This is the MCCC ARCHIVE – for the CURRENT Montgomery County Coin Club see https://montgomerycoinclub.org
May 1998 Bulletin
Next MCCC Meeting: Tuesday, May 12, 1998
Featured Speaker: Wayne Smith on the Black Patriots Commemorative Coin
The Montgomery County Coin Club will meet at 7 p.m. on Tuesday,
May 12, 1998, at the Senior Citizens Center on Forest Glen Road in Silver
Spring, Maryland. President Wayne Smith of the Black
Patriot's Foundation will discuss the commemorative silver dollars
issued in support of the Black Patriots Memorial.
Announcements
Reminder --- New MCCC Meeting Date: Don't forget --- the
MCCC is now convening on the second Tuesday of the month. Mark
your calendars!
Invitation to Exhibit: MCCC members are encouraged to
bring and display interesting items from their collections, particularly
pieces related to the season. In May, our meeting correlates with the new
Islamic year 1419 (which begins April 28), May Day (International Communism!
- what's left for the CIA to do?), Cinco de Mayo (Mexican Independence
Day, May 5), Buddha's Birthday (May 6), the 50th Aniversary of Israel (May
14) and Memorial Day (May 25). And who could forget Mother's Day (May 10)?
Be creative and share numismatic items with fellow Club members!
Maryland State Numismatic Association Convention: On the
weekend of May 15-17, the MSNA will hold its Atlantic Rarities Coin Convention
at the Baltimore Convention Center. If you are interested in helping out
at the Convention, please let Ken Swab know. Check it out!
In Times to Come: For the July MCCC meeting, John Lopez
(the Counsel of the U.S. House of Representatives Coinage Subcommittee)
will speak on "The Future of Money". Mr. Lopez serves Congressman Michael
Castle (R-DE), and worked on the legislation authorizing the series of
50 commemorative quarter dollars beginning next year in honor of every
state of the Union.
Loot for YNs!
Every month, the Club has door prizes and material for Young Numismatists
(YNs) who attend, and extra gifts for YNs who exhibit coins, medals, currency,
or other numismatically-related objects. In April, for example, Ezra
Berch gave an excellent short presentation (see below) on two items
he showed the group (and for which he deserves a prize, if he didn't get
one then!).
April MCCC Meeting Highlights
MCCC President Ken Swab being unavoidably away (actually, he was at the
beach), Vice President Willy Massey called the club to order at 7:15 p.m.
About 40 members were present, including half a dozen YNs. Among the events
of note were:
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Guests: Present at the April meeting were John Hagstrom,
Jerry Rosenkrantz, Sid Fratkin, Jeff Crockett, Jerry Drobbin (from
the Silver Spring Philatelic Society) and Frank Hopper (a YN).
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MCCC Member in the News: Joe Howard, was in the Washington
Post on Thursday, April 9, in connection with a National Arbor Day
Foundation prize.
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Treasury and Library Reports: Treasurer Simcha Kuritzky
and Librarian Kermit Smyth said that the Club's finances and reference
collection were both in excellent shape. YN Merle Zimmermann, has
converted the 1998
MCCC Library Catalog to HTML.
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Door Prizes: Vice President William C. Massey announced
the give-aways, which (thanks to a generous anonymous donor) this month
were a veritable international extravaganza: a 1963 Swiss 1 Franc, a British
Columbian 1871-1971 commemorative $1, a 1955 Dutch 1 Gulden, a 1975 Jamaican
50 cent piece, a 1982 Israeli 1 Shekel, a 1951 Vatican 1 Lira, and a 1971
Mexican 1 Peso. Winners of these door prizes were Dorothy Blank, Frank
Hopper (a visiting YN), Ben Kalman, Ken Huff, Joseph Yek, Jack Schadegg
and Merle Zimmermann (another YN). The 50-50 Raffle was won by Richard
Jozefiak and Willy Massey got his first leg toward the Bison
Chip prize --- beginning a fresh contest, since Kermit Smythe won it last
month. (To garner a leg toward the Bison Chip, one must be present at a
meeting.)
Exhibits and Displays
The April MCCC meeting featured a bumper crop of fascinating short presentations
by members:
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Ken Huff, focusing on the theme of income taxes, discussed a recent
meeting with the Montgomery County delegation to the State Legislature
in Annapolis, and displayed a large silver medal honoring Louis Goldstein,
long-time and well-liked Comptroller of the Treasury of Maryland, to whom
state income tax checks are made out. The reverse of the medal bore the
legend "God Bless You All Real Good", a statement characteristic of Mr.
Goldstein, who is now 85 years old.
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Chuck Hansman showed a nice collection of Roman coins, including
a denarius issued by Julius Caesar as Pontifex Maximus, plus a two-headed
coin showing Octavian and Mark Anthony (before their falling-out over Cleopatra).
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Irv Blank exhibited and commented on a beautiful 1882 proof Trade
Dollar. U.S. Trade Dollars were minted for circulation in the Orient beginning
in 1873, but after 1879 were only issued in proof form for collectors.
Mr. Blank talked about the 1882 coin, which had a total mintage of only
1,079 --- of which perhaps half were spent into circulation; half of the
remainder were sunk, buried, or otherwise lost; half of the rest have been
cleaned or badly damaged; and half of the remainder are locked up in institutional
collections. So, Mr. Blank estimated, there are probably only about 70
left in available proof condition worldwide --- quite a rarity to see in
the Club display case! Mr. Blank talked about how he got the coin, from
Abe Heffner's shop on 10th Street, NW, in Washington. Mr. Heffner had ANA
membership number 3 (three!), and Ben Douglass, who worked for him and
eventually bought the business, was once a President of the MCCC. According
to Mr. Blank, Abe Heffner thought of his coins as "his children", and sold
the 1882 Trade Dollar with some reluctance.
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Simcha Kuritzky displayed several fascinating items, beginning with
brochures from First Union Bank, which is now using significant historical
coins and currency in its advertisements. The folders Mr. Kuritzky showed
included a Morman $5 territorial gold piece and an 1841 Hard Times token.
Given the coincidence of meeting times with the MCCC and the Silver Spring
Philatelic Society, Mr. Kuritzky discussed the overlap between coins and
stamps (and mentioned that "Technically, philately is a subset of numismatics",
with a gleam in his eye); he exhibited a variety of stamps that show images
of coins, and coins that show stamps. Mr. Kuritzky also showed several
examples of U.S. Postal currency, Civil War encased stamps, a Pobjoy commemorative
medal of the famous "Penny Black" stamp, and his own Susan B. Anthony $1
first-issue postmarked envelope. He also showed and commented on a Japanese
exposition "numistamp" featuring lions and commemorating a Swedish treaty,
and a 1986 Year of the Tiger item.
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YN Ezra Berch exhibited two items: a 3 percent tax token from Washington
State dated 1941 (one token, Mr. Berch explained, covered the tax on a
purchase from $0.05-$0.14; two tokens were needed for tax on $0.15-$0.29,
etc.); and a bronze Passover medal from the State of Israel showing a seder
plate on one side and the Israelites crossing the Red Sea on the other,
with an edge inscription.
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Ben Kalman showed a 1785 Vermont Cent, a misstruck planchet of a
Washington quarter dollar (shifted about 40 percent off-center), and a
clipped planchet strike.
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Wayne Wilcox discussed his speciality --- U.S. pattern nickels ---
and brought for exhibition a plaster design of a coin by James Earl Fraser
(who came from South Dakota, from Mr. Wilcox's own home town!) who created
the Indian Head (or Buffalo) nickel.
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Jerry Grzenda presented several items from the Tonga Islands and
discussed that country's history and background. Mr. Grzenda showed three
gold pieces (1/4, 1/2, and 1 Pula denominations) from Tonga dated 1962,
two proof pieces, a 1968 regular issue coin, a commemorative 20 Payang
honoring the centenary of the 1875 constitution of the islands, some UN
FAO pieces, a silver ingot-like item promoting Sea Resource Management,
a four-piece proof set of 1988 (for the 24th Summer Olympic Games in Seoul
that year), and some stamps from Tonga commemorating gold pieces, produced
themselves on gold foil.
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Ed Russell exhibited a 1962 Seattle World's Fair medal set which
he picked up at the recentStone Ridge
School used book sale (where MCCC member Merle Zimmermann reported
spotting Jerry Grzenda --- small world!). One of the Seattle medals that
Mr. Russell displayed commemorated a $1,000,000 exhibit at the World's
Fair, a sensation at that time.
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Kermit Smyth showed and explained a set of Indian cents which illustrated
varieties identified by Snow and other numismatic authorities. Mr. Smyth
noted that there are considerable price differences among certain varieties
of Indian cents, and suggested that Club members who educate themselves
on the subtle distinctions between these coins can sometimes make considerable
profits.
The Club exhibitors showed a wonderful diversity of pieces in April. Next
time, bring something from your collection to share with your fellow members!
April Attraction: Don McKee on
"Sixty Years of Coin and Stamp Collecting"
The Montgomery County Coin Club's main April event was an entertaining
and informative talk by long-time Club member Don McKee, illustrated with
slides and actual items from his collections. Mr. McKee began with a disclaimer,
that he is a "collector with a small 'c'" and does not claim to be an expert
--- but that he has been collecting stamps since the 1935 era, when he
had a paper route in Detroit, Michigan. He got started when a friend of
the family in England sent him a cover of beautiful stamps for King George
V, part of a series done by 65 Commonwealth countries around the world.
His father in the late 1930's started Don buying plate blocks of 3-cent
stamps; years later, during his business travels in Kansas and Missouri,
Mr. McKee would buy stamps at small-town Post Offices.
Unfortunately, Mr. McKee said, almost nothing issued by the USPS since
1940 is worth much beyond face value today --- and the quality of the artwork
on stamps has definitely gone downhill, in his opinion. He showed slides
of some postage due stamps and some famous commemorative issues --- including
a 1924 Huguenot-Walloon tercentenary issue, a 1901 Pan American Expo in
Buffalo (where President McKinley was assassinated), some 1902 Andrew Jackson
stamps, and some non-perforated souvenir sheets from the Chicago World's
Fair. (Mr. McKee noted that President Franklin Delano Roosevelt was a stamp
collector and that there were some possible scandals associated with special
issues of stamps for privileged friends in the government.) Mr. McKee also
showed some coil stamps (from 1908-1910) and the noteworthy Graf Zeppelin
1930 stamps ($0.65, $1.30, and $2.60 denominations).
Mr. McKee commented that stamps are generally much easier to grade (judge
the quality and relative condition of) than coins, where subtle differences
among mint-state coins can make a huge difference in price. He said that
he began to collect coins in the 1960's, when he met some friendly people
at the Montgomery County Coin Club (!) and switched to numismatics from
philately about that time. Mr. McKee's main interest is silver dollars,
and he talked about some of the Carson City dollars that he acquired from
the GSA sales in the early 1970's. For coins of significant value, Mr.
McKee recommends certification by one of the major grading services. He
finished by gently reminding MCCC members of the appraisal service offered
by the Club, and encouraged everyone to plan ahead to the dispersal of
their collections --- especially when the relatives who may have to deal
with the materials are not experts in coins.
Numismatics on the Web
MCCC member Mark Zimmermann recommends these Internet Web sites
to MCCC members:
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http://www.money.org The American Numismatic
Association's main page.
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club_mccc.html
The Montgomery County Coin Club's home page, with links to the Club Library
Catalog and the past year's worth of online MCCC Bulletin issues.
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http://www.exonumia.com/Sale10/MD.htm
<commercial site> Special site created by Rich Hartzog (Rockford,
IL) of World Exonumia, listing Maryland-related tokens and medals and counterstamped
coins available for sale in his upcoming Auction #10.
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http://www.sni.net/ts/coins <commercial
site> Main page of Chuck D'Ambra (Arvada, CO), an online coin dealer,
with links to many good articles about numismatics as well as lists of
coins for sale.
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http://www.teletrade.com <commercial
site> Main page of Teletrade Inc., a company which conducts telephone
and Internet-based auctions of certified coins; the online site includes
information on prices realized in recent auctions and lists of offerings
in past and future auctions.
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http://www.his.com/~z/1852.html
= MCCC Mark Zimmermann's personal page about 1852, with scanned images
of coins from his collection and historical tidbits about that fascinating
year.
Acknowledgements
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Jonetta Russell organized and provided refreshments; Simcha Kuritzky
brought kosher items for Passover-observant members.
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Don McKee served as the auctioneer for the live auction at the April
meeting.
MCCC Web Comments and Feedback
Please send bug reports and suggestions for improvement to Mark
Zimmermann via z (at) his.com.
The MCCC Bulletin is copyright (c) 1999 by the Directors of the Montgomery
County Coin Club.