Miami Valley Coin Club

July Club Meeting… NOT!!

Once again the pandemic has reared its ugly head and caused our club meeting to be cancelled.

We need to find a location that does not have to play by our government’s social distancing rules. Everyone should start looking for new possible meeting locations.

Attention World Paper Money Collectors

A town in central Italy began printing its own banknotes during the Coronavirus outbreak. Castellino del Biferno, 158 mils southwest of Rome is putting out “Ducati” notes for their citizens to use for essential goods at shops in the town.

The notes are worth about one Euro each. Every two weeks, a store that accepts the notes can return the notes to the town and receive the equal amount in actual Euros. Each note features a town landmark, ranging from a church to a public swimming pool.

Wouldn’t one of these notes be a neat addition to a world paper money collection?

NO JUNE MEETING

The church says (following advice from Governor DeWine), “No groups larger than 10 allowed!”

Time to seriously search for a new club meeting location so that we, the group, can decide when to meet and how many. Social distancing is getting very boring!

Can’t have a “club” if we’re not allowed to meet!

Designer of the Sacagawea Dollar Passes

New Mexico artist and Sacagawea golden-dollar designer Glenna Goodacre died of natural causes on April 13, 2020. She was 80 years old. Besides the dollar coin, she created several large scale sculptures including the Vietnam Women’s Memorial on the National Mall in Washington D.C., the Irish Memorial at Penn’s Landing in Philadelphia, and the Puddle Jumpers in Montgomery, Alabama.

Although for the most part, the American public has shown little affection for modern day U.S. dollar coins, if you travel outside the country, particularly in Ecuador, you will find that the Sacagawea coin is vastly popular with the its citizenry.

The numismatic community has lost a great artist.

May Meeting Cancelled

Once again the Coronavirus has struck our club! Because only 10 of us would be able to gather at one time (Thank you Mr. DeWine) we will once again hold off, until June this time.

Hope everyone is well and staying safe. Can you image the looks if we all showed up in facemarks for a coin club meeting. They’d call in a swat team! LOL!

The Great Toilet Paper Panic of ‘73: History Repeats Itself Yet Again!

We all could use a little humor in our lives in these crisis times. This will relate back to the PSA-graded sheet of toilet paper that was shown on our website a few weeks back.

It seems the 2020 toilet paper “pandemic” isn’t the first one in our country’s history. It happened before, in 1973, along side the OPEC Oil Embargo. Most of our members (except for all you younger members) remember the lines for gasoline but most of us were not responsible for doing the grocery shopping. We don’t recall (no jokes about memory loss, young people) lining up for toilet paper. But it did happen!

Check out this humorous video of those oh so ancient days.

Coronavirus Affects All of Us

Auctions and coin club meetings aren’t the only things being affected by our country’s shutdown. The Mint announced that it was closing two mint facilities. The West Point Mint was shutdown for just a few days after an employee tested positive for Covid-19. The San Francisco Mint was closed indefinitely. The S.F. closure stopped production of the 2020-S Enhanced Uncirculated Basketball Hall of Fame half-dollar.

Wouldn’t it be great if you were a Mint press operator and you had to “work from home”? You’d have money out the wazoo at your house!

Interesting “Variety”

A person recently posted a photo of his coin on a coin blog. The coin’s owner wanted to know if anyone could help him identify it by variety.

Someone quickly replied that it was known as the “Luna” variety.

The owner said that he had never heard of the “Luna” variety and asked what distinguished that variety.

The answer came back just as fast that it is called the “Luna” variety because it looked like the surface of the moon.

Ha, ha!

Coin Collectors Have a Great Sense of Humor!

April Meeting Cancelled

Concerns about the Covid-19 outbreak have caused us to cancel our

April 9, 2020 meeting.

Stay Safe! Stay Healthy! See you in June (we hope)!

March Meeting Tonight!

Our club is getting bigger and bigger with great presentations and exciting club auctions with no buyer’s or seller’s fees. Join us and let’s talk

MONEY!!

Paper Money Trivia

Let’s have some fun with U.S. currency trivia. The answers will be revealed at our next club meeting, Thursday March 5th, 2020.

How many “1’s” are on a Series 1935 $1 Silver Certificate?

What was the first U.S. paper currency to have the motto “In God We Trust” on it?

How many paper notes does the Mint print every year? You don’t have to be exact, just close!

Which U.S. colony was the first to issue paper money?

“In God We Trust”: How Much Longer?

I’ve read on an Internet coin forum lately about whether we should keep the motto “In God We Trust” on our coins. Some are of the opinion that the motto should be removed and they have been putting forth legal challenges to do just that. So far these challenges have been unsuccessful. But is it a matter of time before this happens?

The courts so far have decided to write this off as a “tradition” and say that the motto is not really a religious message.

I think one of the real problems is that people want the American way of life as long as it fits their beliefs, traditions, and lifestyles instead of conforming to what American is: the land of the free and the home of the brave. I think that there are many more problems in our country, things like homelessness, quality education, and hungry children. We don’t need to worry about “offending” someone who has nothing better to do than complain about the motto on our money!

It’s just my opinion. Maybe it would be interesting to discuss this topic at our next club meeting on March 5th.

2020 MVCC Coin Show

A Cashless Society?

Will digital commerce spell the end to coins and paper currency? As collectors we certainly hope not. The Wall Street Journal doesn’t think coins and paper money will go away either. Below is an excerpt from last weekend’s edition:

“It turns out that good old-fashioned cash has a constituency—and investors may regret ignoring it. Shares of companies whose fortunes are tied to physical cash in a major way, such as ATM providers like Cardtronics or Diebold Nixdorf, or companies that transfer or protect cash, like Western Union or Brink’s, soared last year. Over the past year through Thursday, those four stocks on average are up 83%. That easily tops the average 39% gain for Mastercard, PayPal, Square and Visa.

Only two countries, Russia and Sweden, had a net substitution of cards for cash from 2007 to 2016, with cash in circulation shrinking as card payments grew…In other countries tracked, including the U.S., both cash demand and card payments have grown.”

Warning to all you online only shoppers:

If and when a major power outage occurs you may as well go to bed because you wont be able to spend your electronic money. And If the power does go out, where can you go shopping anyway? And another thought; do you really want all of your money to be stored digitally on a piece of silicon, one that could be hacked and stolen?

George H. W. Bush Dollar Coin?

In a second attempt, Congress may authorize a coin to be added to the Presidential Dollar Series, that of George H. W. Bush. Last year a bill for the coin was introduced in legislation but neither house of Congress passed the bill. This year a bill for the coin was once again introduced and has been passed by the Senate. We’ll have to wait and see if the bill is brought in front of the House of Representatives and then sent to the President’s desk for signing.

Just when you think you have completed a coin series, a new coin is added.

First Meeting of 2020

Tonight is our first meeting of 2020. This will be our first chance to show off any new Christmas additions to our collections. Come on out and have some fun!

A Man’s Man

He was a champion for small business; he renamed the executive mansion the White House. He was a war hero, doubled the number of national parks and created 16 national monuments. He won a Nobel Prize and helped physically dig the Panama Canal. He was the first President to ride in a car, a plane, and a submarine. Then Theodore Roosevelt started on U.S. coins.

Teddy loved the look of ancient Greek coins. In 1905, at a Washington dinner, Teddy met someone who thought the same way he did about ancient coins, Augustus Saint-Gaudens. Along with Saint-Gaudens and others he began to transform U.S. coins into some of the most beautiful in U.S. history. The cent, the quarter eagle, the half eagle, the eagle, and the double eagle were all redesigned. His only loss in his redesign endeavor was that Teddy didn’t want “In God We Trust” on the coins. Due to public outrage over this, Roosevelt gave in and allowed it.

2019 MVCC Christmas Party

Our Christmas party will be held this Thursday, December 5, at Archer’s Tavern (2030 E. Dorothy Lane) at 7:00pm. Come enjoy the party and toast ole St. Nick. Good food, good talk, good friends, GREAT door prizes! Everyone interested in numismatics is welcome!

Christmas Tradition Origins

The Stockings Were Hung

A widowed man who was worried he could not provide for his three daughters. St. Nicholas heard about the family’s hardships and filled the daughters’ stockings, which were drying by the fire, with gold coins.

Decorating the Christmas Tree

Evergreen trees have long been thought to be lucky since they remain green even in the dead of winter. The modern Christmas tree can be traced back to German Lutherans in the 17th century, and they were first seen in the US in Pennsylvania in the 1820s (where many German immigrants settled).

Old Saint Nick Himself

The oldest legend of St. Nicholas dates back to 280 A.D. in modern-day Turkey. As the story goes, a monk named St. Nicholas was generous and kind, giving away his wealth to those in need.

Last Regular Meeting of 2019

Tonight is the last regular meeting of 2019. Come out and talk numismatics and get the final details about our 2019 Christmas party!