The Award Winning
Monthly Newsletter of the Anchorage Coin Club
Volume 13, Number 8 August, 2000
August Membership Meeting:
Wednesday August 2nd , 2000 Central Lutheran Church 7:00 open, 7:30 PM Meeting
"You Have a Few Hundred to Spend on Quarters? Here Is My Suggestion"
FROM YOUR EDITORS
By the time you receive this newsletter, our club’s summer picnic (on July 23rd) will have come and gone. A number of our club members and their families will have attended the event; the weather will have cooperated; and a good time will have been had by all.
Sarah Bilak will have come back from her trip to the ANA Summer Conference held in the second week of July. Word has it that Sarah had a great time, met lots of other YNs from around the country…..and learned about “Colonial coins” at her chosen seminar that week. Next month’s newsletter should feature an article from Sarah on her trip.
Your editors are very proud of winning the ANA’s first place award for our coin club’s newsletter: ACCent. A lot of hard work has gone into putting this newsletter together over the years. Thanks go to our club members for taking the time to write the articles needed. Our members have varying interests and expertise in the types of coins, tokens, and currencies that are collectable. We feel it is those articles that have significantly contributed to the quality of the newsletter over these years. Thanks go to our members for their support of this newsletter.
So….we are now in the midst of our Alaskan summer. We trust that your
summer has been going well thus far. The big news this summer is the engagement
of Larry Nakata to his future bride, Maribel. Congratulations………Your
Editors.
 |
MEMBERSHIP NEWS
Schedule of Events for the Month of August
 |
Minutes of the July 19th Board Meeting
The Board meeting was called to order at 7 PM.
Review of correspondence was the first order of business. The American Numismatic Association (ANA) has notified our club that our newsletter, ACCent, has won first place for local club publications. This is the second year in a row that the Anchorage Coin Club has won this first place honor. The award will be presented in Philadelphia at the ANA Convention on August 12th. Board member Robert Hall is planning to attend the ANA convention and will accept the award.
The remainder of the board meeting focused on final details for our club’s summer picnic planned for Sunday, July 23rd. Loren Lucason and John Larsen have planned events for the picnic with some great coins being given away as prizes. Larry Nakata and Loren are in charge of the food. Larry indicated no problems. The summer picnic is expected to start at 12 non and continue through the afternoon.
The raffle prize, an 1884-CC Morgan Dollar graded PCGS MS-64, will be raffled off Sunday at the picnic. John Larsen will also be bringing our next raffle prize, a complete set of circulated Buffalo nickels, which will be displayed for the membership to view. This complete set of Buffalos includes the 1937-D 3 legged Buffalo in VF condition.
Your board also wants to announce that member Mark Nagy is now our club representative to the American Numismatic Association.
As there was no further business, the meeting concluded at 8:10 PM.
 |
Even though no YN meetings are scheduled for the months of July and August, I wanted to remind our YNs that the Anchorage Coin Club is still having it’s regular membership meetings during this time.
By the time you receive this month’s newsletter, our club’s July 23rd summer picnic will have occurred. We trust that a number of YNs and their families took the opportunity to come the summer picnic at Centennial Park. Lots of prizes, lots of food, and a number of activities have been planned for that day.
August 2nd will see our membership meeting for all club members….including the YNs. Hope to see a number of YNs come our August meeting.
We will resume YN meetings effective September 8th, the second Friday of the month.
I trust you are enjoying your Summer thusfar……Larry Nakata.
 |
“EURO COINAGE” by Larry Nakata (Member #41)
Last month’s newsletter saw me writing an article on the subject of Euro currency. With eleven (11) countries in Europe changing out their currencies by mid 2002, I pointed out there will be lots of opportunities for collectors of foreign currency and coins.
On the subject of Euro coinage, the coins will come in 1, 2, 5, 10, 20, and 50 cent denominations. There will also be a 1 Euro and 2 Euro denomination coins.
The design on one side of each Euro coin will remain the same for each country (these countries being Austria/ Belgium/ Finland/ France/ Germany/ Ireland/ Italy/ Luxembourg/ Netherlands/ Portugal/ Spain). This side, called the common side, will feature the denomination of the coin.
Each country has been given the right to design the other side of each coin. (Editor’s Note: I suppose this could be compared to the U.S. Quarter program in which each state is allowed to design the reverse of their State’s quarter.
That makes 8 coins x 11 designs = 88 coins coming out as Euro coinage, starting in 2002. From what I saw on the Internet, it looks like the coins have been designed.
So 2002 will be the magic year that 11 nations in Europe change out their currency and coinage to the “Euro” standard. Other European countries are expected to “join the bandwagon” in the following years.
For now, the foreign coin/ currency collector has an opportunity to “zero in” on the old and existing coinage/ currency for the 11 nations. In 2002, I expect that collectors will be putting together sets of Euro currency and coinage.
This should make for some collecting opportunities for the YN and the
foreign coin collector…..Larry Nakata.
 |
“YOU HAVE A FEW HUNDRED TO SPEND ON QUARTERS? HERE IS MY SUGGESTION” by Mike Nourse (Member # 94)
Welcome one and all to the middle of the second year of the statehood quarter program! By most any measure, this program is a glowing success. Some people may complain about the designs or some other aspect of the program, but judging by the incredible demand for these coins few people are finding a reason not to save state quarters.
The incredible demand has caused the Mint to crank up the presses in order to make enough state quarters for the people who wish to save a specimen or two (or more), as well as enough for the needs of commerce. Originally, when the program was being planned out, it was expected that a quantity of 750 million of each design would be adequate for both savers and spenders. After the first three designs were complete this estimate was found to be way, way too low. Mintages have therefore increased substantially from the fourth design on, easily passing the one billion mark by the fifth design.
I like the state quarter program and am very happy that many new collectors may be created as a result of it. If you have any doubts about the quality of the designs, purchase an example of the silver proof set. In 90 percent silver the state quarters really show their stuff!
However, this is not specifically meant to be an article about the state quarters. As the title suggests, we have some hypothetical money to spend on the twenty five cent denomination. Let us assume that this theoretical bankroll contains five hundred dollars in it…since that figure just happens to work well for my example.
A quick look through current issues of Coin World and Numismatic News shows that it will take $500 to purchase a complete roll set of Philadelphia and Denver Mint state quarters. As of this writing, eight different designs have now been produced so we would get a total of sixteen rolls.
Lets take a look at those sixteen rolls. The Mint just recently released the final mintage figures for 1999 coinage including a breakdown of each of the five quarter designs produced that year. From a mintage standpoint, the key coin thus far (if you can call it that) is the New Jersey quarter from the Denver Mint. Just shy of 300 million coins were produced. Remember that number.
Now, to focus on the second part of this article’s title: my suggestion! Many regular readers of this newsletter have probably already guessed that I am going to suggest a classic quarter design in Proof condition. In fact, I am going to give a choice of two classic designs- the Seated Liberty or the Barber quarter. In Proof-63 condition our $500 stash of cash will buy an example of either one of these attractive, historical quarters.
So why would anyone in their right mind want to buy one quarter from 85 to 140 years old instead of getting 16 modern quarter rolls ( a total of 640 coins) for the same price? Well, for starters, I believe that nice Proof seated Liberty or Barber quarter will generate a lot more wows from the crowd than a group of state quarter rolls. But the real reason comes down to long term value. You will recall that I informed you that the lowest mintage statehood quarter saw a production of roughly 300 million pieces. By comparison, the most common issue of any Proof seated liberty or Barber quarter has a mintage of well under 1500 pieces! Say that again: a mintage of 300 million compare to 1,500! And it actually gets a bit better.
In the year since the New Jersey quarters were produced, undoubtedly some have been lost or numismatically destroyed (cleaned, polished, painted, turned into jewelry, etc.). However, the number of coins still available is still in the vicinity of 300 million.
On the other hand, the Proof quarters of the mid 1800’s through 1916 have a much lower survival rate. In the passing decades many of these coins have been melted, spent (these are no longer identifiable as Proofs), harshly cleaned, or abducted by aliens. It is a very safe bet that no more than 750 specimens exist of any one date. So when we compare the number of surviving specimens we are comparing 300 million to 750, an amazing ratio of 400,000 to 1! In other words, the scarcest issue of the state quarter series is 400 thousand times more common than the most common Proof quarter of the 1860-1916 era. To me, those old Proofs represent a great value.
Luckily for us, pre-1916 Proof coins are not very popular at the moment. During the period from 1858 through 1915, when Proof coins were produced for sale to the public, less than 45,000 Proof quarters were minted for all years combined. In all likelihood, less than 30,000 of these remain in decent collectable Proof condition. So you can see it would not take much in the way of popularity to price these coins out of reach for us mere working mortals!
So, enjoy the state quarter program and encourage others (particularly
non-collectors) to join in. Just don’t mortgage the house to buy them!……….Mike
Nourse.
 |
“COLLECTING COINS” by Loren Lucason (Member # 97)
Tell your friends - collect coins and you will never be broke. There are many hobbies you could get into: model building, chess, fishing, tennis, etc. They all have some benefits but, when you are done, you have nothing worth anything. When you collect coins you have a collection that is not only worth something but a collection that gains value as you get older.
Starting a collection when you are a kid is the way to go because there is so much to learn and there is not a retired person around who does not wish he had the coins in circulation when he was a kid. Foreign coins are great for kids to collect because they are cheap, challenging, informative, have an endless variety of designs, and your brother can not spend them. Some of the best foreign coins to collect are from countries going to Euro currency (see Larry’s article).
At first one buys a coin because it looks neat or has an interesting design on it but then one realizes that there is history in coins. It may start with a commemorative that has significance to you or people you know. Perhaps the woman you marry has ancestors that came over on the Mayflower (Pilgrim tercentenary 1920 - 21) or your great uncle worked on the Mount Rushmore (Mount Rushmore Golden Anniversary 1991) you will want those commemorative coins.
Eventually you realize there is history in ordinary coins. The proof set from the same year you were born was probably bought by your parents but beyond that there is the bust dollar like the one George Washington threw across the Potomac or buffalo nickels like the ones carved by hobos during the depression. Every event in history took place with coins in the pockets of the people involved and you could own them.
Coins last forever and you may discover that ancient Greek and Roman coins are available and are absolutely beautiful. They started about 650 BC. They are thick and chunky and are completely hand made. Some have animals on them and others portray important gods and magical beasts. Most Roman coins have the head of the ruler on the obverse. Despite being more than two thousand years old, ancient coins are well documented.
If you are not careful you could catch gold fever. Gold has been used in coins since the beginning. The first coins were made from electrum, a mixture of gold and silver found in Greece. It did not need to be smelted, it was simply weighed out, and struck with a mark to guaranty it’s worth. Virtually all periods of history have their associated gold coins. Greeks had gold staters, Romans had aurei, middle age Persians had dirhams, colonists had escudos, and today we have eagles. Gold is expensive but you can find high-grade coins of all types.
And when it comes time to sell some or all of your collection you will be pleased to find a receptive group of buyers. The current value of your coins can be checked and, if some time has passed since you bought them, you will be offered more than you paid. This could be handy if you become a starving college student.
Some people stay with coin collecting their entire lives. Numismatics
is one hobby that rewards wisdom. Some people even become coin dealers
after retirement…..Loren.
 |
Club Archivist/ Photographer
Robin Sisler
DUES
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.
Correspondence Address: Anchorage Coin Club, P.O. Box 230169, Anchorage,
Alaska 99523
Return to: "Top of the Newsletter"