Miami Valley Coin Club

Coin Show

First 2026 Meeting

Merry Christmas Coin Collectors

Wishing you and yours a VERY MERRY CHRISTMAS!

See you on January 8th for our first club meeting of 2026!

Thanksgiving Coins?

It may not have a turkey on it but it does come from Türkiye (the country)

Canada’s Unexplained Phenomena Coins

The Royal Canadian Mint’s Phenomena Coin series was began in 2018. The creation of these rectangular-shaped $20 coins is inspired by strange UFO events that have taken place in Canada. Each coin employs glow-in-the-dark technology that reveals hidden images when viewed under a black light. Each coin comes encapsulated in a custom case

2021 Canada Phenomena Coin

The 1894-S Barber Dime

The 1894-S dime is perhaps the rarest business strike coin ever produced by the US Mint.

Mint records report that only 24 coins were struck. It is believed that only 10 have survived. The book “The 100 Greatest United States Coins” rated the 1894-S dime as the sixth most desirable coin ever struck.

One rumor has it that only that many were produced to balance the “books” and a “testing of the dies”.

Another rumor says that the superintendent of the San Francisco Mint, John Daggett, struck 24 pieces, all proofs, as a favor for his banker friends. He gave 3 of these coins to his daughter, Hallie, telling her to put them away until 1954 when she was his age and then sell them for a good price. Not heeding her father’s advice, she supposedly used one to buy a dish of ice cream. In 1954 she was said to have sold the remaining two to coin dealer Earl Parker. These two dimes were eventually purchase by Louis Eliasberg.

Greatest US Coins ahead of the 1894-S dime:

1. 1804 dollar
2. 1913 Liberty nickel 
3. 1933 Saint-Gaudens double eagle 
4. 1849 Coronet double eagle 
5. 1907 Ultra High Relief double eagle

2025 Laser Engraved ASE on Sale Aug 20

This will be the first America Eagle Silver Proof minted using laser engraved die.

It will have a special privy mark to the left of Lady Liberty and will be limited to 100,000 coins. It goes on sale August 20, 2025 at the Mint’s sales centers. Looking on ebay, a seller is offering one for $350.

July 2025 Cincinnati Coin Expo

The expo runs the 25th (10am-6pm) & 26th (10am-3pm) at the Sharonville Convention Center. Highlights include:

125 dealer tables. ANACS Grading Service, Supply Dealer, Numismatic Book Give-aways, Gold Coin Raffle, Club elongated pennies, a young Numismatist Treasure Hunt, Coin striking demonstrations, and President Lincoln himself (A photo with the Pres. would make a great keepsake).

Attracting Young Collectors

Whitman Publishing is preparing to release a new book, Kids Love Coins. It contains 32 pages of educational content and will target youngsters ages 3 and up.

The topics include information from Lincoln cents to Kennedy half dollars with many illustrations. If you have younger children or grandchildren, this may be a great opportunity to spark their interest in coins and U.S. history.

Medals and Coins Celebrating U.S. Centennials

Our country’s 50th birthday celebration occurred on July 4, 1826. There were a few items made to honor the event, but perhaps the strangest thing that happened was that both Thomas Jefferson and John Adams, founding fathers and past presidents, died on that very day.

For our 100th birthday in 1876, many medals were struck to honor the occasion and there was a world’s fair in Philadelphia, the Centennial International Exhibition.

In 1926, for our 150th celebration, a pair of commemorative coins were struck, the 1926 Sesquicentennial Half and the 1926 Sesquicentennial Quarter Eagle.

In 1976, the Mint struck bicentennial quarters, halves, and Eisenhower dollars.

Good Can Come From Acts of Spite

A man in Richmond, Virginia, decided to make his final child support payment by dumping 80,000 pennies in front of his ex-wife and daughter’s home. The daughter, who had just turned 18 years old, and her mother chose to transform this act of spite into an opportunity to spread kindness. 

The two donated every cent—totaling $800—to Safe Harbor, a local shelter for victims of domestic and sexual violence. Turning around and donating that money to moms and children in need turned a spiteful situation into a positive one.

The story went viral and inspired multitudes of people to pay it forward. Safe Harbor reported a surge in donations from across the nation and even internationally, surpassing $47,000. 

This goes to show that a coin’s value isn’t always determined by its rarity, condition, or provenance. History you can hold in your hands certainly has its place in numismatics, but humanity you can hold in your heart has a place everywhere.

U.S. Army Bicentennial

On June 14, 1775 the Continental Army was formed to fight for our country’s independence. Of the 6 branches of our armed forces, the army is the oldest and the largest.

In 1975, the Mint produced a 3-inch bronze medal to celebrate the Army’s bicentennial.

1925 Lexington Commemorative

Saturday, April 19^th, is the 250^th anniversary of “The Shot that was Heard ‘Round the World”, the beginning of 13 colonies fight for freedom from King George III and England. The battle kicked off the American Revolutionary War.

Tensions had been building for many years between residents of the colonies and British authorities. The night before, hundreds of British troops marched from Boston to Concord in order to seize the colonists’ weapons cache.  Paul Revere, and other Sons of Liberty, began their famous rides, giving the colonists time to mobilize against the British. The signal was to be one lantern in the Old North Church if the British were coming by land, and two lanterns if they were coming by sea.

The fighting started off on the Lexington town green, and even today no knows who shot first. When the shooting stopped, eight militiamen lay dead, nine more were wounded. Only one British soldier was wounded.

The British continued on to Concord but the weapons had already been relocated. The militiamen hurried to Concord’s North Bridge and began trading volleys with British soldiers. It wasn’t long before the British troops beat a hasty retreat.

President Calvin Coolidge authorized the 1925 Lexington Commemorative, which celebrates the Sesquicentennial of the battles at Lexington and Concord. The obverse features a Minuteman soldier with his rifle, the reverse features the Old Belfry at Lexington, Massachusetts. 162,099 were struck and only 86 were not sold or distributed.

Trump Considers Selling Fort Knox Gold

With gold reaching just over $3,110 per ounce, President Trump is considering sell all of the gold in Fort Knox, this according to an Associated Press report.

At present, America’s reported holding in gold is 8,133.46 metric tons. One metric ton is equal to 35,274 ounces. That comes to 286,899,668.04 ounces, or at today’s price of gold, $892,257,967,604.40.

What would happen to the price of gold if that many ounces came onto the market?

2025 Dayton Kettering Coin Show

DOGE vs. the Penny

Elon Musk and the Department of Government Efficiency may be taking aim at eliminating the one-cent piece.

In a post on X, DOGE highlighted the penny’s mounting cost of production. In recent years there have been many discussions about eliminating the production of our one-cent piece. Now, DOGE is taking an interest.

In 2023, the Mint produced 4.5 billion pennies at a cost on $86 million. That comes to about $0.02 to produce each penny. (Nickels added another $93 million to the cost, or $0.065/each.) The penny’s unit cost to produce rose 12.9% in 2023.

Other countries, including Canada and Sweden have stopped producing one-cent coins:

• Canada in 2012
• Sweden in 1971
• Switzerland in 2006
• Bahamas in 2014
• Jamaica in 2012

A 2020 survey found that 58% of people agreed that new penny production should cease. Is our one-cent coin collecting coming to an end?

1813 Australian Holey Dollar & Dump

Two hundred years ago, Australia stamped its first distinctive Australian coins. The NSW Government took 40,000 Spanish silver dollars (equal to £10,000) and punched a hole in the center to create their coinage, using both the holed coin (dubbed the holey dollar, equal to 5 shillings) and the punched out center (known as the dump, equal to 15 pence).

The official coiner was William Henshall. He was a former convict who had been transported to Great Britain’s penal colony, Australia, for of all things counterfeiting Bank of England dollars. His sentence was 7 years transportation.

It was supposed to take three months to accomplish but ended up taking twelve. The 1813 “dollars” didn’t enter into circulation until 1814. While Henshall was working in Sydney, the same idea was going on in Prince Edward Island, Canada. So there are also holey dollars and dumps from Canada.

NSW began recalling holey dollars and dumps in 1822 and the coinage was finally demonetized 1n 1829. They were melted down and sold to the Bank of England as bullion.

In 2013, the Royal Perth Mint issued a commemorative set of holey dollars and dumps, made out of aluminum and bronze, and valued at 1 dollar.

Today, there are about 300 holey dollars and 800 dumps that are original and survive.

4 Quarters w/Washington on Both Sides

There are two 50 State Quarters with George Washington pictured on both sides, the 1999 New Jersey quarter (the reverse with the famous painting by Leutze  “Washington Crossing the Delaware”) and the 2006 South Dakota quarter (the reverse depicting Mount Rushmore).

The third example is the one-year type 2021 Washington Crossing the Delaware quarter. The Mint issued this quarter as a stopgap between the final ATB Quarters and the 2022 American Women Quarters. It also happened to be the 224^th anniversary of Washington’s 1776 crossing.

The last example is the 2013 ATB Mount Rushmore Quarter. Once again the reverse shows the portraits of the Presidents as they were being carved onto the mountain.

Other coins with double depictions include two of the special 2009 Lincoln Cents (“Formative Years” and “Professional Life”), the 1934-1938 Boone Commemorative Half Dollar (Boone on both sides), the 1900 Lafayette Dollar (Lafayette on both sides).

Scrip: An Alternative for Legal Tender

Scrip was issued by State, County & City municipalities or private merchants or other businesses. It was issued not only by mining companies, but also by industrial giants. Scrip was not legal tender and was usually issued in denominations less than $1 during times of financial stress (when coins were hoarded and unavailable) to help businesses make change for their transactions. In general, this scrip was only accepted locally.

Most scrip issues happened during the Great Depression, approximately 1932 to 1938. Scrip was issued by a company to pay its employees and usually could only be exchanged in company stores owned by the employers. Doing so would allow the companies to avoid paying taxes and other costs associated with paying employees in cash. Often the scrip was worth less than actual currency, forcing employees to shop where prices were inflated and quality was poor. Often left with no money by the end of the week, it made it impossible for employees to leave the company and find other work.

 Fair Labor Act of 1938 prohibited employers from paying employees with scrip and required workers to be paid in actual currency.

There are many ways to collect scrip:

• By location
• By theme
• By denomination
• Use your imagination

Despite the 1938 law, scrip is alive and well today, if you take the time to recognize its different forms:

• Gift cards
• Local currencies
• Coupons
• Vouchers