Coin Club Ideas, What does your club do?

biosolar

I'm a member of a Small (maybe 30 folks) coin club in Western Oregon, and have been made Program Chairman. Most of the members have collected for about as many years as I've been around.
Right now the meetings mostly consist of announcements and then the coin auction. I would like to do some educational type stuff or something fun related to coins.
So I thought I'd reach out to the board for some ideas. Any help you can give will be greatly appreciated.
Nick

TopographicOceans

You could do

Field trip to a local coin storesearch rolls for errorshave a scavenger hunthave members do a presentation on their seriesgeocaching coin photography presentation

Baley

Suggest that each of the members rotate giving a 5-15 minute presentation about their collecting focus, followed by a brief show and tell of examples from their collection.

DaveG

What Baley said.

Especially if you have members who have a wide variety of interests - ancients, Papal coinage, Phllippine WWII emergency money, medals etc.

Sometimes it's pretty amazing what interests people have that they rarely talk about.

edited to add: if your members have mostly local interests and don't travel much, ask someone who goes to the big national shows or the ANA Summer Seminar to talk about their experiences - perhaps a dealer or big collector who lives nearby.

DRUNNER

Coin Quiz . . .10 questions, give a ticket to each correct answer, then add that to the drawing . . .

Drunner

illini420

At our club meetings (Glendale Coin Club), we have an attendance prize, usually a modern proof/mint set, and everyone that shows up has a chance to win. We do a raffle where we charge $1 per ticket, six tickets for $5 and we raffle off anywhere from $250-$400 in prizes per meeting and we typically break even with raffle ticket sales or come close to it. We have a show and tell at each meeting where members can bring stuff and talk about it for a minute or two... usually have 15-20 people at each meeting doing that. We also have a 15-30 minute educational program at each meeting. Sometimes it's a member talking about something they collect, sometimes we have guest speakers, sometimes its a video. we've also done grading contests and quizzes. Whoever sets up or gives the program gets one of our silver 1 oz. club medals so that works as a great incentive for members to get active in participating. We have a refreshment break with lots of sweets... sometimes sponsored by one of the members, sometimes it's paid for by the club. We also have an auction of 50-100 items at the end of each meeting (lot viewing before the meeting and during our break). We sell 5-10 items, then give away a raffle prize, then sell 5-10 more and so on. That keeps people there until the end and makes the auction fairly active.

Any of you can check out our past newsletters on our website and you'll see info on our past programs and raffles and that may help give some more ideas.

Glendale Coin Club

hchcoin

1. Buying and selling on eBay - how to set up an account, how to create a listing, what to do after a sale, how to package your coins, how to setup and use PayPal, etc....
2. Submitting coins for grading - explain the ins and outs of the major grading services including cost, how to get started, etc...
3. Give an overview of a major upcoming auction - describe the significance of the auction, show the major lots online, describe how to set up an account, how to bid and how to pay, etc...
4. Give an overview of the coin and precious metals market since the last meeting - current prices of silver and gold, upcoming mint releases, major auctions, news from coin world/numismatic news/ANA, etc...
5. Introduction to coin grading - pick a series and provide clear instructions on how to grade from AG to AU and MS 60 - 70. Bring examples and provide a handout or powerpoint if possible.
6. Coin photography
7. Counterfeit detection - Bring examples or provide a powerpoint of authentic vs. counterfeit coins and key diagnostics.
8. Details grading - wizzing, polishing, wiping, major scratches, dings, overdipping, rim problems, etc.... Provide examples and/or powerpoint
9. Metal detecting
10. Plan a local coin show (This is always fun)

bigjpst

To add more specifics to illini420's post above, we try to alternate between educational presentations and fun contests at Glendale. Like previously mentioned we have done grading contests where we take slabbed coins and cover the grades and give prizes. We have also done coin trivia, and a guess the coin game similar to the ones in the back of The Numismatist. That particular presentation was very easy to put together by cropping photos and putting them into a powerpoint. There tons of videos that can be used on the internet as well. PCGS has a video on it's youtube with a tour of their grading process.

JakeSherlock

Nick,

Try this page on the ANA website: https://www.money.org/clubs/club-activities

We're trying to build a collection of downloadable material that we can make available here for clubs looking for educational programming. Check out the 12 months of quizzes we currently have on that page.

And over in the ANA Library, there is a collection of PowerPoint presentations that have been donated by members. You can download those right from the library's online card catalog. https://www.money.org/library-catalog

Hope those help. Good luck with your meetings.

cmerlo1

Our club, Capital City Coin Club, has a 'grading night' every few months. We have 3 members (myself and 2 dealers) as graders and we have a finalizer (usually Tim Hargis, formerly of ANACS and now a local dealer), and grade using the process a TPG does. Each member can bring 5 coins for grading, and they fill out a very basic 'submission form' for them. As we grade, we look for both exceptional and problem examples and set them aside, and after the coins have been graded, we have a presentation where the graders discuss why we gave the grades we did. This can be very educational, as it shows people what to look for and what to avoid when buying coins.

jdimmick

Here is what we do:

1st we backed up the meeting a half hour so the first half hour is basically a wheel and deal BS have fun secession while folks arrive.
official meeting going over old news / new news, upcoming shows , procedure issues, anything having to do with the club & the organization
while this is going on, there is a team selling 50/50 tickets so club gets half, other half goes to winner
after the close of the business portion of the meeting, we sell raffle tickets for coin door prices
then we have an auction, to close out the meeting

Not every meeting, once in a while we have a special guest that talks about something, a show and tell by a member or a presentation by a member.

biosolar

I'd like to say THANKS to every one. There is at least a years supply of ideas here for our coin club. Many of which sound both interesting and enjoyable.
Nick

CoinZip

I take my laptop, 32" TV and my Dino-Lite Microscope to the meetings. We look at coins the members bring to the meetings and discuss doubled dies, RPM's, OMM's, PMD, varieties, counterfeit detection.

johnny9434

i like the idea of a metal detecting club more then i do a coin club. it keeps it more safer for me that way,. jmo