ANA Seminars ... Getting a late start! - Updated with course info!

[Hoot]

When work and other obligations overtake the pursuits of numismatics, well that's just plain wrong! Alas, I am getting a 1 day late start to the second session of the ANA seminars where I'll be taking the advanced early American coppers course, a refresher on EAC grading, and a special tour of the Denver Mint (all day Friday)! The regular time for arrival was today, but I won't get there until tomorrow evening, therefore missing the first 3 hours of the main course. That only leaves but 22 hours of regular classroom time .

 

Hope all of you have a great week - I know I will!

 

Hoot

[TJ]

Denver mint...

[TomB]

Steal some coins for us!

[Hoot]

Steal some coins for us!

 

I'm trying!

 

Today was a fantastic day with the course. (Doug Bird and Steve Carr are the excellent instructors.) We spent the bulk of the time going over in great detail the three aspects of EAC grading: details grade, net grade, and appearance. One important note is that EAC grading is a concept that is practiced among members with a like mind for a convention. There are no written standards, and there is no "code," so to speak. It's like an oral wisdom that's passed down through generations of collectors. I find it very satisfying.

 

We are spending a lot of time on coins that have been altered, even subltly, and some time identifying counterfeits. We are paying close attention to those details that arise from conditions of minting, post-mint conditions including environmental damage and attenuation, and the expected differences due to time of mintage, planchet conditions, and variety.

 

There's a great deal of discussion in this class, and since those attending have at least some reasonable experience with copper, the discussions can be wonderfully insightful.

 

I'm also taking a basic refresher on EAC grading. This is like the grading aspect of the beginning course crammed into two nights. I did this for the added experience that seeing challenging coins can bring. This was a good idea to couple with the advanced course, even though the information is redundant - some redundancy is just good for memory. Spent three hours with a nice introduction to EAC grading and its history (including some recent history that I think is commonly thought of as old), then the rest of the time with 17 quite variable coins. This was good practice.

 

I've brought my own coins with me and have passed them around a bit. None are ooh-aah coins, particularly, but all have their nice aspects to them and it's good to be able to discuss them with fellow copper fanatics. I rather starve for such indulgence in Montana.

 

I'll update some more tomorrow. Oh! I saw Dave Lange toodling about, but I don't know exactly what he's here for. Many recognizeable people from the hobby.

 

Hoot

[RWB]

I wonder how many unrecognizeable hobby people there are wandering about?

 

Sounds like an excellent and enjoyable week!

[Hoot]

I wonder how many unrecognizeable hobby people there are wandering about?

 

Many. I, for one, have not been recognized as a person for quite some time.

 

For the last two days, the EAC courses have been excellent. Yesterday in the advance course, more time was spent with a little more practice grading (always welcome), a special guest speaker on coin reconditioning and conservation (who works independently and is a very interesting and knowledgeable person), discussion of special conservation techniques, and beginning to fiddle with problem coins. Our discussions, which largely arose from the talk of our guest speaker, were extremely informative, particularly for dealing with common problems on the surfaces of copper coins. This is a massive and complicated topic, and spilled over into the next day (today).

 

The evening seminar was again grading, but with an emphasis on counterfeit detection. This was an excellent refresher for me. The number of things a person must look for while detecting counterfeits is a bit unreal. So much minutia.

 

Today, we implemented many of the techniques of copper conservation and dealing with surface issues. We worked on some fantastic "junk" coins and I also worked on two of my own coppers, one worth $300 and the other $225. So far, the $225 piece looks fantastic compared with its original state (a strange gunmetal color infused with a peculiar green that we thought was verdigris, but turned out not to be ). I wish I had photos, but no such luck. The coin is now a wonderful full chocolate brown and quite attractive. I'm pleased. Still working on the other.

 

We also spent time looking at a number of coppers to determine the "originality" of surfaces. This is quite interesting. Turns out that the vast majority of coppers do not have "original" surfaces. A scant few were pulled from circulation and allowed to gain a slow and gentle patination. Others were "rescued" at the right time and in the right way to develop nice surfaces, and these are the ones that we primarily see and find "original." Many, many others have some give-away that they are not original. This does not make them market-unacceptable, but it can have an impact on how desireable and liquid they are - and this runs the full gamet of the spectrum, as you might imagine.

 

We spent some time also discussing undervalued and overvalued copper and what factors contribute to that. We live in a fickle world.

 

This class is vastly more relaxed than the introduction to early coppers class I took last year, although we are covering many more topics and in much greater depth. A great bunch of people to interact with. The class has increased my already-large appreciation for coppers and has honed my eye quite a bit for the subtleties of appreciating them as a collector. So much of this information cannot be readily had without being among other copper fanatics! A most enjoyable time!

 

One more day of class to go!

 

Hoot

[MunkyMan95]

Wow Hoot, sounds like you're learning a great deal! And possibly gaining a better copper piece out of it?

[chinook]

Sounds like you are having a great time. I wish I was there.

[Hoot]

Well, today was a marvelous end to a great seminar. We talked about some "old time" techniques for filling "holes" in a collection. These are numerous, but counterfeiting coins and making "foil presses" were quite common. Counterfeiting was (is) rather amazing, and there are some pretty scary pieces out there. Working on identification of these this week was hugely beneficial, but I digress. Foil presses are cool but potentially dangerous to the coin. You get an old Notary's press and remove the die on the bottom (anvil side). Then you glue a piece of thickish rubber or cork to the hammer and anvil dies, or just to the hammer die. Then you slide a copper cent or half cent into the press with a piece of foil between it and some cork or rubber and press! Then you carefully remove the foil, which is left with a dandy impression of the coin! Flip coin and repeat. You can trim the foil to a 2x2 square and glue them together, then put them in a hard plastic 2x2 flip. I suppose you could carfully fill each side with wax (or chocolate!) and it would be pretty cool. Of course, you can hairline the daylights out of a coin this way, so I'd only suggest it with "junk" pieces that you simply wish to make impression of for the fun of it.

 

We then did more grading with a heavy influx of counterfeit pieces, some of which were extremely tricky. It makes a person only wish to buy copper raw and only when all three sides of the coin can be viewed!

 

We then discussed the early Mint and minting processes, the evolution of the minting of coppers in the U.S., copper and its origins in commerce, and how all factors affected early copper coinage. Fascinating. An entire course could be taught on this subject alone.

 

We then discussed error coinage at length and some of the factors that affect their commonalities or rarities. This followed well from the previous subject.

 

Lastly, we discussed buying and selling coppers, some upsides and pitfalls, etc.

 

Overall, I give this course a solid "A". I had a great time and look forward to a long life with copper coinage and others!

 

Hoot

[Hoot]

I almost forgot to mention that one of our exercises was to develop a quickfinder using pick-up points of our own identification for a particular date of coppers. My small group worked on 1828, which has 12 varieties, and we were successful at putting together what amounted to a taxonomic key for the date. Another group then used our key to verify known varieties (but not known to them until after the exercise). Quite valuable - really got us looking at the coins closely and using our knowledge of how to identify varieties in the course for constructing the key.

 

~~~~~~~~Fast forward~~~~~~~~

 

Today was the tour of the Denver Mint and my last day here, as seminars are over for the summer. The ANA arranged a special tour that took us through the historic passages, then into the bowels of the Mint and their manufacturing operations. This is quite different from what the public gets to witness.

 

First, we met the Plant Manager who gave us a very friendly talk and welcome, and answered questions that we had. Greeat start to the tour. Groups were then made of 5 or 6 people per guide. Our guide was quite knowledgeable.

 

We actually made our way first to the basement level, where the coins are sorted through large hoppers and counted, then placed into very large bags that have replaced the classic canvass bags of yesteryear. The bags weigh about 1700 lbs. and are stacked in rows on metal shelves, 4 high. It's rather impressive to look upon a row of newly minted state quarters and realize that there is $700,000 worth of quarters in a row, each bag containing $25,000 in quarters.

 

We saw a lot of blanks and planchets along the way. We passed by the waffling machine where they crush problem lots, including those that are problematic from the flan/planchet, and those that have had stamping problems.

 

We then went to the "back porch" where the Mint receives rolls of metal strip that is the exact thickness of the coins it's intended for. The only metal strip the Denver Mint does not receive is that of the cent, which is what they make most of. The Denver Mint, however, receives their cent stock already punched into blanks. Anyhow, each roll of metal strip has from 1/2 to 1 mile of strip, I believe 13 inches wide. The rolls weigh 44,000 lbs! The strip is taken by fork lift (there are a lot of fork lifts in the Mint) to a huge dispenser-roller where it is then fed into a blanking press. The blanks are cut several dozen at a time, then fall onto a conveyor and fed into an annealing furnace. The furnace is heated to nearly 2000 degrees F and slowly turns, like a cement mixer, but slower. The flans then exit the furnace and cool, having been somewhat polished by the mixing action. They then go into a washind maching, of sorts, then a dryer, then through an upsetting mill. From there, they go into large carts that are moved by forklift to their destination coin press.

 

The presses are mightily impressive. They coin 750 pieces perminute and operate 24 hours per day, 5 days per week. The only "break" the presses get is for an operator and die fitter to replace dies. The diews strike from 200,000 to 1.4 million coins, with the higher figures for the cent, and the lower figures for the nickel. The coins from each press are inspected every 15 minutes as they fall into a primary hopper, that's about a cubic foot or maybe slightly larger in size. 1 (yes, one) coin is inspected, and if it's bad, then the entire batch in the primary hopper is carted to the waffling mill. Ack. If all is well, then the primary hopper is emptied into a slightly bigger secondary hopper that has wheels and a handle. Eventually, this fills up and is carted to a hole in the floor (about 6 inches diameter) and dumped. The coins fall through the floor about 30 feet and into the counting bins below! Those coins that don't get in the hole are unceremoniously kicked in.

 

We also got to see a "log-jammed" press where there was a messy stack of coins around the coin chamber, and two pair of failed dies (CO state quarter and Jefferson nickel). We visited the die vault, which is a highly secure section in the plant. Only one die setter is allowed in the vault at a time. The press operator/die setter comes to the vault and gets dies from whomever is watching the vault at the time. If a single die is missing, the entire plant stops operation, the public is ushered out and the Mint police gather the employees. The die is found (usually mislaced when this [rarely] happens), and operations start again.

 

We were allowed to handle blanks, planchets, and coins literally dropping off the presses! As they came off the presses, they were quite warm, and they looked fantastic. This is, no doubt, not how they looked after their free-fall to the basement. The Denver mint can make in 4 days now what took them a year in their first year of operation (1906). A loss of quality for operational efficiency, like any manufacturing operation.

 

We then exited through the grand hall of the Mint, where the general public is not allowed. This was quite beautiful, with marble, granite, and gorgeous antique light fixtures made in 1904. The Denver Mint was entirely electric when it was built. There's also a bullet hole in the corner of one wall from a 1922 robbery of $200,000 in $5 notes that were passing through the Mint facility (as the Mint does not make currency). Also, there was a machine gun turret in the former (historical) entrance! An armed guard, who had a Thompson's gun, long rifle, shot gun, and pistol used to occupy the place in the "good old days"!

 

Vault doors everywhere. BIG well-balanced vault doors! Inpressive.

 

We exited and walked around the building to the public entrance and the cheesy gift shop. Rather shameful, that operation.

 

A pretty cool tour, and I'd highly recommend attending the summer seminars and taking the extra time for the tour.

 

Hoot

 

p.s. Dave Lange was here as an instructor for a class on collecting type coinage.

[IGWT]

You've left no doubt that I must get myself to a Summer Seminar. CoinValues should think about publishing something like what you've given us here. Thanks for the reporting.

 

While you were in Denver, I was visiting your neck of the woods. Does my new sigline look familiar?

[Wihlborg]

Wow! Hoot, it sound like you has a great time at the seminar, and really got the grand tour of the Denver mint. I got a ‘kick’ out of your telling how the newly minted coins are allowed to drop 30 feet through a hole in the floor! Glad you enjoyed yourself.

 

Take care

 

John

[Hoot]

While you were in Denver, I was visiting your neck of the woods. Does my new sigline look familiar?

 

My, my, my... I've seen that scene many times. Grand place. Sorry I missed you up there Lou. Now I've missed two board members who've wandered through the state (to my knowlege). Alas, perhaps many of us can meet up at the summer seminars!

 

Thanks for the comments ALL!

 

Hoot

[Hoot]

I got a ‘kick’ out of your telling how the newly minted coins are allowed to drop 30 feet through a hole in the floor!

 

John - This was both shocking and hilarious! I thought, "No wonder so many of these coins look like crapola by the time we get 'em!"

 

Hoot

[kranky]

Thanks for the great synopsis of your Summer Seminar and Mint tour experiences. Very good read.

[EZ_E]

Mark, this was a fantastic read! I'm sorry that I hadn't read it sooner.

 

25 hours of instruction on early copper! Wow! It certainly sounds worthwhile, especially the conservation part.

 

You mentioned the buying and selling of coppers, some upsides and pitfalls, etc. Could you elaborate a bit on this?

 

It now seems that I have toured the Denver mint based upon your account. It was wonderfully written and so detailed that it seemed that I've already been there. The 30' free fall struck me as awefully harsh as well.

 

To spice up the gift shop it would seem that they could offer some coins freshly minted before the falling and bagging. Sell a penny for ten bucks and let them send it off for grading. Sounds like a good profit could be made as well as increasing the attendance.

 

Thanks for your time in putting together this account. I was really caught up in it and was only sorry that you didn't write ten times as much.

 

And, so, you're soon off to Denver again. I hope you make some great scores!