Coin Collectors News

Submissions Accepted for ANA Young Numismatist Literary Awards

Mar 12, 2019 | ANA, Announcements

Submissions for the American Numismatic Association’s annual Young Numismatist Literary Awards competition are being accepted through April 15. The awards were established to encourage young writers and promote future numismatic authors and researchers. The contest is open to young writers in three age groups, all of whom will compete for cash awards and numismatic books.

Article submissions will be evaluated by a panel of judges, including Bill Fivaz, Q. David Bowers and Kenneth Bressett. Awards will be presented in Colorado Springs at the ANA’s 2019 Summer Seminar in June. Those who are unable to attend will receive their awards by mail.

Eligibility

To compete in this year’s competition, participants must be ANA members. Submitted articles will focus on a numismatic topic of the competitor’s choice.

Bill Fivaz Young Numismatist Literary Award
Ages: 8-12
Article should display basic knowledge of a numismatic topic. Creativity and original conclusions are encouraged.
Suggested length: 450-900 words
Q. David Bowers Young Numismatist Literary Award
Ages: 13-17
Article should display advanced knowledge of a numismatic topic. Logically presented facts and original conclusions are encouraged. A bibliographic list of sources is recommended, but not required.
Suggested length: 900-1,800 words
Kenneth E. Bressett Young Numismatist Literary Award
Ages: 18-22
Article should display in-depth knowledge of a numismatic topic. Logically presented facts and original conclusions are required, as is a bibliographic list of sources. Inclusion of charts, graphs, tables or other illustrations is encouraged.
Suggested length: 1,800-3,600 words

Award Structure

The following prizes will be awarded in each of the three age categories:

First Place
Certificate and $500 cash prize, plus a $500 voucher to help build a personal library of numismatic books produced by Whitman Publishing.
Second Place
Certificate, plus a $200 book voucher from Whitman Publishing.
Third Place
Certificate, plus a $100 book voucher from Whitman Publishing.

Completed entries should be emailed to magazine@money.org or sent to:

ANA Publications Department
c/o Cynthia Wood-Davies
818 N. Cascade Avenue
Colorado Springs, CO 80903-3279

For additional information, please contact Cynthia Wood-Davies, assistant editor of The Numismatist, at 719-482-9832, or email her at cwood-davies@money.org.

The American Numismatic Association is a congressionally chartered nonprofit educational organization dedicated to encouraging people to study and collect coins and related items. The ANA helps its 25,000 members and the public discover and explore the world of money through its vast array of education and outreach programs, as well as its museum, library, publications, conventions and seminars. For more information, call 719-632-2646 or go to www.money.org.

2019 United States Mint Proof Set Now Available

Mar 12, 2019 | News, U.S. Mint

WASHINGTON – The 2019 United States Mint Proof Set® (product code 19RG) became available for purchase on March 1 at noon EST. The set is priced at $27.95.

This year, each United States Mint Proof Set comes with a 2019-dated premium penny bearing a “W” mint mark for the West Point Mint where it was produced. This special coin is packaged separately in clear United States Mint plastic wrap.

The 2019 United States Mint Proof Set is the first of three sets to include an additional premium penny with a “W” mint mark this year. The United States Mint Silver Proof Set® will include an additional premium penny in a reverse proof finish, and the United States Mint Uncirculated Coin Set® will include an additional premium penny in an uncirculated finish.

The proof set includes the following 10 coins from the San Francisco Mint:

Five America the Beautiful Quarters® Program Coins honoring Lowell National Historical Park (Massachusetts), American Memorial Park (Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands), War in the Pacific National Historical Park (Guam), San Antonio Missions National Historical Park (Texas), and Frank Church River of No Return Wilderness (Idaho).
One Native American $1 Coin with a reverse design depicting Mary Golda Ross writing calculations. Behind her, an Atlas-Agena rocket launches into space, with an equation inscribed in its cloud. An astronaut, symbolic of Native American astronauts, including John Herrington, spacewalks above. In the field behind, a group of stars indicates outer space. Inscriptions are “UNITED STATES OF AMERICA” and “$1.” The obverse design (heads) retains the central figure Sacagawea carrying her infant son, Jean Baptiste. The inscriptions are “LIBERTY” and “IN GOD WE TRUST.”
One Kennedy half dollar
One Roosevelt dime
One Jefferson nickel and
One Lincoln penny.

The lenses are packaged in a decorative carton that features an image of the Washington Monument at sunrise on the front. The back of the carton displays images of each America the Beautiful Quarters national site honored in 2019 (along with the year in which it was first established as a national site, its name, and the host jurisdiction), and the partial obverses of the remaining coins. A Certificate of Authenticity accompanies each set.

The Mint accepts orders at www.catalog.usmint.gov and at 1-800-USA-MINT (872-6468). Hearing- and speech-impaired customers with TTY equipment may order at 1-888-321-MINT. Shipping options are available at www.catalog.usmint.gov/customerservice/shipping.html.

The United States Mint Proof Set is also available for purchase through the Product Enrollment Program. Visit catalog.usmint.gov/shop/product-enrollments/ to learn more about this convenient ordering method.

PNG Strengthens Anti-Counterfeiting Bylaws

Mar 12, 2019 | News, PNG

Temecula, California) March 11, 2019 – As part of the organization’s anti-counterfeiting efforts, the Professional Numismatists Guild (www.PNGdealers.org) has added additional conduct restrictions to its Code of Ethics regarding involvement with fakes.

Four words, indicated here in italics, have been added and are now part of section seven of PNG’s By laws: “To refrain from knowingly participating in, abetting or dealing in counterfeit, altered, repaired or ‘doctored’ numismatic items without fully disclosing their status to my customers.”

The entire, revised PNG Code of Ethics can be found online at www.PNGdealers.org/code-of-ethics.

Combatting fakes in the marketplace is a major priority for the Professional Numismatists Guild. With its experienced leadership and financial support, PNG is providing administrative assistance to the Anti-Counterfeiting Educational Foundation (ACEF), an independent 501-c-3 nonprofit organization. ACEF oversees the important, ongoing work of the Anti-Counterfeiting Task Force.

ACEF recently launched a new website, www.ACEFonline.org, to provide information to the public. Additionally, ACEF is providing education and awareness training for law enforcement agencies about counterfeit coins and fake third-party encapsulation holders.

For additional information about the Professional Numismatists Guild or the Anti-Counterfeiting Educational Foundation, contact the organizations at 28441 Rancho California Road, Suite 106, Temecula, CA 92590. The phone number is 951-587-8300. Or contact ACEF Director of Anti-Counterfeiting Beth Deisher at 567-202-1795.

PNG recently welcomed six new full members: James Collier of Nobel House Precious Investments in Fort Collins, Colorado; Carl Fusco of NPA Associates in Trumbull, Connecticut; Chris Dempsey of Dempsey & Baxter in Erie, Pennsylvania; Matthew McCormick of Missouri Coin Coin Des Peres, Missouri; David Melamud of ENUMISMAT in Staten Island, New York; and Barton Reames of Crossroads Coin, Inc. in Vandalia, Ohio.

PNG also recognized three new associate members: Elizabeth Coggan of Elizabeth Coggan Numismatics, LLC, in North Easton, Massachusetts; Chris Gehringer of Keystone Estate Specialists in Allentown, Pennsylvania and Russell Augustin of ACUM/RARCOA in Willowbrook, Illinois.

Hugh Wood of insurance broker Hugh Wood, Inc. in New York, New York recently joined as a PNG affiliate member.

United States Mint Rocketship™ Now Available for Purchase

Mar 11, 2019 | News, U.S. Mint

WASHINGTON – The nation’s coin maker began accepting orders for the United States Mint Rocketship™ (product code 19XGC) on February 28 at noon EST. This is the first of three new products for kids the United States Mint (Mint) is releasing in 2019.

Priced at $9.95, the United States Mint Rocketship comes with one uncirculated 2019 Kennedy Half Dollar and one proof 2019 Native American $1 Coin whose reverse (tails) design honors American Indians in the space program. The coins are encapsulated and mounted on the Rocketship, which glows in the dark, and is held upright by two easels. A slot is available for the young collector to insert a favorite quarter.

The colorful packaging for the Rocketship features images of Mighty Minters™ Timothy and Lina, two of seven new coin-collecting ambassadors. The delightful characters—who also include Kendra, Sophie, Alex, Eli, and Layla—are designed to pique the interest of kids seven to 12 years of age.

Italo Vecchi Praises ‘Modern Renaissance Man’ Harlan Berk and the 100 Greatest Ancient Coins

Mar 10, 2019 | News

The second edition of 100 Greatest Ancient Coins, by Harlan J. Berk, debuts in March 2019, two weeks before the American Numismatic Association’s National Money Show. Here, distinguished European numismatist Italo Vecchi, an award-winning scholarly author himself, reflects on Harlan Berk and the importance of 100 Greatest Ancient Coins.

The first edition of 100 Greatest Ancient Coins, by Harlan J. Berk (Whitman, 2008), was an instant success. This second edition again highlights Harlan’s personal choice of 100 princely coins of unusual historical interest and beauty from the Late Archaic period to Late Antiquity. Each coin is described according to artistic merit, historical context, and metrology. This edition presents, in an easily accessible format, Harlan’s scholarly and oft-cited study “The Coinage of Croesus,” a clearly numbered catalog of all gold and silver coinage of that ruler, which makes this book invaluable for all serious ancient numismatic academics, historians, dealers, and amateurs alike.

This is not just a simple reprint of the earlier version. Harlan’s selections have been modified and his descriptions and images improved, and he has added a useful summary of ancient gold and silver denominations.

Harlan Berk is an internationally renowned coin dealer and art collector whose profound scholarly knowledge applies not only to ancient numismatics, but to early archaeology, Dutch master paintings, the twentieth-century Chicago school of painting, and more, as befits a modern Renaissance man. He follows in the tradition of the early collectors of the Greek, Roman, and Byzantine coins that have fascinated erudite men and women since ancient times. As Suetonius reported of Augustus: “At Saturnalia, or at any other time when the fancy took him, he distributes to his company clothes, gold, and silver; sometimes coins of all sorts, even of the ancient kings of Rome and of foreign nations” (De vita Caesarum 75). Theodora, sister-in-law of Constantine IX, is reputed by Michael Psellus to have “gloated over her collection of darics, for which she had bronze coffers made” (Chronographia 6.63).

The fourteenth-century Italian humanist, scholar, and poet Francesco Petrarca, whose discovery of Cicero’s letters is often credited with initiating the Renaissance, is also recorded as one of the first known collectors of ancient coins. Other early collectors included Pope Boniface VIII and the emperor Maximilian I. Coin collecting became fashionable among the literati and members of the aristocracy””especially kings and queens””during the Renaissance and was called the “Hobby of Kings.” The first known book dedicated exclusively to ancient coins was published in Paris in 1514 by Guillaume Budé De asse et partibus e jus<, the source of which was probably the author’s own collection of Greek and Roman coins. Harlan Berk’s corpus of 100 remarkable ancient coins is the latest in a long line to hold up a mirror to our nature, allowing us to see ourselves as we were in the classical civilizations of Greece and Rome—cultures much like our own but still tied to slavery and the land, more primitive and casually cruel, yet in outward show and art far more beautiful and, for many periods, inwardly happier and more content (though always threatened, like us, by rising tides of barbarism and internal strife). As a native of Chicago, Harlan will be daily aware of the contrast between opulence and poverty, splendor and misery, that characterize any new Athens, Rome, or Constantinople, yet he has not allowed his friendly and hospitable disposition to be corrupted by pessimism. His wife, Pam Berk, like the amiable spouse of many a devoted numismatist and collector, has long tolerated with patience her husband’s obsession, which has made this remarkable catalog of 100 exceptional coins possible.