King County Coin Club

                  February 2010

Hello Coin Nuts!

We survived! The Barberarians have retreated. After commandeering the January meeting they were beat back to whatever hell hole they emanate from by our other non Barberarian members. The Barberarians like to think that they’re crazy. You call that crazy? We’ll show them crazy.  But before they were repulsed, leader Reed Keeney held sway just long enough to expound on the virtues of Barber coinage- all one of them. According to Reed, it seems that Barber was a superior “technician”. I’ll agree to that. He was sadly able to convert poor Miss Liberty to a hermaphrodite long before transgender operations became commonplace. Admittedly, it was a remarkable achievement for the day. But nobody asked Liberty and she/he was bereft and confused. So along comes Teddy and Augustus and through their efforts Miss Liberty was re-regendered and restored to fulsome womanhood. Oh baby! It was a high relief to her. But the resulting controversies over her see-saw sexuality eventually alienated every segment of the American populace. She became a pariah and a political hot potato. It was finally deemed appropriate to banish her from our circulating coinage, to be replaced forever by dead presidents. So today Liberty wanders our land, a woman/man/woman without a country.  She can be seen surmounting majestic purple mountains. She can be seen striding through amber waves of grain and soaring above the fruited plain. Just don’t look for her in Washington D.C.

So now for something completely different- ancients! In our four years we have never had a presentation on ancients. That’s about to change. Our guest speaker this month is the pre-eminent northwest ancient specialist Scott Loos. We thank him in advance for braving the nuts. It has been getting more difficult to obtain outside guest speakers these days due to our reputation. But Scott is big and he’s tough too. So stay in your seats and pipe down lest he has to whack you upside your heads. The board has given him permission.

Speaking of high relief and see-saws- Our featured numismatic item this month is too cool for words, but I’ll try. You’ll probably be surprised to learn that it’s an exposition item, this time from the 1897 Tennessee Exposition.  A large 76mm souvenir medal, the obverse features “The Giant See Saw” from the fair, whose cars carried 25 passengers 200 feet into the air for a visit to “Cloud Land”. By golly- that’s where I want to go! You gotta love it. This item was repatriated from the United Kingdom via EBay recently. In its original leather and velvet case, it hammered down at $617.77. Proving once again- there’s no nut like an expo nut. The only unfortunate thing about this piece is that I don’t own it. We thank seller Chris Denton for the use of his photos. So remember and heed the law of see saws- what goes up must come down.                 

So come on down to Tukwila Thursday.                                                                   We’ll see you there!     

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