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Newsletter of the Paso del Norte Coin Club El Paso, Texas · Founded 1964 Vol. 35, No. 9 · September 1999 Miguel Nava, Editor NEXT MEETING: THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 9, 1999, 7:00 P.M. Library meeting room, as always. Program: "Mexico's New Peso, Six Years Later," by your editor, who promises to stop talking by 7:45. Bring your Mexican coins for show and tell. Auction lots to John Garofalo by 6:45, please. FROM THE PRESIDENT Thirty-five years ago this fall, eleven collectors met in a bank lobby downtown and decided El Paso needed a coin club. One of them, William Levine, is still with us, still bidding, and still the best grader of Barber coinage in West Texas. We will mark our anniversary at the show in November with a wooden nickel for every visitor (see Old Business). Meanwhile, the state quarters have brought more new faces to our meetings this year than any year I can remember. Make them welcome. Show them your coins. Remember somebody did that for you. -- Samuel Saltsman, President MINUTES OF THE AUGUST 12 MEETING President Saltsman called the meeting to order at 7:02 p.m. Present: 31 members and 3 guests. The minutes of the July meeting were approved as printed. Treasurer's report (Joseph Bechtel), for August:
Old business. Show chairman Edward Cook reported that 28 of 40 dealer tables are sold for the November show. The hotel contract is signed. Members voted to order 1,000 wooden nickels printed with the club name and "35 Years, 1964-1999," to be given out at the show; the deposit is paid. New business. Vice President Sandra Darnell will lead a committee to nominate officers for 2000. The election is at the December meeting. The club will again give a one-year membership and a Red Book to the best YN exhibit at the show. Show and tell. William Levine brought the postcard announcing the club's first meeting in 1964, and a 1964 proof set bought that year from the Mint for $2.10. Adolph Marcano has finished his Mercury dime set, at last, with a 1916-D in Good, and received a round of applause. Jeremy found a 1999-P Georgia quarter in his lunch change. Michelle explained the 1943 steel cent, with a magnet, and showed why a 1943 cent that doesn't stick to the magnet is almost always a copper-plated steel cent or an altered date. The room stood up and clapped. Program. "Grading Lincoln Cents," by Miguel Nava, with twenty cents passed around the room from Good to Mint State. The members graded every coin on paper. The most common mistake, as always: calling a coin Uncirculated because it is shiny. Door prize: a 1999 silver Eagle, won by a guest from Las Cruces who promptly joined the club. Meeting adjourned at 9:01 p.m. Respectfully submitted, Miguel Nava, Secretary. AUGUST AUCTION RESULTS 18 lots, all sold. Auctioneer John Garofalo, in fine voice.
YN CORNER by Kathleen Durbin Our five young members are on fire this fall. Jeremy has found all four 1999 designs in change, P and D, except the Philadelphia Delaware, like the rest of us. Aimee, our newest at ten, has filled 31 holes in her Lincoln folder since June, all from her family's penny jar. Michelle is working on a show exhibit about the 1943 cent. Joshua and Adam, who are fourteen and best friends and agree on nothing, are arguing about whether a Morgan dollar or a Peace dollar is the more beautiful coin, and have each been assigned a five-minute talk to settle it at the October meeting. Parents, you are welcome to sit in on the YN Corner any time. MEXICO'S NEW PESO, 1993 by Miguel Nava Many of our members on both sides of the river have a drawer full of old Mexican coins and paper money from before 1993, and I get asked about them at every meeting, so here is the short history. By the end of the 1980s, years of inflation had made the old peso nearly worthless. In 1992 it took about three thousand pesos to buy one U.S. dollar. Prices in the stores ran to so many zeros that cashiers and customers both lost track, and the smallest coins were not worth picking up off the street. So on January 1, 1993, Mexico started over with the nuevo peso, the new peso, worth one thousand of the old ones. A thousand old pesos became one new peso; a fifty-thousand-peso note became fifty new pesos. Nothing actually got cheaper or dearer. Mexico simply knocked three zeros off every price, every wage and every bank account at once. The new coins came in centavos (5, 10, 20 and 50) and in pesos. The one-peso coin was made in two metals, a yellow center inside a silver-colored ring, with the national arms, the eagle on the cactus with the serpent, on the front. The ten-peso coin of those first years had a center of real sterling silver. Collectors should know that the first of the new coins are dated 1992: they were struck ahead of time, so they would be ready on New Year's Day. For three years the coins and notes said "nuevos pesos." In 1996, once everybody was used to the new money, the word "nuevos" was dropped, and the coins today say simply "pesos." That makes the 1992 to 1995 "nuevos" coins a short, neat series, still cheap and easy to find in change in Juárez, and a good first collection for a young person in El Paso. Look for the "N$" and the word NUEVOS. As for the old coins in your drawer: most of them are worth little more than the metal, but some of the older silver pieces are worth a good deal more. Bring them to a meeting. And as always, don't clean them. MEMBER NEWS Welcome to new members Terry Preece, who collects Indian cents, and Jeannie McCarthy, who collects anything with a horse on it. Get well wishes to Ann Barbera, recovering at home from hip surgery; she says she will be at the October meeting with a cane and a want list. Happy 81st birthday to William Levine. CALENDAR Thu., Sept. 9 · Regular meeting, 7:00 p.m. Thu., Oct. 14 · Regular meeting. Morgan vs. Peace debate. Thu., Nov. 11 · Regular meeting (Veterans Day) Sat.-Sun., Nov. 20-21 · 31st Annual Coin Show Thu., Dec. 9 · Regular meeting, election, Christmas potluck |