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Montgomery County Coin Club

March 2001 Bulletin - Early Web Edition

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MCCC: A Collector's Club for the New Millennium

Next Meeting: Tuesday, March 13, 2001

The Montgomery County Coin Club will meet at 7 p.m. on the second Tuesday of the month, March 13, 2001, at the Silver Spring Senior Citizens Center (1000 Forest Glen Road, Silver Spring, Maryland, USA). The featured event was not yet determined as of press time for this Bulletin.

February Meeting Report

The guest speaker at the February 2001 MCCC meeting was Robert Hickox, who shared some of his varied experiences collecting silver Washington quarters for the past 15 years. See the Featured Article below for details.

MCCC President Jack Schadegg called the MCCC to order at 7:15 p.m. on the evening of February 13, 2001. About 40 MCCC members were present, including one Young Numismatist (YN). One first-time visitor was welcomed: Caroline Joss. Great to see you! (Members: don't forget to invite friends and relatives, especially YNs, to come with you to the next MCCC meeting.)

News & Announcements

Drawings & Prizes

Willy Massey announced the February door prizes: Lucky door prize winners were Bill Massey, Frank Palumbo, Caroline Joss (bravo to our visitor!) and Sterling Bogley. MCCC junior member Nicky Luck won the Gold Raffle prize, a 1/10 ounce U.S. gold bullion coin (dated 2000). Steve Lokey won his first leg of the 3-legged Bison Chip drawing. Don't forget: you must be present (and have paid your dues!) when your name is called in order to win the Bison Chip. Congratulations to all the winners --- and to everyone else, better luck next month!

February Exhibits

The MCCC Display Case this month contained a rich assortment of interesting items:

Featured Attraction: Rob Hickox on Washington Quarters

At the February 2001 meeting the main event was a presentation by Robert Hickox. Mr. Hickox has been collecting Washington Quarters for about 13 years. He is working on a MS63 or better Uncirculated set of the silver years, 1932-1963 --- a goal that "an average collector" (as Rob characterizes himself) can hope to attain. Rob keeps his coins stored in a high grade Capitol Plastics Holder to protect the items. He has most of the coins except for the six rarest in uncirculated condition.

Mr. Hickox said that high grade Washingtons like MS68 just do not exist. He advised collectors to be careful of cleaned "uncirculated" coins. Natural toning may or may not affect the price. Silver coins do tone naturally over time; Rob has noticed a change in some of his silver quarters during his 13 years of collecting.

Rob Hickox has other Washington quarter silver varieties which he did not exhibit. He talked about counterfeit 1932 Philadelphia and 1934 Philadelphia pieces which exist in the higher grades. He mentioned that San Francisco mint quarters tend to be more poorly stuck, possibly because the dies were used to strike a greater number of coins each. Rob discussed several die varieties in the years 1934 and 1935 (two mottos) and a 1934 double die obverse. Even a triple ("D/D/D") mint mark exists, he reported.

While looking at a uncirculated coin at a dealer's table, Rob cautioned that lighting has some effect: incandescent lighting is best, since with it you can see some flaws better --- but it does hide the toning of the coin; fluorescent light shows post-minting scratches better.


In Memorium: Frank J. Katen

Ed Russell offers the following information from personal recollections plus an obituary published in Numismatic News:

Fellow MCCC club member, numismatist, and coin dealer Frank J. Katen died on January 21st of this year at the age of 98. He last spoke to the MCCC in mid-1995. Frank attended MCCC meetings regularly in the late 1970's and during the 1980's, but his age slowed him considerably in the 1990's.

Frank Katen was born in 1903 in Bronx, New York. In 1938 he started selling numismatic coins, currency and literature. He joined the ANA about that time as Life Member #132. In 1945 Frank opened a coin shop in New Haven, Connecticut, and also at that time served the American Coin Dealers Association as Secretary. In 1951 Frank became a founding member of the International Association of Professional Numismatists. According to the MCCC Bulletin, in April 1966 Frank visited the Club and was the Guest Speaker at the monthly meeting; he discussed the topic "Some Odd and Curious Money of the World".

Frank Katen and his wife Laurese, who still survives, moved to the area (about 4 miles north of the Capitol Beltway, on New Hampshire Avenue) in the early 1970's, and while retired opened and operated a coin & stamp store in a second-floor office area of the Cloverly Shopping center for a number of years.

In 1977 Frank helped appraise the American Numismatic Association's Library, and in turn donated a large anount of his numismatic material to it last year. He held over 80 numismatic auctions, many in this area, including the last four which disposed of a large portion of his 50-year collection of numismatic literature. He also donated several items to the MCCC Library's collection. Frank was a member of the Royal Numismatic Society, New York Coin Club, Montgomery County Coin Club, Washington Numismatic Society, and Middle Atlantic Numismatic Association, now part of the Eastern States Numismatic Association.

Contributions in Mr. Katen's name may be made to the ANA Library.


Auction & Aftermath

A special thanks to Ed Russell for taking detailed notes for this Bulletin (reporter Mark Zimmermann was unavoidably absent from the February 2001 meeting). Thanks also to Simcha Kuritzky for providing additional material.
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 © 2001 by the Directors of the Montgomery County Coin Club --- who thank the American Numismatic Association (and especially Ms. Susie Nulty) for help in sharing the MCCC Bulletin with numismatists everywhere.