This is the MCCC ARCHIVE – for the CURRENT Montgomery County Coin Club see https://montgomerycoinclub.org
September 1999 Bulletin - Early Web Edition
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!
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:
- Janna Shupe --- who began collecting when she was 10 years old, and renewed her interest in numismatics recently due to the 50-state series of commemorative quarters;
- Steve Wilke --- who found out about the MCCC at Julian Leidman's Bonanza Coin shop in downtown Silver Spring, where he picked up an
MCCC elongated cent & info card ... from which he discovered that we meet only a few blocks from his home;
- Ann McGuiness --- wife of MCCC member David; and
- Helen Elton --- from Pennsylvania, sister of MCCC member Mae Clarke.
Good to see you all!
Major announcements included:
- The club has received a sizeable donation from the widow of Ted Bennett, in gratitude to the MCCC for helping to liquidate his collection.
- Redbooks are for sale at the bargain price of $7.50, while they last; contact Ed Russell to reserve one. Ed also has some deep-discount coin supplies available (holders, rolls, albums, etc.) with proceeds to benefit the club.
- MCCC membership cards were mailed out with the bulletins this month; if you did not receive yours, contact Secretary Jack Schadegg.
- On October 1-3 the Virginia Numismatic Association will have its big coin show at the Annandale Campus of Northern Virginia Community College.
This is reportedly a great site, and the show has always attracted a strong turnout of dealers and numismatists.
- Also in October, the Vienna Community Center will host a Coin and Stamp Show, during the middle week of the month.
- Another major coin show is coming, December 10-12, in New Carrolton.
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:
- Richard Jozefiak displayed a 1 ECU piece from Gibraltar dated 1996. The ECU is money of the entire European Union (EU); a British
Crown is 2.8 ECUs, resulting in some interesting fractional coinage. The piece Richard displayed shows the coats of arms of the 12 member nations of the EU.
- The second coin that Richard Jozefiak showed was a British pattern piece, a motto half-farthing of 1887, graded Extremely Fine or better. The
coin is exceptional since it shows St. George slaying a dragon, unusual as a motif on such a small piece. The obverse has a young Queen Victoria portrait.
- Tom Hall exhibited multiple items in honor of Montgomery County Fair Week: a bronze 1973 medal for the Fair's 25th Anniversary, a similar
sterling Silver medal, and a 50th anniversary medal of 1998. The
Montgomery County Fair will be held Aug 13-21 this year. (Tom asked the audience
whether anyone had seen a gold 25th anniversary medal for the County Fair. They may exist but be exceedingly scarce.)
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.