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Montgomery County Coin Club

November 1998 Bulletin

Feature Article - Feedback - MCCC Home Page

Next Meeting: Tuesday, November 10, 1998
Featured Event: Charity Auction

The Montgomery County Coin Club will meet at 7 p.m. on Tuesday, November 10, 1998, at the Senior Citizens Center on Forest Glen Road in Silver Spring, Maryland. The main attraction of the meeting will be the Annual MCCC Charity Auction. All proceeds from this auction go to benefit the Boys & Girls Clubs of Silver Spring & Wheaton. Come and bid generously --- it's for a good cause! (If for any reason you cannot attend the Charity Auction in person, feel free to call one of the MCCC Officers to arrange for them to submit bids on your behalf.)


NumisRiddle of the Month

MCCC YN Robin Zimmermann asks: Why is paper money much better than coins?

The answer appears later in this Bulletin. To submit a NumisRiddle for the MCCC Bulletin, write to Robin Zimmermann at P.O. Box 598, Kensington, MD 20895-0598.


Die Hard! --- MCCC 40th Anniversary Elongated Competition

The summer of 1999 marks the Fortieth Anniversary of the founding of the Montgomery County Coin Club --- and in recognition of that jubilee event, the Club will issue a special Commemorative MCCC Elongated coin. Your mission, should you decide to accept it, is to design the die for that elongated! Contact elongated savant (and MCCC Vice President) William C. Massey for a template and advice, or simply draw your design to fit within an ellipse 3" long and 1.75" wide.

Designs may be submitted by any club member, but must be received by the close of the December 8, 1998 MCCC meeting. The winner's initials will appear on the die, thereby ensuring fame and (numismatic) immortality!


1999 Redbooks at More Than 40 Percent Off List Price!

Only a handful of hardback Redbooks remain for sale at a bargain $7 price (list is $11.95) ... get 'em while they last! The new Redbook includes color images of many coins as well as its famous price and mintage tables, plus commentary on the history and grading of U.S. coins. Contact Ed Russell for a copy.

October Meeting Roundup

MCCC President Swab called the Club to order with 34 members present, including 6 YNs. Among the major announcements were:

(Display) Case Closed!

(Not Really; It's Still Open)

MCCC's display case featured several interesting and important items this month:

Think about showing items from your collection of numismatic material in the MCCC display case --- coins, tokens, currency, whatever! November's meeting falls on the eve of Armistice Day, Presidents Polk, Garfield, Pierce, and Taylor were born in November, and there are numerous other themes that a great exhibit could be linked to. Bring something that you enjoy, share it with the Club, and get a round of applause (and maybe a gift) in recognition!


Booty for YN Exhibitors

President Swab presented Young Numismatist Ezra Berch with a prize for his exhibit (see above). The MCCC has other gifts for YNs who offer items for the display case in months to come. And please invite YNs (or potential YNs) to come to the meeting with you --- it's a great way to get a young person started on a lifetime hobby of education and enjoyment.


Richard Jozefiak on

"Modern British Sovereigns and Half Sovereigns"

Richard Jozefiak was the featured speaker of the October MCCC meeting. Mr. Jozefiak collects British coins and specializes in sovereigns, a beautiful gold coin. His talk was illustrated with excellent slides of sovereigns from the National Numismatic Collection in the Smithsonian Institution's Museum of American History, where Mr. Jozefiak has performed some research. The first sovereign, he reported, was minted in 1489. It was a hammered piece produced in or near London. Hammered sovereigns continued to be made until 1603, when the series was discontinued by King Henry VIII.

In 1817 the sovereign and half-sovereign coins were reinstated under King George III (the same king who ruled England during the American Revolution). George III appears on his sovereigns as a traditional Roman-styled portrait with an olive leaf circlet on his head; the legends on the coin are in Latin, giving it a "classic" look. Mr. Jozefiak noted that half-sovereigns tend to be far scarcer than sovereigns, since they had both smaller original mintages and suffered from greater destruction via their use in gold jewelry.

The obverse side of the sovereign depicts the current British monarch; on the reverse various designs have appeared, but most noteworthy is the famous image by Italian Sculptor Beneto Viscusi showing St. George slaying the dragon. The sovereign contains almost 1/4 ounce of gold, is slightly smaller than a current U.S. quarter dollar, and historically was valued as 1 British pound ( = 20 shillings). Since the average "blue collar" day laborer might earn one or two shillings a day, Mr. Jozefiak observed that a sovereign represented a lot of wealth, and was not commonly seen in day-to-day commerce. Rather, sovereigns tended to be restricted to banking reserves and high-end transactions.

Mr. Jozefiak went on to discuss and explain the details of the British shields shown on sovereigns. The royal shield in the early 1800's included the coat of arms for England, Ireland, Scotland, and some German principalities which the King was associated with: Brunswick, Hanover, Westphalia, and Lunenburg. By 1880 the British empire extended over a quarter of the globe, and so the British Royal Mint became something of a de facto world mint. "Branch" mints in Canada, India, South Africa, and Australia issued sovereigns, each with their local mint marks. (Some of these mint marks are inconspicuous, and it pays to look closely at sovereigns; Mr. Jozefiak told of buying a rather rare Melbourne sovereign at a bullion melt-down price --- quite a feat of cherry-picking!)

British sovereigns were also used as emergency money in many parts of the world --- their design was well-known internationally, and their gold content was trusted. The U.S. Office of Strategic Services (the OSS), the British Royal Air Force (RAF), and other such organizations gave their agents and pilots sovereigns to use in case of dire need. Branch mint sovereigns, since they were made from gold mined locally, contained different amounts of various impurities and thus differed in their color. An expert can sometimes tell where a sovereign was issued without even seeing the mint mark.

In 1989, the British Royal Mint issued a commemorative piece in honor of the 500th Anniversary of the sovereign, Mr. Jozefiak displayed and discussed the design, and commented on the changes in the portraits of Queen Elizabeth II over the years. He concluded his presentation by analyzing the issue of counterfeit sovereigns and their detection. Merchants in the 1800's needed a way to identify counterfeits and underweight pieces, which led to the invention of clever devices to gauge the weight, diameter, and thickness of sovereigns and half-sovereigns. These scales were stamped with the symbol of the crown to indicate their accuracy and approval by the Royal authority.

In response to a question from the audience, Mr. Jozefiak commented on the problem of counterfeit sovereigns. Recently, he noted, in the Middle East many copies of sovereigns of various dates and mints have been produced. During the Gulf War (and before) numerous ones were bought and brought back to the U.S. The gold content of these pieces is good, but they are not collectible coins --- they are only worth their bullion value. Frequently these counterfeit sovereigns have errors or subtle changes on their reverses. Making such pieces is not considered "counterfeiting" in the Middle East. Some rare sovereigns have had altered dates, so those should be authenticated by an expert before purchase.


Acknowledgments


NumisRiddle Answer

"Why is paper money much better than coins?" --- Because when you put paper money in your pocket, you double it, and when you take it out, you find it increases! ("in creases" --- get it?!)


President's Note

Money - it's what numismatists collect. But the medium of exchange and store of value has greatly expanded since someone hammered a design onto a lump of metal thousands of years ago. We still have coins, but we also have paper currency, checks, plastic cards, phone cards, good-fors, notgeld, tokens, elongateds - the list goes on and on. Just look at the variety in our display case every month. Enjoy the hobby and expand your collecting interests - numismatics is much more than just coins!
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