Catholics and Protestants; some coins from Munsterberg-Oels (another German duchy); some Nazi-era German concentration camp scrip, including coupons for potatoes and other items from Buchenwald, Litzmannstadt (Lodz), and Theresienstadt ; a D.C. public utility badge; and a 1979 C.I.A. award medal presented for "Merit in Intelligence Analysis", struck by the US Mint, with a Gilroy Roberts obverse and Frank Gasparro reverse.
Andrew Luck displayed a canceled US Mint Olympic coin die, and noted that this may presage a wave of counterfeits struck with such dies.
Simcha Kuritzky showed a US platinum uncirculated quarter ounce ($25) piece, noting that it was in "reverse proof" style, with polished highlights and matte fields. Simcha also exhibited a 1992 set of Canadian platinum coins (which included images of cougars). Finally, Simcha displayed two of the earliest coins in the world: an electrum 1/12th stater (depicting a lion) from Miletos, ca. 550 B.C.E., and a billon piece from the Greek island of Lesbos (showing an optical illusion, a panther head composed of two lions), also ca. 550 B.C.E.
Rob Dorsey exhibited a one-ounce silver round from a Hawaii mint, called an "aloha dollar"; he explained that the mint he visited had been in operation for over 20 years, and that he saw the piece being struck. In Japan, Rob collected 1, 5, 10, 50, 100, and 500 yen pieces from circulation. He described how the 500 won South Korean coin is similar in size to the Japanese 500 yen, and that a people have tried to pass off one as the other (shades of the "Racketeer Nickel"!).

Charity Auction Nets Over $320!

The Montgomery County Coin Club's main event at its November meeting was the annual Club Charity Auction. This year's auction consisted of 61 donated items. Bidding was fast and furious, under the expert hammer of auctioneers Don McKee and Jack Schadegg. When the dust settled, a total of $321.50 was raised to benefit the Silver Spring and Wheaton Boys and Girls Clubs. Thank you to all the contributors and bidders --- and note that it is not too late to make additional cash donations to this good cause!

A note from the past: the Seaby Coin and Medal List for December 1967 discusses "A coins and medals auction in aid of Oxfam and the national association of Boys' Clubs" and, in the appeal for contributions, says "Those collectors who would like to support these causes but feel that they cannot bear to part with any precious piece from their collections may still like to donate a coin which they will have the opportunity to repurchase at the sale!" (Thanks to an anonymous MCCC member for this item.)

Other Announcements and Prizes

Jack Cross's name was drawn for the Bison Chip, and now he has the first of three legs needed to capture that prize. (For those unfamiliar with the Bison Chip rules: only members present at a meeting are eligible for each month's Bison Chip drawing. As often happens, several names of absent members were drawn and discarded before a winner was found. Come to the next meeting if you want to win!)
Willy Massey won the 50-50 raffle pot.
Don McKee, Mae Clarke (again!), Kerry Walker, and David Goldberg(again!) garnered door prizes.
Andrew Luck won an uncirculated $5 note for guessing the net outcome of the auction, coming within $0.50 of the result --- his third such victory in the past 10 years. Second closest was Bill Massey, who won an uncirculated $2 note.