Anchorage Coin Club Newsletter April 1995

The 1995 elections were held at the beginning of the March membership meeting with the following results:

Congratulations to all of the elected officials and best wishes to the outgoing staff!

As usual, upon stepping down from the presidency, Mike McKinnon is now a member of the board of directors.

The show committee had its first meeting on March 15th, immediately preceding the board of directors meeting. About ten people were in attendance for the event.

Among the items discussed was a reiteration of the need for proper accounting for all show income and expenses for tax purposes. It was also decided that one free table will be given to the promoter of each show due to the enormous amount of work that is involved in putting a show together.

As for scheduling, it was decided to continue to limit shows to no more than one per month, and no show during a month in which a coin club seminar is being held (typically once every other year in September). It was also decided that most shows would be two day events, although this is not a hard and fast rule.

An effort will be made to have at least one informational display at each show besides the promotional club table.

Attendees of the Northway Mall show in early March were treated to two first rate displays arranged by our club members.

Past president Bill D'Atri put together a very professional display on early forms of Alaskan money. A wide array of artifacts were shown with accompanying descriptions about the pieces and their use.

The other display was by another past president, Larry Nakata. With the help of our YNs, and loan of materials from several club members, Larry put together a display of altered or otherwise undesirable coinage. The pieces were seperated by type of alteration or method of production in the case of copies.

As mentioned above, we will be looking for people to form displays for all future shows. The idea behind them is to generate interest and/or to be informative. One major qualification is that the display has to be interesting, and written materials should explain things on a level that the non collecting public will understand.

If you are contemplating assembling a display for use at one or more of the club shows, you are encouraged to contact any of the people listed at the bottom of page two for guidance. Of course, your table for the display at the show will be provided at no cost.

There remains a sizable amount of material yet to be auctioned for our YN scholarship. These materials arrived up here too late to make it into the original auction. Also, two boxes of printed matter were donated by Anchorage Coin Club member John Larson.

Included in these two boxes were a number of books, old auction catalogs, magazines, and old issues of the Numismatist. There is a large quantity of literature here, and it is expected to generate some spirited bidding. Thanks John!

The April program to be held at the regular membership meeting will be a swap and shop.

The idea behind the swap and shop is that it is a time for members to bring coins that they wish to trade or sell to other members. Also, bring along your want lists, as this will be a chance to inspect new material before the Dimond mall show.

In many ways, this will be an extension of the activity that occurs immediately before each meeting in which members show around their new purchases and an abundance of buying, selling, and trading takes place. If all goes well, it is expected that this will become a fairly regular feature at our club meetings, so lets see how it goes this month.

"ANA's National Coin Week Offers Opportunity To Advance Hobby, April 16 - 22, 1995"

In celebration of the ANA's 72nd national coin week, collectors, clubs, and dealers are encouraged to put unusual but low value coins into circulation in order to increase awareness of coin collecting. Some popular items to spend are wheat cents, dateless buffalo nickels, and uncut sheets of currency.

Larry Nakata once again organized the annual contest in which the club's YNs are tested on their ability to seek out the best deals among the tables at the Northway Mall coin show. The winner, and still champion, was Nathaniel Grabman.

Nathaniel actually won by default because he was the only YN willing to brave the fierce winds that Friday night to come out to the Northway Mall. The other YNs who showed up on Saturday were given a chance to see how they would have done against the master Nathaniel. It was a close call, but Nathaniel would still have won against the competition, with new member Sarah Bilak being a strong competitor.

Larry is going gangbusters on this years seminar with 14 people already committed to attending. We still have a way to go before we hit the break even point of 23 people, so we need some more commitments. The sign up form is reproduced again below for your use.

It was recently announced in one of the major coin publications that Canada would soon begin production of a coin with a face value of $2, with a phase out of the $2 bill shortly thereafter.

Combine this with the fact that Mexico has put silver back in circulation, and it would seem that this continent can be numismaticaly described as a stupidity sandwich. Brilliant ideas are being thought of and acted on to the north and south of the United States while we sit and watch. Kind of makes us look stupid? Well, ridiculous at least as we continue to use a system that was developed centuries ago, and has seen little revision since that time.

Oh well, it appears that at least redesign of our paper money is on the horizon, with new $100 bills scheduled for production in 1996 and one new denomination each year thereafter.

Any member or subscriber may submit a classified ad for free publication. Ads are limited to 40 words, one per month, and may be rejected if suitability is questionable. Classified ads may be announcements, for sale, wanted, or whatever, as long as it is somehow related to numismatics, card collecting, or rondy pins. Call in your ad at 344-9856 or mail it to the club's PO box for publication.

Cardboard 2X2's. Sizes: dime, nickel, quarter, and dollar. $1.50 per 100. Cheap 2X2 boxes at 25 cents each. Limited supply. Delivery at club meetings or coin shows. Call Mike 344-9856.

In my first act as president, I would like to join Mike Greer, our new vice president, and the rest of the Anchorage Coin Club in thanking several individuals. We acknowledge and appreciate Mike McKinnon for his service as president. He worked hard to achieve an increase in our number of shows. Largely due to his efforts along with those of Paul Wheeler we are now incorporated as a non profit organization and we are in good shape financially.

Thanks are also in order to Paul for his past service as treasurer as Kurtis Hawk takes over for him. In addition, I would like to thank our newsletter editor, Mike Nourse, as he continues the duties of club secretary. Lastly, thanks to Larry Nakata who will be taking the open board member spot along with Roy Brown and the automatic appointment of Mike McKinnon. ALL OF YOUR CONTRIBUTIONS HAVE BEEN APPRECIATED!

This brings me to the subject of where the club should be heading. In his outgoing letter, Mike McKinnon stated that he wanted more membership participation and I would like to see that be our focus in the next year.

Several of the comments that I have heard during the last year have given me ideas. We now have a committee to take care of show functions. I propose bringing more programs to the meetings using more of our local talents. We have many diverse collecting interests and a multitude of untapped knowledge.

One of the things I would like the club to consider would be a swap & shop following the business meeting. At this time, we could swap and buy from other members or just visit. We might even want to include coin grading. Since we have phased out auctions except for the recent YN auction, we could have a periodic auction or bid board.

Show and tells are another interesting idea. You may recall that I did one on Canadian coins a while back and Larry Nakata did one on the coins of Hawaii. We could bring in coins related to the subject and follow the talk with a bid board or auction. Of course all of these ideas are just proposals. I remain open to new ideas and would appreciate input from the members.

In any event, I look forward to an eventful year. Good luck and good hunting to all of you!

Our March 10th YN meeting came on a very nasty, wintry day that saw wind chills to about 25 below zero in parts of town. As a result, only one die-hard YN showed up for the meeting..... Nathaniel Grabman. Nathaniel automatically became the winner of the Northway Mall Coin Show contest and had a pretty good selection of coins.

During the course of the Northway Mall coin show on Saturday and Sunday, those YNs who visited the show were given an opportunity to see how they would have fared against Nathaniel. Included in the group was Sarah Bilak, our newest YN member.

At our March 15th Anchorage Coin Club board meeting, we were split on which YN got the best deal for $10 (see comments by our editor in this month's newsletter).

Congratulations go out to YN Mike Greer on becoming the Anchorage Coin Club's Vice President. Mike was elected at our club's March meeting. Mike was at the ANA Atlanta Convention that week. That sort of thing does happen when you don't show up to the club meetings. His choice as Vice President is a first for our club, and Mike will do a fine job as Vice President.

There are still some items remaining to be auctioned off for our YN scholarship to the ANA Summer Seminar in Colorado Springs. We've got about $900 towards the scholarship thanks to donations and the generous support by our membership at the February auction. These remaining donated items arrived after the February auction and will be auctioned off at our regular club meeting in April. Included are various books on numismatic subjects and several hobo nickels. We ask for your support for such a good cause.

Our next YN meeting will be held at 7 PM on Friday, April 14th at our regular meeting place (the Central Lutheran Church on the corner of 15th and Cordova). The subject of the meeting will be on Coin Grading. See you YNs at the meeting..............

Once again, space does not permit the listing of each of the coins entered in the investment contest this month but here are the standings as the contest winds down:

Editor's note: this is the eighth installment in a series of articles started in August 1994.

The big news of the 1870's was westward expansion. The transcontinental railroad was just completed the previous year with the driving of the golden spike at Promontory Point, Utah. This westward expansion caused a great deal of hostility to brew up between the Indians and the settlers, starting in 1862 in Minnesota.

In 1871, an act was passed which put an end to the senseless treaty making with the Indians (treaties which were usually promptly broken by the settlers). The discovery of precious metals in the west, including the Comstock lode in Nevada and gold in the Black Hills, encouraged more and more settlers to move west.

One of the larger events in the Indian wars during this decade occurred in 1876. An army under General George Custer surprised a Sioux camp on the Little Big Horn river in Montana. The Sioux and Cheyenne surrounded the army and killed every member, including Custer.

Economically, the outlook was not good. A revision of the coinage laws put the United States on the gold standard, causing the silver bugs to refer to this legislation as the "Crime of '73". It demonitized the silver dollar and started production of the heavier trade dollar. It also altered the weights of the minor silver denominations among other changes. This all led to a depression that lasted through most of the decade.

The American Centennial Exposition was held in Philadelphia in 1876. A wide array of new technologies were shown to the general public for the first time, which helped to stimulate spending, helping to bring the country out of the depression.

The presidential election was also held in 1876. It was virtually a tie between the Republican and Democratic candidates, which led to accusations that each party had cheated in one manner or another. The country still thought of itself as north and south, so a compromise was struck. The Republican candidate, Rutherford B. Hayes, agreed to remove federal troops from the south and let the states run their own affairs if the Democrats would support his presidency. This was known as the compromise of 1877.

Another big event for coin collectors occurred during this decade. The Bland-Allison silver law was passed over the presidents veto. This law required that between two and four million ounces of silver had to be purchased monthly for minting into silver dollars. We all know that this was the beginning of the popular Morgan dollar series designed by George Morgan.

As popular as these dollars are now, they were unwanted back then. The dollars saw very little use in the eastern states, where paper money was in widespread circulation.

The Anchorage Coin Club

Meetings:       Membership meeting - First Wednesday of the month, 7:30 PM
                        E-Board meeting - Third Wednesday of the month, 7:00 PM
                        Meetings held at the Central Lutheran Church, at the corner of 15th and Cordova

Club Officers

President-                     Mike Orr      Days: 258-9100
V. President-                Mike Greer          Eves: 344-1907
Treasurer-                      Kurtis Hawk
Sec./Editor-                   Mike Nourse       Days: 344-9856
                                                                     Eves: 344-9856 msg.

Board of Directors

Mike McKinnon- Days: 786-7490
Eves: 248-0955

Roy Brown- Eves: 563-6708

Larry Nakata- Days: 269-5603
Eves: 563-1729

DUES

Life Membership                      $250
Regular Membership               $25/year
Associate Membership           $10/year
Junior Membership                  $5/year

To save cost, members not responding to renewal notices within three months will be considered inactive.

The Anchorage Coin Club is a non-profit organization formed to provide information, education, and a meeting place for individuals having an interest in numismatics.

Volume 8, Number 4		April 1995
	April Membership Meeting
Wed., April 5, 1995	Central Lutheran Church	7:00 Open 7:30 PM Meeting

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