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Montgomery County Coin Club

September 1999 Bulletin - Early Web Edition

Meeting Report - Featured Article - Feedback - MCCC Home Page - Bulletin Index

Next Meeting: Tuesday, September 14, 1999

Guest Speaker: To Be Announced

The Montgomery County Coin Club will meet at 7 p.m. on Tuesday, September 14, 1999, at the Silver Spring Senior Citizens Center (1000 Forest Glen Road, Silver Spring, Maryland, USA). The featured speaker will be announced later.

Special MCCC Offer: Several copies of the new (Year 2000) hardback Guide Book of United States Coins by R. E. Yeoman are still available. Fresh off the press, the Y2k "Red Book" will sell for $12.95 in stores, but the special MCCC member price is only $7.50. Get yours before they're all gone!


August Meeting Report

Via reel-to-reel tape and 35mm slides, long-time MCCC numismatist Mae Clarke surveyed the "classic" series of commemorative coins of the USA. See the Featured Article below for details.

At 7:12pm on the warm evening of August 10, 1999, thirty coin enthusiasts (including three Young Numismatists) attended the MCCC meeting. Four first-time visitors were welcomed with friendly applause:

Good to see you all!

Major announcements included:

Door Prizes were two Eisenhower dollars (dated 1971 and 1974) and three British shillings (from 1922, 1941, and 1943). Lucky winners were Mae Clarke (who drew her own ticket!), Mary Karaberi, Dorothy Blank, John Chiusano, and Irving Blank. The 50-50 raffle was won by Tom Hall. No Bison Chip drawing was held in August. Richard Jozefiak awarded all prizes; Willy Massey was the auctioneer.

August Exhibitionists

In the MCCC Display Case:

Featured Attraction: Mae Clarke on Classic Commemoratives

The main event this month was a "blast from the past" presentation surveying the entire series of US commemorative coins from 1892 to 1954. This talk was originally given almost a quarter of a century age, and was recorded on a set of reel-to-reel audio tapes. Mae Clarke (who was present at the August 1999 meeting) was MCCC Vice President when she spoke. The lecture was illustrated by slides of commemoratives from the collection of Ms. Clarke's late husband Joe, whose voice was heard at the beginning of the tape.

The US commemorative coin series began with the 1892 World's Fair half dollar depicting Christopher Columbus on the obverse and his ship with world maps on the reverse. The entire classic commemorative series consists of 157 varieties: one quarter, one silver dollar, nine gold dollars, two quarter eagles, two $50 gold pieces, and the rest half dollars.

Mae Clarke's talk reviewed the coins in chronological order, through the Booker T. Washington - George Washington Carver pieces of 1954, when the series ended. Along the way there were many abuses by promoters and special interests out to profit at the public expense. In the year 1936, for instance, a total of 20 different half dollar types were minted.

When Ms. Clarke gave her talk, the 1776-1976 clad copper-nickel commemorative quarters, halves, and dollars had just been issued in honor of the bicentennial of the USA. How time flies!


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, who thank the American Numismatic Association (and especially Ms. Susie Nulty) for help in sharing this bulletin with numismatists everywhere.