You, the members who went to the ANA World's Fair of Money in August, you will be our program this month. We ask each of you who went to the show to get up and talk about your experiences, what you gave to the show and what you got from it. Think of it as a grand Show and Tell night.
During this meeting we are beginning our new No Smoking policy. The board discussed our ongoing problem with smoke and decided it is time to ban smoking during the meeting. We know it has been brought up before and that we have not taken it seriously enough. But now we ask you if you have to smoke during the couple hours we are there for the meeting, please do so outside or in the bar. Thanks much for not smoking.
| Opened: | around 7:55 |
| Closed: | around 9:30 |
| Members: | 27 |
| YNs: | 4 |
| Guests: | 3 |
President Doug Nelson called the meeting to order around 7:55.
The minutes were accepted as published.
The Treasurer's Report was accepted.
Two more tables were sold for the show. At this time we are not sure if all of the tables will be sold. All told, a total of 12 tables are paid for.
The Elgin Coin Club's Newsletter won 2nd place for the best newsletter. Anchorage took first this year.
Reid Geisler was sponsored by Mike M. and accepted as our newest member. Congratulations Reid, welcome to the Elgin Coin Club. Reid's coin interests are US Coins.
Don C. brought in some Casino tokens. When he purchased them, he thought they were Eisenhower dollars' they turned out to be tokens so he only bought three. It wasn't until later that he discovered that they were dated. He wished he had picked up a few more.
Al brought in a collection of some interesting elongated cents. Among them were some from the 1904 St. Louis World's Fair, Dionne Quints, the Golden Gate Bridge and the Oakton Bridge.
Our Guests from Hillside Coin Club brought in some Wooden tokens from their club to pass out to the members. Thank you Hillside Coin Club.
Mike showed us the uncirculated mint sets he purchased over the internet. He got them in just three days so if you have access to the internet you may want to consider purchasing more products through the mint's site (You do not have to pay the new $3.50 shipping charge there).
Jim had an interesting 1910 Mark Twain coin.
Our guest Bob Feiler, president of the Hillside Coin Club, who collects odd denomination currency, brought in a 1916 10,000.00 US Gold Federal Reserve Note with an interesting story behind it. On December 13, 1935 at the Washington D.C. Post Office there was a fire. In the rush to get all of the combustible items out of the building, it seems that the Fire Department tossed out a bunch of boxes, some of them containing canceled ten thousand dollar US Reserve Notes in them. They were laying around on the ground to be picked up by almost anyone.
Denise brought in food for all to enjoy for the 500th celebration and she made wonderful "cameo" bordered Kennedy halves for us all.
Mike Metras had a wonderful presentation for the 500th Coin Club Meeting. He was unable to get a lot of memorabilia from past years so his presentation took a different spin. He noted that the coin club was first established in September 1957 and provided us with a lot of world history and the many different things that the club had seen over the years. He also had a quiz for the YN's to participate in and try to win a walking liberty half for a correct answer.
There was a special 500th Anniversary One Dollar Note, designed by Mike, that was passed out to each person present for the 500th meeting. It has pictures of all of the Club's officers and was signed by them as well. If anyone is interested in purchasing one (@$2), please see Mike MMetras.
Mike Cerny won a enlarged copy of the Note that was signed by all of the members attending the meeting.
I apologize, I did not get the names of the raffle winners. I was rifling around in the suitcases for something when the raffle and door prizes were being handed out. [Editor's note: I remember that our guests from Hillside won more than one of the prizes. I'll have to go and win theirs next month when I give my talk there.]
Meeting adjourned around 9:30 PM.
Submitted by Jennifer Schulze
Gloria Rovelstad died on August fifth. Gloria was the wife of Trygve Rovelstad, the designer of the Elgin Commemorative Half Dollar and many other artistic projects. Gloria often made it for our White Elephant sales in recent years--she brought white elephants! I think Don and Marty each have one of them. Trygve died several years ago. For you newer member Gloria and Trygve were long-time active members of the Elgin Coin Club. Rest in Peace, Gloria.
Kenny Saville, who ran the Gas Light Coin Shop in recent years and was often seen at local shows, died August eithth after a long illness. You who do not remember Kenny by name must remember him by his trademark big cigar he always smoked at the shows he sat up at. Rest in Peace, Ken.
Don Cerny, Jim Davis, Doug Nelson, and Mike Metras got together August 18 at Don's for the board meeting.
I turned $18 over to Don for 500th-meeting bills I sold at the ANA show.
Jim and I showed around goodies we got during the ANA show.
Along with our Elgin Coin Club membership card for the ANA this year, we got a booklet talking about estate planning for numismatists. Don has it now. If you are interested in looking at it, see Don.
We talked about our upcomming coin show in October. During the September meeting, Don will be talking to all dealers who haven't done their paperwork yet. He needs an accurate written count of who is comming and how many tables you are going to need.
We had a discussion on smoking again. This time we voted to ban smoking before and during the meeting. We agreed that is shouldn't be too much of a hardship on the smokers because if they want to smoke, they can go outside or into the bar to have their smoke. So thank you in advance for not smoking.
Jim has raffle tickets. Please get some from him and visit them on your friends. As before, prices are be $1 each or 6 for $5.
We also had a discussion about the quality of the raffle prizes and agreed that, as some of you have been pointing out to us, the quality is going down. We are going to try to do better in the near future. Our problem is that we do not get out and get the material. We are changing that. If you have anything you want to sell to the club for raffle or membership prizes, we're in the market for them. See one of the officers.
John Wilson, Governor of the ANA and honorary member of the Elgin Coin Club, sent the club a letter thanking all membrs who voted for him in the recent ANA governor's election. John said this is his last term as a governor. He plans on running for ANA vice president in 2001 and president in 2003.
John and his wife Nancy recently moved to Ocala, Florida. I have his new address if you want it.
At the World's Fair of Money last week, I accepted the American Numismatic Association's award given to the Elgin Coin Club Newsletter for second place for local club publications in the ANA Outstandling Club Publications contest for 1999. We received the award for first place in 1995, 1996, and 1997.
The Ancorage Coin Club's ACCent took first place and the Cowlitz Coin Club's Flying Eagle took took third.
The following regional publications also received prizes:
Specialty club publications also received awards:
Written history of the Elgin Coin Club is scarce. Here is some of the material I promiced to provide you during the August meeting. What is not here will be in the September Newsletter.
If you work back from the 500th meeting in August 1999, you conclude that the initial meeting was January 1958. But someone must have miss counted a few meetings along the line or a our ancestors must have skipped a few meetings because the ANA records our renewal month as September and shows us at 42 years this September. Using that, I conclude the club started on or very near September 1957, 42 years ago.
That means that we have existed for the whole time of the Space race. Sputnick went up in October 1957, a full month after we started. And we have existed for a bit less than one fifth of the time the United States has existed!
There isn't a lot of written history of the club itself. So how about some of the things that have happened in the greater world of numismatics since we started.
The club has been around for the full life span of Lincoln memorial on the cent, inaugerated in 1959.
1965 brought an end to silver in the coins. The club had been around for eight years already when that happened.
In 1973 or 74 gold, which had been at a fixed price, was floated on the world market. Prices in the late '70s were close to $900 an ounce. Now it hangs close to $250 with little chance of going up for a long time with European countries dumping their stock piles these days.
Twenty years and more after the club began gold and silver went to wild record heights of $900+ and $50+ unitil the Hunt brothers threw in the towel.
Suzzie B and Ike dollars lived through colored history and we mostly ignored them. But Suzzie seems to be holding her own these days with the transportation companies and the post offce.
Nineteen years into the history of the club circulating commemoratives made their way into our coinage. We had the bicentennial coins. The quarter was designed next door in Arlington Heights.
And if you collected rolls, you know the numerous ups and downs we have lived through since 1957. And proofs have suffered similar fates. Both are at very low ebbs now.
And then there are slabs. They didn's even exist when the club came on the scene. Since they have come on the scene, they too have gone to the heavens and fell back to earth and below. Their last fall was in the late 80's.
Coin values themselves have gone up and down, though mostly up. But there are a couple that are actuually worth less that in 1957. Look at the prices of the 1904-O and 1903-O dollar in the chart next month.
Just before the club started, in 1954, the old commemorative program ended with end of the Carver/Washington series. New commemorative not to start for 25 years after the club came into existance.
Britain went off the pound/shilling/pence system with 20 shillings to the pound and 12 pence to the shilling. They began the decimal pound with 100 pennies to the pound.
Several countries went through devistating inflation during the history of our club:
A previously unknown mint mark--W for West Point--showed up on commemoratives first and then finally on the circulating dime in the 1996 mint sets.
1968, eleven years after the club was estableshed, brought the S mint mark back to the circulating coins. And it brought S to proof coins for the first time.
And finally in the current year of our history we have circulating commemorative quarters and new dollar about to come out in 2000.
We do not exist in a numismatic vacuum. A lot of other things have happened as we have passed our 42 years. As stated earliert, we have been around for almost a fifth of the time that the U.S. has been around.
Nine U.S. presidents have ruled over our members.
A very cold war between communism and capitalism (with Frances Gary Porwers, Krushchev, and the Cuban Missle crises scaring the Hell out of us) held reign over most of the history of the club. But then it all ended in a fizzle in the early 90s.
The East and West vied for the glories of space culminating in the US landing on the Moon in 1969, 12 years after the club started. We were all awed.
Many of us went to Viet Nam. Many did not. And we fought brutally amoung ourselves about whether we should have been be there.
Race riots and Viet Nam divided us. And most of us have forgotten it in the 30 years since that wild unrest that hit us a decade after the club began.
Watergate, a war in Grenada, and Desert Storm have blown in and out of our lives.
And who can forget the Beatniks, Hippies, Beatles, Beach Boys, Annette Funicello, and Peter, Paul, and Mary (and let me not forget Elvis).
Oh, Yes! a lot has happened in the 42 years that we have been around.
Let's return to some club partuculars. Many other clubs have came and gone in the the length of our history. McHenry County coin club was around when we started, but it closed its doors in the mid '90s. I have a set of wooden nickels issued by six clubs in 1965; none exist today.
In the past 15 years we have paid the following dues:
I started publishing the current Elgin Coin Club Newsletter is 1994. The Newsletter was voted best local publication in nation by ANA '95, '96, '97 in the American Numismatic Association Local Publications Contest. And it was voted second best local publication in '99.
The Club opened the Elgin Coin Club home page on the Internet in September 1997. It is still going strong.
I created a press release for the meeting and the commemorative bill and sent it to several numismatic publications. So far, I have seen it in the August 31st Numismatic News. The release includes information on how for those wanting copies can obtain them.
I also put the release on the internet along with particulars on how I made the bill, the equipment I used, and the serial numbers issued.
So far I have sold ten and hope to sell more. If you know of anyone interested, see me for some of the notes.
In the interest of time and effort, I did not rewrite this information for the printed version of the Newsletter. For you without internet access, I simply printed the web version of the news release and notes and attached it to the end of the printed version. If you are viewing this live on the internet, click here for complete information on the 500th meeting bill.