This month we'll have our semi-annual auction of member coins with all proceeds going to the sellers. Click here to see a list of lots to be sold. This is only a starting list. You can bring any other items to the meeting for sale. Click here for directions on getting a buyer's card and how to present your coins for sale.
Bring along something for show and tell. What goodie did you find this month? What experience interested you and might interest some of us?
During the business portion of the November meeting we will accept nominations for the offices of Vice President and Treasurer. The election will be during the December meeting. Are you interested? Please come forward during the meeting if you are. Don't be bashful. Take your turn at the helm.
According to our constitution, we can change the bylaws during the December meeting with a two-thirds vote of the members in good standing present at the meeting in December.
Your officers propose a change to Article V of the constitution. The latter part of Section 4 of article V states that "The Secretary will not be assessed dues during term of office." Due the amount of effort and time required to discharge their duties, and in appreciation for their efforts, we believe that all officers (not just the secretary) should not have to pay dues during their time in office. With that in mind, we propose the following change to the latter part of Article V, Section 4:
"The President, Vice President, Treasurer, and Secretary will not be assessed dues during their term of office."
According to the bylaws we bring this up for discussion during the November meeting so we can vote on it in December.
Sunday, October 26 brings your 35th Annual Elgin Coin Club Coin Show right to our regular meeting hall, the VFW Post 1307 from 9am to 3pm! It's free! We'll have a handout for all young collectors and there'll be a YN auction at 1pm! Doug will have a free coin grading and appraisal booth and we'll give out free door prizes every half hour. Plan to come. Plan to help. Plan to have a fun day! Promote coin collecting! Bring family and friends!
(Sorry Internet people, it's already gone. See the home page for an early report on the show.)
| Opened: | around 7:50 |
| Closed: | around 9:10 |
| Members: | 20 |
| Yns: | 5 |
| Guests: | 2 |
President Doug N. called the 478th meeting of the Elgin Coin Club to order around 7:50pm at VFW Post 1308.
The minutes were accepted as published.
Don read the numbers listed above and you accepted them.
Harold reported that all tables were sold. He also put out signup sheets. A few signed up. But we still could use some help at the club tableūso just volunteer for an hour or so while you are there.
We will give out cent boards to the youth and dealers will have dishes of cents for the youth to put into their boards.
I announced we are on the internet. You can visit our home page at www.worksandwords.com/coins/ecc where you can find an email contact. A rough version of the August Newsletter is there. And a very much better version of the October one is there. I will be putting each Newsletter there a few days after I send it out to each of you.
Doug brought up the need to look for a new home for our meeting and little came of it. As mentioned in the last newsletter, we could save ourselves several bucks if we did something about this.
Rich E. had $15,000 in three Las Vegas tokensūtoo bad they are no longer valid!
Bud H. had a fabulous set of slabbed Indian cents. He didn't show them formally in Show and Tell but several of us had a chance to look at something I don't think we'll see again all in one place for some time. He deserves mention her. Thanks for the treat, Bud.
| Membership: | Adam R. |
| YN: | Shae F. |
| Raffle: | Alex F., Mike C., Mark F., Bruce the bartender |
| Door: | 9 stock certificates went to 9 members |
We had a break to talk and sell raffle tickets. I announced we are exchanging newsletters with the Anchorage, Alaska Coin Club. We then drew for and issued the prizes listed above.
We had a really wonderful White Elephant Sale that brought a hammer value of $145 plus for the club. Thanks to everyone who brought items and to everyone who bought items. Thanks too to Don for calling the auction.
The meeting ended around 9:10.
Submitted by Mike Metras
Herb Barth, a former club president died on October sixth. Thanks for your serivce to the club, Herb.
Don, Harold, Doug, and I met at Don's early this month on October 10th for the board meeting.
We spent a lot of time going over the details of getting everything together at the right time and place for the Show. Everything is "GO."
We are looking into having the Xmas dinner at the VFW as last year. If it works out, the club will pay for members and immediate family again. During the November meeting, be ready to give us numbers on how many of you will attend.
I agreed to assembling a current copy of the constitution along with any amendments that may have been done to it. I will be looking over all past publications beginning after the beginning of the new year. I do not have time to do it before. If you have any materials that would help me do this, I'd be most appreciative of your help.
The officers agreed to have the club pay $10 per month for the internet home page with the moneys coming from the advertisements that we currently are receiving for the printed Newsletters. No new money will be needed to cover this expense. To encourage more advertisers ("sponsors"), their ads, in addition to being in the Newsletter, will be placed on the internet home page as sponsors of the club along with their business cards. We invite any and all to take part in this.
Keep checking your pocket change. You never know what you might find.
[editor: This is quite a group of coins to find in circulation in two thirds of a year. I haven't been keeping track of what I get but I think I will in the future. How about you? Scratch down what you have found on a piece of paper and I'll put it here for everyone. Frankly, I'm surprised at the earlier cents and silver dimes Jim found. It pays to keep your eyes open.]
Bar Copper (scanned from A Guide Book of United States Coins,
1996) (Click here to enlarge)
This is not something you will find in pocket change. In the time between the Revolutionary War and when the Congress finally established the Mint in 1792 (and even long after) there was a great shortage of all coinage. The coins of many other countries circulated in small quantities here.
One of the major foreign players was the Spanish Piece of Eight. But that is for another month. This month we are talking about a very small player, the Bar Cent or, more correctly, the Bar Copper.
The Bar Copper has 13 parallel bars on one side and a USA monogram on the other side. The 1782 great seal of the United States represents the 13 colonies as 13 stripes. The Bar Copper was probably was commissioned by a New York merchant, designed and engraved by George Wyon III, and minted at the Wyon Mint in Birmingham, England. It probably first circulated in New York in late 1785. It joined many other minor copper tokens issued by several state authorities and private concerns. Breen states that "they surely passed ... at 14 to the shilling," making the old name "ūbar cent' a misnomer not worth preserving."
Breen quotes the Nov, 12, 1785, New Jersey Gazette as saying that bright new coppers are circulating and they "are similar to the Continental buttons without eyes." The Gazette continues, "If the Congress does not take the establishment of a Mint into consideration and carry it into effect it is probable that the next coin which may come into circulation, as we have a variety of them, will be the soldiers old pewter buttons, for they are nearly as variable as the coppers above described and hardly so plenty."
The bar copper is usually found in fine to uncirculated. The Red Book values them at $400 vg, $800 f, $1,500 vf, and $2,200 ef.
There are many forgeries of this bar copper but Breen reports that all genuine coins "have a tiny spine protruding from near the end of the second bar, pointing to the third; usually there is also a tiny die crack joining two bars almost in the center of the coin. [ed: neither mark is visable on the photo.] These marks are absent from any of the die-struck forgeries, though they may show on cast or electrotype copies of the originals."
All buyers, stop at the table and pick up a bid number.
After the auction, come up and promptly pay for the coins you have bought. Please do this quickly so we can get the money to the sellers. Thanks.
Rules, rules, rulesūsomeone always has to make rules. Well, here are oursūthe general rules for the Elgin Coin Club auctions as worked out by the officers and accepted by the members at the March, 1996 meeting. They are reprinted here from the April, 1996 Newsletter.
These advertisements (the boxes with names) are paid for by specific donations of cash, door prizes, membership prizes, and raffle prizes for our Elgin Coin Club. Please support the advertisers. Consider them early on as you go looking for your coins and paper.
Look at the Elgin Coin Club Home Page for more information.
This Newsletter is the informal mouthpiece of the Elgin Coin Club. This Newsletter and its contents are copyrighted but you may use anything herein (accept as noted below) for non-commercial use as long as you give credit to the Elgin Coin Club Newsletter. This blanket permission does not extend to articles specifically marked as copyrighted by the author of the article. In the latter case, you must get explicit written permission from the author either directly or through the Newsletter to use that material.