If the ANA disolved...
Shamika
Posts: 18,785 ✭✭✭✭
With all the fuss about the effectiveness of the ANA, how would its dissolution impact collectors, dealers, investors, and third party graders?
Buyer and seller of vintage coin boards!
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The magazine is okay, and I have visited the headquarters and museum in Colorado, but that’s part of the trouble. It’s in Colorado. I probably will not be back to that state again.
The museum had interesting displays, and there is a neat “mint” in the basement with an operating screw press. It’s worth the visit if you are in the area. It’s just the organization has not been well run, and it’s been that way for a long time.
For the record, I've never been a member of the ANA nor have I purchased any of their publications. I've been a collector for over 40 years and between the Redbook, the internet, TPG's, auction houses, eBay, many books published by numismatic experts, this forum, the occasional small town coin show, and various museums, I feel I've acquired and will continue to acquire a solid numismatic education.
Now that I think about it, I believe I've learned more from threads posted by Bill Jones (and others) than anything from the ANA.
Maybe I'm mistaken.
The ANA abrogated leadership in about 1987 and has moved steadily downhill since. I doubt most collectors would miss it.
(That sounds harsh, but the ANA no longer makes a positive contribution to the hobby or business. If one looks at the problem areas of coins, including designs, ANA is completely absent. Without leadership and a range of goals for the organization and members, it will simply muddle on until membership and revenue no longer make it sustainable. Then there will be a so-so-auction of numismatic assets, real estate and the trust fund, and a court-supervised disbursement.)
That's around when I dropped my membership after 23 or 24 years and I agree with Roger 100%.
it's crackers to slip a rozzer the dropsy in snide
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Great transactions with oih82w8, JasonGaming, Moose1913.
The Laura effect. Gotta love it/her
I think the best, and one of the only truly good things, about the ANA is Summer Seminar. It's such a unique experience like none other. If the ANA were to dissolve I would hope some other entity kept it going.
I am not a fan of Laura. Her approach seems to antagonize and alienate the very people that could help her accomplish the many ideas she advocates. But that doesn't mean I disagree with her. I just disagree with how she communicates her ideas.
She's the numismatic swamp grenade
Sometimes I just Google things. The depth and breadth of the search results often tells you more then the content of any one result.
"What are the goals of the ANA"
The results indicate that the "American Nurses Association" is quite active......
I am a member, I have borrowed books from their lending library (through the mail), and I learn quite a bit in the monthly magazine. I have commented before about their past museum Director's coin thefts. That said, I'd lay 50 / 50 odds that RogerB's comments actually occur. Sad, really.
I have been a member of the ANA on and off for the last 30 years. I have been to a total of two ANA coin shows, which I would have attended anyway because they were big coin shows close to where I live. Neither one was as good as Winter FUN.
I have been a member of the ANS for less than two years and have attended of their 7 events with another one coming up in September. Everyone there is friendly and I love just talking about coins with them.
So basically, if the ANA dissolved I would hardly notice.
I read a lot of threads like this one about the ANA here. People on the boards seem to love to bitch about the organization, and it strikes me that the vast majority of posts are an example of what the philosopher William James called contempt prior to investigation.
If you've never been a member of the ANA, or haven't been one in some time, what's the point of complaining about the organization? You're not paying dues, and that ought to be the end of it.
If you think it should be different, join, become involved, volunteer your time and make a positive contribution - there are plenty of people within the organization who would be thrilled to work with you. The number of people actually contributing time and energy to the ANA is relatively small, and most are great people who genuinely want what is best for the hobby.
Not a fan of what you're reading in The Numismatist? Spend a little less time posting on forums, do some worthwhile research and write an article. The editorial staff there is eager to publish interest new material.
If you're unwilling to do these things, your complaints and opinions are just noise.
My experience with the ANA has been that - like most things in life - YOU GET OUT OF IT WHAT YOU PUT INTO IT. I'll gladly go on the record to say that I do not believe that I would have the career that I have today without the ANA, and in particular Summer Seminar. Consequently, I volunteer to teach every year (both at Summer Seminar, and at the World's Fair of Money), I contribute to The Numismatist, and I make myself available to help whenever I can. My efforts have made my experience with the ANA hugely positive for me.
A long time ago, someone much wiser than me told me to stop asking what's in it for me, and to start thinking about how I could be of service. At the time, I thought this was a pretty selfless approach to life, but in retrospect, I can see where I've wound up far, far better off, both experientially and materially, for having listened to it.
If you think that an organization like the ANA could be better, it's on you to improve it. If you aren't willing to make an effort, the ANA is not the problem, you are.
What is now proved was once only imagined. - William Blake
I completely understand your point on putting in an effort beyond just complaining and that simply whining won't accomplish much. However, your argument goes a bit far. I think North Korea could be better. Apparently I'm the problem with North Korea because I'm not willing to make an effort to improve it.
The ANA has actively solicited opinions and feedback on the forum, so hopefully the opinions given are not "just noise" as you state.
Lastly, often it is far easier to make worthwhile contributions outside of a large bureaucracy. If I want to make a positive impact in numismatics, on the top of my list would not be doing something for a stogy organization that, to me as a somewhat younger collector, seems to serve little purpose.
Comparing an organization (the ANA) that you can join and influence without risk to life or limb to a communist dictatorship is poor rhetoric. There's absolutely no similarity between the two situations whatsoever.
Also, the ANA isn't exactly a large bureaucracy - if you'd like to talk with the executive director, or a member of the board of governors, they're generally available. That being said, if you don't see the point behind "doing something for a stogy [sic] organization" you can certainly find better uses for your time, and I encourage you to so, just don't complain about the ANA, if you're not interested in making an effort to improve it.
What is now proved was once only imagined. - William Blake
I would be impacted in two ways. My insurance would go way up and I would have to join NGC in order to send coins in for grading.
I thought they just elected a new leader. Has he been of help?
I think that the biggest help lately has been Kim Kiick, a longtime ANA employee who has been serving as Executive Director for the past couple years.
What is now proved was once only imagined. - William Blake
I'm very sure you are right.
In your next life, be wrong about this kind of thing and you'll learn even more. Sigh
I don't think you will see ANA dissolve in our lifetime unless the lawsuits finally break them.............
Best, SH
I wouldn't notice. I know what ANA stands for but that's absolutely all I know about them.
Since I just became a lifetime member that would hurt even as a senior citizen rate!
I'm not sure I follow you.
If you will read Regulated's comment relating William James's philosophical observation (PNG thread) and absorb it,
the underlying premise of my insult may become more obvious.
In your next life........
No, I got your insult the first time. I just wanted to be sure I didn't misunderstand your vitriol.
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I joined so I could get the insurance. I was a member for a while 40 years ago. I'm disturbed that they exchange an endorsement of a certain grading company for a fee.
>
I'm simply attempting to mirror the hostility implicit in the title and formulation of your PNG expulsion thread.
Since the Constitutional Amendment on being nice to trolls hasn't yet passed, it's problematic as to which of us is in graver danger........
COLLECT COINS FOR FUN!!!!!
It would be sad for the ANA to dissolve as the current worthwhile things it is maintaining will go away, e.g. Summer Seminar.
That being said, we need the ANA or another organization to push the hobby into the future.
It's easy enough to figure out how much you get directly from the ANA. And like Regulated said, it's mostly a function of your own efforts. (You either go to their shows, read The Numismatist, use their library and website, visit their museum, go to Summer Seminar, etc, or you don't.) But it's more difficult to see what you get from them indirectly, as a result of other people's interaction with the organization. When they help other collectors, dealers, museum visitors, when they answer questions from the general public and from the press, when they assist and support other organizations, when they maintain a library that will be of use for generations to come, and when they generally serve as ambassadors for the entire hobby, they create a stronger hobby with a future brighter than it otherwise would have been. You benefit from it, even if you don't notice it.
Doggedly collecting coins of the Central American Republic.
Visit the Society of US Pattern Collectors at USPatterns.com.
Possible, but it would still be better if more people did notice it.
Hopefully the new ANA Collector Relations Committee can be a benefit here.
If the ANA disappeared today, I wouldn't even notice it was gone.
However, I can say the same thing about 95% of that type of organization, no matter the affiliation to a hobby or profession.
If this CU forum would dissolve, it would be much more disappointing to me...
This thread is healthy for the ANA. I learned a lot. The average collector learns the cool stuff the ANA does.
I think there would be a bit of a void left in the collecting world, but we'd 'get by' and other resourses would become more relevant.
My experience with the ANA has overall been positive. I took the correspondence course when i got back into collecting, 1999/2000, and got a lot out of it- it was like basic training before i dove into collecting again.
When the worlds fair of money has been in Chicago, I've taken several of the 2 day courses, coin photography (Todd's awesome) grading, grading mint state, etc. Again, i got a ton of good stuff out of those classes. I simply took advantage of some of the things the ANA offers, so I agree with what Regulated and some others are saying.
However, I understand and mostly agree with what Laura said about the ANA, they are missing opportunities- the online university or some version of it, archives available online, making displays and booths look first class, getting more of the general public into the shows, and the effectiveness of the PNG. She raises very good points that need addressing.
The solution may be very boring and plain, a combination of electing leadership that will embrace the internet much more and make the ANA more relevant, transparency from that leadership, and us as collectors staying/being involved.
I've never complained about the ANA. I've mostly just asked questions to try to find a reason to care about it and thus far still don't care. However, you've lumped opinions into "noise" that the ANA should ignore. It seems the last thing an agency that may be struggling should do is ignore the opinions of members and potential members. And as I pointed out there have been threads with the ANA explicitly soliciting opinions.
I've never tried, so I don't know, but being able to talk with an executive and being able to easily do something with organization approval are quite different. The former often does doesn't mean the latter is true.
I think the ANA could be better, but I don't care. #I'mPartOfTheProblem (personally I wouldn't think that unrelated, non-members are part of the problem, but I guess I learned something)
You seem to be going out of your way to find reasons to feel offended by my initial post, yet you say that you "don't care" and have "never complained" and at least suggest that you're an "unrelated, non-member" - if that's the case, then you're not part of the problem, at least the one that I defined in the post above.
Perhaps my writing style is opaque, but my initial post was directed at people who publicly complain about the ANA in this forum, yet have not been/are not willing to make an effort to change the organization, not people who have no interest in it.
What is now proved was once only imagined. - William Blake
@Regulated I'm an ANA dropout. I didn't see the value in being a member. I felt the organization too insider and too political. It seemed to me that a lot of members were there for the insurance or to have ANA Member on their website. With that being said I would come back if there was a bonifide reason to.
Just an example. If you were to give an online presentation on Pioneer Gold I would sign up in a heart beat. If Andy were to give one on coins of Central America I would trip over myself to join. If Lane were to give one on just about anything I'm in. DW on branch mint gold etc etc etc. This is just one opportunity that they are missing. It doesn't have to accredited or degreed. It just has to be interesting.
Make the online presentations one hour. Can be a series
Assign course work/ reading prior
Web cast
Charge $10
Presentor gets paid
Loss cost high reward
Take advantage of the internet.
I think collectors would be enegerized and find new collecting or learning avenues to explore. End result it strengthens the hobby. I really don't see the current ANA fulfilling that role today.
Yadda, yadda, yadda
mark
Fellas, leave the tight pants to the ladies. If I can count the coins in your pockets you better use them to call a tailor. Stay thirsty my friends......
I joined and appreciate the organization for what it is, and what they represent. And if you want to see the best coins in the world , go to one of their sponsored shows and imagine what it would be like to be around those who's mission in life is to protect and immerse themselves in the coin world, as it were.
``https://ebay.us/m/KxolR5
I'd do that in a heartbeat, and I'm sure any of the other people you listed would be similarly willing. I did a two-day, 14+ hour seminar on Pioneer Gold Sunday and Monday before the ANA this year in Denver, and it was a riot. I'm also reasonably sure that the ANA would try and put something together. I'll talk to Amber and see if she thinks that it's possible.
What is now proved was once only imagined. - William Blake
@Regulated. Sweet. I'd trade a Tuesday Night with you over Tuesday night watching my wife watch Real Housewives. I wish had the time to get to more shows and seminars. I'm sure legions others do as well. It's easy to buy coins on line. The rest of the show experience not so much.
Thanks for taking interest
m
Fellas, leave the tight pants to the ladies. If I can count the coins in your pockets you better use them to call a tailor. Stay thirsty my friends......
This is a pathetic thread that simply perpetuates a negative feeling about an organization that exists to support our hobby. If you have time to complain about the ANA, you have the time to support it.
I'll help you answer the question, though. If the is dissolved, the sun will still rise in the morning and set in the evening. But we (as collectors, dealers, professionals, etc) will have less support for the hobby at invisible levels that we don't realize have a positive impact on the hobby. If organizations like ANA, CSNS, FUN, and the myriad of coin clubs around the country disappear without notice the hobby will slowly (or quickly) die. Easier to stop trashing it, and start by joining for 20 bucks. Heck, if you ask me nicely, I'll sponsor you, if it's too much to ask.
Peace out.
Whitman Brands: President/CEO (www.greysheet.com; www.whitman.com)
PNG: Executive Director (www.pngdealers.org)
Now THAT was the kind of answer I was hoping to find.
Thanks Andy.
I've been a member off & on & off & on & off over the past 37 years.
First ten years I used the Association's library while I was not a member.
Employees were always so nice to me, reminding me from time to time I should become a member. For years I read their books and visited the rotating exhibits for free. Even parking was free & easy to find. Exhibits like Dr AK Berry's outlandish US Mint made errors were wonderful to absorb.
I joined ANA for a few years in the 90's while taking Summer Seminar classes held on the Colorado College Campus. It was a joy spending time with and being taught by the error hobby's heavy weights, along with visiting authors, many true numismatists. Even the nightly mini seminars were no additional charge.
At the 2017 Denver ANA show I realized I could pay their $592 fee & become an ANA Life Member. I chatted with Fred Weinberg about this shoppertunity and I joined. After the Show I was able to attend the 50 year party at ANA HQ with my wife due to having membership. We had a nice lunch & took home some lovely swag, limited edition stuff I've seen sold for a couple hundred bucks at fleabay.
She enjoyed herself. Happy wife, happy...
;^)
If I ever have some spare time I plan to spend a few days in the updated library just to see what's on the shelf that interests me. I'll check some books out now that I'm a member, again.
Oh yeah, from what I understand, the ANA has a 100 year lease for One Dollar a year. 50 years has passed, & now there's 50 years left on the lease agreement. I assume ANA will stay here in Colorado Springs till 2068.
Lindy
For collectors to assist the ANA, I recommend providing feedback to and participating on the new Collectors Relations Committee
It would be great put videos of your seminars online. I've started to notice more coin videos online, some at a nice 4K resolution. I'd definitely pay to watch some!
I'm Pro ANA
I don't think they will dissolve unless it's lawsuits.
I would have learned much less and had less passion for the hobby without them.
I spoke with Amber at the ANA today about the possibility of presenting an online seminar - she's looking into it, and if it's feasible, I think it'll happen.
What is now proved was once only imagined. - William Blake
I seriously don't even know how to check but if my hard copy Numismatist doesn't show up after a couple months I google them and go through about four or five pages and then hit their website...but then it's a smartphone I'm on so I gotta go and grab the "college-era" PC laptop out of the hiding spot so I can pay my dues and get my magazine back before Christmas...but 750 Racks for a website that looks like it was built by a programmer on windows 98 in a lunch cafeteria??? I want in on that racket...so is it fully dissolved you ask??? I don't think so...but only because I have the latest edition of the magazine in hand with me right now
The ANA has a lot of exceptional benefits and most of those are not well known or accessible to the membership at large. The ANA touts "the magazine" as a primary benefit and other "things" you get as members, such as reduced insurance, access to NGC submissions, and sometimes a nifty little gift for joining. Those are minor in the bigger picture of what the ANA provides. Inducements may get people to join, but they don't work in the long run. [Just read the comments from many posters here and you will hear how they will join IF they are given this or that. It's marketing 102. Gifts are great ... until you no longer offer gifts.]
Don't get me wrong ... The Numismatist is a fine numismatic magazine and it's intent is to be informative and entertaining ... not academic. The ANA did publish an academic journal for a very short run, but it was not managed properly and failed very quickly. The trouble is that the ANA [read ANA Board, not staff] are not forward thinking with respect to resourcing projects. [But that's a different discussion].
The library is one of the greatest and least used ANA resources. Imagine a lending library on your favorite topic where you can get darn near any numismatic literature resource loaned to you for the cost of postage. That is awesome with a capital A. To visit the library is like thirstily crossing the desert and finding an oasis of cool water and lush fruit. The rare book room ... is just to die for! It's sad that so few members use this resource.
Summer Seminar is great ... but it could be fantastic [another discussion as well]. Sadly, few members attend this two-week numismatic coin camp nerd fest. It serves about 1 percent of the membership and a great number of those are repeaters. It's an experience equivalent to visiting Maranello if you are a Ferrari tifosi or NASA if you are a space junkie ... and talking to the engineers one-on-one ... with a beer.
Committee service is another opportunity to become engaged, not only with shaping the direction of the organization, but moving the hobby in the "right" direction [whatever that means to you]. For example, a brief conversation in the early 2000s lead to the concept of "Coins in the Classroom" that became a national movement by the ANA to introduce numismatics as a learning tool into K-12 classrooms. That was done by people who became engaged.
While complaining is easy and perhaps even fun for some, it takes effort to become engaged and create meaningful change. That's why so few people seem to do it.
Sorry for the long post ... too much coffee this morning!
See http://www.doubledimes.com for a free online reference for US twenty-cent pieces
I'm a big fan of the ANA and I'm a life member for many years. I've been to coin college a half dozen times and I've learned a tremendous amount from the courses and from the instructors, not to mention enjoying some great vacations and meeting many national collectors and dealers. I also handled an ethics case against an ANA member-dealer on behalf of a new coin collector who got an inheritance and bought a big coin that was misrepresented as something it was not. The ANA issued a decision which required the dealer to make my collector-client whole or face expulsion. The dealer complied, so I have the ANA to thank for that.
While all organizations are imperfect, the ANA is only as great as you make it. If you don't like it, get involved and be part of the fix.
Tom