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Montgomery County Coin Club

December 1998 Bulletin

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Next Meeting: Tuesday, December 8, 1998

Featured Presentation: US Secret Service on Counterfeiting

The Montgomery County Coin Club will meet at 7 p.m. on Tuesday, December 8, 1998, at the Senior Citizens Center on Forest Glen Road in Silver Spring, Maryland. Special Agent Rodney Washington of the Secret Service will give an illustrated lecture on counterfeiting. (Members may wish to leave their 1933 Double Eagles at home!)

NumisRiddle of the Month

On the counterfeiting theme, MCCC YN Robin Zimmermann asks:

If you see a counterfeit dime on the street, should you pick it up or leave it alone?

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

Get a 'Longated, Little Dogie!

MCCC 40th Anniversary Elongated Competition

The deadline for MCCC Commemorative elongated design submissions is imminent! Summer 1999 marks the Fortieth Anniversary of the Montgomery County Coin Club --- and in recognition of that gala event, the Club will issue a special Commemorative MCCC elongated coin. Your design concepts are invited, but they must be turned in by the close of the December 8, 1998 meeting! Contact elongated guru William C. Massey for advice, or just draw your design to fit within the standard elongated template (an ellipse 3" long and 1.75" wide). Free Willie from doing all of the work, and put your artistic touch to paper - you will get your initials on the die if your design is selected!

1999 Redbooks: Gifts Going, Going, . . .

Need a Redbook for a last-minute gift? Grab a hardback 1999 Redbook at the bargain price of $7 at the December meeting, 40 percent off the list price of $11.95. If you buy elsewhere there's tax to pay, the hassle of going to a bookstore, fighting one's way through the latte-drinkers at the coffee shop to locate the book, facing the likelihood that the Redbooks are sold out, suffering surly clerks who are too busy unloading crates of best-sellers to help, etc., etc. Or one could try to shop for a Redbook via the Internet and pay extra for postage, plus enjoy waiting while advertisements download, waiting while one's credit card number is intercepted by hackers, waiting for the post office to deliver the book, waiting for a replacement copy when the first one is damaged in transit, etc., etc. You get the picture! Simplify your life and contact MCCC Second Vice President Ed Russell for a copy.

A Redbook makes a great gift for a young person for the Holidays! Buy the book before the coin, and you might give someone a lifetime hobby!

November MCCC Meeting Roundup

Notable announcements at the November meeting included:

Money Supply: Treasurer Simcha Kuritzky reported the MCCC is on course to finish the year with a small surplus.
Book Report: MCCC Librarian Kermit Smyth again encouraged member to submit suggestions for acquisition. Our newest addition is an updated Guide to Paper Money. The MCCC Library catalog is posted on the Web --- check it out via the link from the MCCC's home page. A copy is also available in paper form from Kermit.
Cheap Reads: Simcha Kuritzky reported on a special discount subscription rate for new pairs of subscribers to CoinAge magazine - just $12 annually.

MCCC Raises Nearly $450 for Boys and Girls Clubs

The MCCC Annual Charity Auction to raise money for the Boys and Girls Clubs of Silver Spring and Wheaton was the feature at the November meeting. Our goal was to raise over $1.2 million dollars, and though we fell a bit short, we still had an outstanding response from our members with some spirited bidding. The auction realized $352.75, and President Ken Swab won a prize for having the nearest guess of the total, with Frank Guererro coming in a close second.

In addition, the Club received $95 in cash donations --- and there are some additional charity lots which will be auctioned in December. Almost 2 dozen special bonus gifts were presented by Ed Russell to stir up the bidding. Proceeds from this year's auction were ten percent higher than last year's. The Club thanks all members who donated items, gave cash donations and bid generously on auction lots.

Lucky Winners!

The door prizes given away at the November MCCC meeting included a 1944 date 50 centavos (Philippines), a 1917 10 cent piece (Canada), a 1974 Ike dollar, and two 40% silver Kennedy halves. Winners were William C. Massey, Gil Cole, Richard Jozefiak, Scott Helmick, and John Chiusano. The 50-50 Raffle was captured by Joe Mallon.

The Bison Chip drawing was claimed by Jerry Grzenda, giving Jerry the award two months in a row --- one more time, and he wins! (As all good numismatists know, three legs is enough to make a valuable Bison (a.k.a. Buffalo) nickel.)

1999 Club Officer Nominations

The Nominating Committee presents the following slate of candidates for the 1999 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.

President	William C. Massey
Vice President	Richard Jozefiak
Second Vice President	Kenneth E. Swab
Treasurer	Simcha Kuritzky
Secretary	Jack Schadegg
Sergeant at Arms	John Herman
Directors	Tom Hall, Andrew Luck, Don McKee, John Pylypec, Ed Russell, Kermit Smyth, and Mark Zimmermann

(Display) Casing the Joint

MCCC's display case again featured a variety of interesting items this month (for which each exhibitor received a 1992 MANA souvenir card):

Jerry Grzenda brought items from Honduras, produced after that country's independence from Spain. Among them was an 1859 8 reales piece, a copper 8 reales and a couple examples of the 1 real coin.
Simcha Kuritzky exhibited several medals from the Society of American Medalists. He reported that the new organization, Medal Collectors of America, has begun distribution of its newsletter, with a magazine planned for the near future.
Scott Helmick displayed a 1936 Star Coin Book and Encyclopedia, distributed by famed dealer B. Max Mehl to drum up interest. Scott also showed a novelty belt buckle made entirely of welded coins.
Herb Hall showed several General Chuck Yeager items: first-day cover stamps, an interesting article, and a large, autographed photo card of the General in flight. Herb also provided examples of wildlife art on stamps, with some duck stamps, as well as a stamp featuring the famous World War II B-17 bomber, the Memphis Belle.

Please bring some items from your personal collection of numismatic material to put into the MCCC display case. Besides the Winter Solstice and countless holidays for various religious faiths, there are a host of other themes that might inspire a great exhibit. With our lecture on counterfeiting you may want to bring examples of reproduction currency. (The club will not be responsible if your exhibit is a little too good and is seized by the Secret Service!)

Special Forestry Board Elongated Cent Give-Away

Attendees at the November MCCC meeting were offered a free elongated cent (EC), courtesy of arborist and MCCC member Joe Howard of the Montgomery County Forestry Board. The EC depicts a tree in the center of a horizontal layout, with the words "Montgomery County" arched across the top, "Forestry Board" arched along the bottom, and "Plant A Tree" flanking the tree itself. (Rumor has it that Joe will bringing another stash of these beauties to the December meeting for those who missed them in November.)

The original depiction of the tree was created by Lurene Haines. Layout and production of the ECs was performed by Willy Massey. The die was engraved by Jim Dundon.

Crabstate Coin Show December 11-13

The Crabstate Coin Expo will be held December 11, 12 (10 AM - 7 PM) and 13 (10 AM - 4 PM) at the Ramada Hotel in New Carrollton, Maryland (Beltway Exit 20B).

Spoils for YN Exhibitors

The MCCC has extra gifts for YNs who bring items for the Display Case. If you're not so young any more, please be sure to invite junior relatives or acquaintances (potential YNs!) to come to the next meeting with you --- it's a great way to get a person started on a lifetime hobby of education and enjoyment. (And for the kids, there's always the thrill of beating out one's elders in the auction, winning a door prize, snagging the best cookies at the break, learning a little history, and seeing some fabulous treasures that one can actually touch --- like, wow!)

Acknowledgments

Don McKee was back in his usual place as MCCC auctioneer, along with Jack Schadegg. Willy Massey ran the door prize and 50-50 raffle drawings. Simcha Kuritzky managed the auction accounting and the Bison Chip drawing and Ed Russell handled Redbook sales. Special thanks to Dave Magee for writing large portions of this bulletin, and helping the usual but absent editor, Mark Zimmermann.

NumisRiddle Answer

"If you see a counterfeit dime on the street, should you pick it up or leave it alone?"

Well, you'd better pick it up --- you could go to jail for "passing" counterfeit money!

President's Notes

Want to help out a young collector in a tough spot? While working at Claude Moore Colonial Farm in October selling the farm's colonial currency, I happened to meet Donna Birkhofer, who was visiting one of the other farm volunteers. She told me about a nine-year old Iowa boy with a brain tumor who was collecting unusual and odd world coins. If you want to help out, send anything of interest to her and she will pass them along. Her address is: Donna Birkhofer, P.O. Box 242, Wilton, Iowa 52778.

I had the opportunity on November 18 to view the Mint's display of proposed designs for the new dollar coin scheduled for release in 2000. Sacajewea, a Shoshone women who was on the Lewis and Clark expedition, will be portrayed on the obverse, and an eagle on the reverse. Putting aside the squabble over the Statue of Liberty, race and political correctness, some of the designs are attractive and could make a nice coin.

My close friend, Burnett Anderson, Washington correspondent for Numismatic News and a MCCC speaker, passed away on November 26. I will miss him dearly.