The first Legacy Knights Numismatic Society meeting of the 2020-2021 school year is in the books.  We were able to register 20 members, and although we would have room for a few more, I am very happy.  Given how the pandemic has impacted how people think about social gatherings, 20 kids in an after school program is great.  It's actually right in the middle of our membership average over the years since we've started.  Maybe the pandemic is not as much a factor on our numbers as is the fluctuation in class sizes of eligible grades from year to year.  I'll have to look into that.We started out with an introduction to LKNS for the benefit of our several new members, and as a review for the returning members who hadn't been to a meeting in a long time due to the cancellation of the last three months of in-person school events last year.  Some things could be dry, especially for kids, but if you keep them involved as you go through, and break it up with a few giveaways here and there, you can hold their attention awhile longer.Normally we give out Red Books to our new members.  They are usually not current year Red Books; we ask for donations of Red Books from people who want to upgrade to the latest year, because it's not so much the latest prices that we need from these books as much as the information, grading guides, mintage figures, etc. that you can find in a Red Book.  I like the size of the Red Books because our students can throw one in their school bookbag without taking up too much space or adding too much weight.  Because we haven't been meeting with other coin clubs, we haven't been able to gather second-hand Red Books like we used to.  But we have a month to get some.\Next month we have a special presentation about elongated coins for our meeting.  The Elongate Collectors Club (TEC) provided this lesson plan to us through a Miami Valley Coin Club member who attended one of the national ANA shows.  They made a nice donation of some souvenir elongated cents so that every member could have a couple.  I also managed to find a couple of 100+ lots of elongated cents on eBay for a great price.  You see these machines across the country but you don't realize how many there are until you start looking on places like www.pennycollector.com and sorting through them by state.  They are most common in zoos, museum gift shops, and other local tourist attractions.  The National Museum of the US Air Force isn't far from our school and they have 3 machines producing a dozen designs.  Kings Island has machines all over the park it seems.  The retired designs are fun to find.  I managed to find the last retired design of the NMUSAF (back when it was called the USAF Museum) that I was missing:  The Apollo 15 capsule.  Now I believe I have the complete "official" collection (I've come across a few others but I don't know if they were actually made at the AF museum or not).It's so much fun seeing the kids getting interested in something, learning, and having fun together over a common interest.  I'd encourage anyone who loves kids first, numismatics second, to consider starting a YN club at your local school.  Schools need volunteers to help interest the kids in learning and developing their minds.  Numismatics definitely supports a good well rounded education through all the connections to history, science, math, economics, languages, and cultures.  Put together your idea for a club and approach your local school administration.   You should have a good basic knowledge of numismatics to start a club, but you do not have to be a professional at it or even know all the answers.  You will learn with the kids!  Being an organized person in your planning helps (I'm not great at that but am learning).  Being organized in running meetings helps too, but when dealing with kids, you can't let a little chaos get in the way of having a good time!  Know going in that the kids have limits to their attention span... structure is good, tyranny is not.  You'll have to keep them engaged by keeping it simple, keeping it moving, and keeping them actively engaged.  But always remember, the kids are more important than the coins.  If you believe that, you will make a good club coordinator.  What's most important to them is that you care about them, and will make a safe place for them to have fun while learning.  They will surprise you with what they learn!

As an extracurricular activity of our school, the Legacy Knights Numismatic Society has been waiting for some word on back-to-school operational plans for the 2020-2021 school year.  We finally got the official plan in writing today.  Depending on how you feel about the pandemic and governmental and societal handling of it, the plans will either look like too much, not enough, or a reasonable approach under the circumstances.  I believe our school is doing the best it reasonably can, and they do plan to return to the classroom in about a month.  Of course this could change as the state and local situations and governmental requirements change.  But if it's safe to get back to the classroom and safe to do sports activities again, then it isn't unreasonable to hold other extracurricular activities, as long as we pay attention to reasonable health precautions.LKNS missed its 2019-2020 annual student members only auction because the school was closed for the pandemic.  Ohio has been gradually reopening and the state has issued guidance for reopening schools.  So that the faithful 2019-2020 members who worked throughout the years to earn KPC to spend at our auction aren't cheated out of that opportunity, We will start the 2020-2021 year by holding our 2019-2020 auction.  We have a pretty good collection of auction items started, even though donations were hampered a bit by the pandemic (not being able to meet with people to promote the auction and receive donations, etc).  Still we will do OK and have a good time with it.  Hopefully we can even turn this into some energy for renewing memberships for the 2020-2021 year.Normally we make the auction kind of a party.  We like cookies (they are round and flat like coins), and we wash them down with some bottled water.  This time though they will have to be served individually so that the kids aren't touching or breathing on other kids' cookies and water bottles when they get their own.  It's possible we might have to skip those altogether... I hope not, because sugar-fueled bidding really makes for a great auction.  :-)We usually have the kids bid with paper Knights Payment Certificates denominated in pre-decimal British pounds sterling (pounds, shillings, and pence).  We might skip the paper currency this year just to reduce handling it and passing it around.  Instead, maybe we'll keep a list of credit for each student.We will put all the auction items on a display table and allow them to be viewed but not handled by any but the auction hosts until the items are won.  It's important to see the obverse and reverse of what you're buying, so we will still try to accommodate that.We hold the auction in a large open room, so we will have plenty of tables, chairs, and space to spread everyone out around the room for social distancing.  Plus, the kids are being encouraged to bring and wear masks for school (we will see how that goes).  We can probably have their won items brought to them at their seat rather than have them walk past each other.  Of course, they get excited and have a hard time sitting still, so maybe walking to the table and back would be better than not.  (Hmmmm, might have to rethink the cookie-fueled bidding thing...)Maybe this will be a good model for other meetings.  With a little thought, clubs could find a way to meet in person again by employing some reasonable health precautions.  Lots of clubs involve older people, so I wouldn't want to see any of them catch a virus; but a lack of social contact and loneliness is also taking a toll on people's mental health, and there's a link between the health of a person's mind and their body.  So hopefully a safe, healthy balance can be found.  If nothing else, we are all a little more aware of how germs spread and can practice good sanitation and hygiene habits in our daily lives.

It's been a nice summer off, but we come back to a new school year, and an exciting year of youth numismatics!

The Legacy Knights Numismatic Society ended the school year by holding its first annual student-members-only auction, which turned out to be a rousing success!The idea came about when I was pondering how to fairly distribute donated items among our student members.  The donated reference books went to our school library to create a numismatic reference section.  That way they are always available during the school year, not only for our Society members, but also the rest of the student body, as a way of perpetuating awareness of our numismatic group.But what about the other donated items?  We have 13 members; what would we do with something that couldn't be divided evenly by 13?  How would we match these items to the persons who actually had an interest?  And what if more than one student wanted an item; how do we give everyone a fair shot at something?Thus was born the First Annual Legacy Knights Numismatic Society End of the Year Student Members Only Auction.Up front, I eliminated the idea that they would use real money for bidding.  Not so much to keep the richest kid in the room from winning all the bids, but because the items up for bid were all donations to be given to the kids, or earned as awards for achievements, etc.; not sold to them.I could either have them bid using balance sheets, or I could use "play money".  I opted for the latter, as it was more fun.  For "security reasons", I opted to design and print my own, rather than buy some online.The auction was conducted using custom-made "Knights Payment Certificates" (KPC, Series 171), which were denominated in British pre-decimal Pounds, Shillings, and Pence: 12 pence to a shilling, 20 shillings to a pound.  We used eight different denominations of notes.Now why in the world, you may ask, would I make third graders use pre-decimal British pounds, shillings, and pence?  Well, because we are, after all, Knights; and shillings of one variety or another were once used in many European countries where knights lived.  But more practically, the British system of £/s/d circled the globe with the British Empire; and our student numismatists, all of whom are learning to identify world coins, would be well served if they could understand that system.  And besides, I just thought it would be fun to try.We had to set some auction rules, the main one being that if you overbid and couldn't pay for an item you won, you would forfeit the item, pay a penalty, and be disqualified from bidding for the rest of the auction.  This forced them to think about their bids and kept us from wasting time with overbids.Each student received £6 5/- (or 125 shillings) to use for bidding.  To make it interesting, I let students bring in their own items to auction ahead of the donated items.  In this way, they could add to their bidding funds.  One student nearly doubled his funds with the popular items he auctioned. Donated items auctioned included US and foreign coins and currency, such as an 1843 US large cent, a proof Eisenhower dollar, a BU silver US bicentennial half, US silver certificates, a German 5000 mark banknote, a collection of 1800's world coins, several WW2-era coin sets, a subset of Japanese Invasion Money, a page of four different WW2 Allied Military Currency notes, and rolls of wheat pennies. Other popular hobby-related items included a jeweler's loupe and coin collection display folders, with foldovers and storage tubes being bought outright at the end of the auction for a penny or three.If you're an experienced auction buyer you might think bidding among elementary students would be pretty tame.  You would be wrong!  Some heady sums were reached during the often furious-paced, cookie-fueled bidding. We managed to distribute all the donated items by auction's end.  And most importantly, everyone had a lot of fun.  We will definitely plan another auction for next year!

New member here, grateful for the opportunity to join the ANA.  I've had great experiences with several other ANA members and am happy to finally associate my name with this institution.Through positive exposure to my crossover interests in history and coins, my son has come alongside me in taking up similar interests.  One day he came home from school and exclaimed, "Another kid in my class collects coins!  He heard I liked coins and World War Two history and gave me this!"  He produced a 1943 US steel cent, which I dutifully admired before reaching into my own wartime collection.  "Here...  Since he likes historic coins, maybe he'll like this one," and I handed him a pre-war British penny to give to his friend.  And thus the trading frenzy began.Soon my son was coming home with reports of more friends who were bringing coins and paper money to school and trading them.  "You know, I'll bet your friends would like to join us some Saturday for a trip to the coin shop," I told him.  Sure enough, after a basketball game, several of his teammates from school joined us in patronizing our favorite numismatic dealer.Soon afterwards, I had permission from the school administration to form an after-school club for students in the third through sixth grades.  We held our first official meeting on 28 February 2017 with fourteen young enthusiasts in attendance.  We are working on creating more Young Numismatists through the Coins for A's program, then we're diving into The Dollar Project.This club is a little different from other local clubs in that its membership is limited to students of our school in those four grades, their parents, and school faculty/staff.  However, we have another excellent club in the area whose membership is open to the public and accepts members of all ages.  They have already become an ally of ours and we hope to support them in turn.As coordinator for this newly formed young Numismatic Society, I've found that it takes a little effort and planning, but not much more than I was already interested in investing in my hobby in the first place.  It keeps me progressing in increasing my own knowledge, and  in making contacts and developing relationships within the numismatic community.  Plus, it is an excellent way to get to know the parents of my son's school mates, a key component in forming a strong, healthy educational community for our students.Dave