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Copyright 1994 by Michael E. Marotta, 7 Aug 1994
I was allowed to join the NLG and got my membership card at their dinner party held on Thursday, July 28, 1994 from 9:30 til Midnight during the ANA Convention in Detroit. It was an enlightening view of the people who write the articles you read in the trade journals you buy.
First and foremost, everyone knows everyone else and has for years. There are no introductions.
Secondly, there is no food, only a buffet of chips, dips, nuts and pretzels. You have to stand at the buffet and munch because there are no plates. (I filled a nut-dish and carried it back to my table.) However, the bar is complete: beer, cocktails and cordials. These are, after all, writers. I bought a beer and a scotch neat and settled down with my notepad and nuts.
This year's festivities were modeled on "Prairie Home Companion". The news included an announcement of a 9kt gold plated blank disk which will be legal tender in Hutt River Province and the Marshall Islands.
Singing included Ed Reiter's "Georgie Boy", a song about dealers who need to wake up and realize that the world has changed since 1983.
Q. David Bowers did a Carnak Routine.
The answer is 880 thousand dollars.
"How much did David Ganz's birthday party cost?"
Pennsylvania, Colorado, California and New York
"Name four mint states." [I don't get it but everyone roared.]
The answer is Legalized gambling.
"What do you call the walk from the Renaissance Center to Cobo Hall?" [Not
funny but everyone laughed. There was a general feeling that Detroit was a
bad choice for the convention. To be honest, in Greektown there were these
Black gang dudes hanging around. They looked through me like I wasn't
there because for them I wasn't. White middle class people are not in
their world. But old people are always afraid of young toughs and the ANA
is nothing if not old.]
Ed Reiter sang "Hutt River" almost as well as Andy Williams did the original. This was humor I could appreciate: the US Trade Commission forced Hutt River to call their coins "medallions" but the NLG knows that the current "commemoratives" from the US Mint are just as phoney.
Someone named something like "Mel Waxman" sang "The 12 Days of Christmas" which actually ran only seven days because the Hutt River, Knights of Malta, J.S.G. Boggs, American Banknote Company, and Brasher issues were all seized by the Secret Service.
Ed Rieter and the NLG Choir sang "Whizzin' USA."
A roundtable discussed ways to raise money for the ANA. One suggestion was for ANA Condoms which led to an AU-55 joke. The Wierd Mint Council met. Members included Hutt River, The Marshall Islands, Bosnia, Whitewater Arkansas, North Korea and Singapore. Everyone in Congress was invited to the First Strike Ceremony.
After the fun, several people were inducted into the NLG. I got my card as did Stephanie Schultz of The Celator. There was another person, I believe. But this is an old-boy crowd that doesn't need to explain anything or introduce anyone.
Then they gave the awards. Q. David Bowers, CoinAge, Coin World, Coins, Bank Note Reporter, Bowers and Merena, everyone got an award for something. Well, club newsletters didn't get any awards, state or local publications didn't get any. Freelance writers didn't. People who write letters to the editor or guest editorials didn't. There were no awards for Electronic Publications or News Groups, or BBSes. But everyone who got an award before got yet another once again. They knew why they got them and so did everyone else, so there was no need for time-consuming details. The Celator was given Best Issue. Wayne thought it was for the Best of 93 publication but I thought it was for the December 93 issue. It doesn't matter. He got an award and so everyone got something and it was fair.
The Greatest Numismatist in the World Award went to the Director of the Smithsonian Cabinet, a nice old lady who has done so much for numismatics that no one needed to mention it all out loud. The next day, her son stopped by where I was working a table and said that he and she enjoyed my article on the origins of coinage and that they discussed it on the plane. I was truly honored and actually humbled.
It was an award worth telling your peers about. I wrote the article several times. The first time, Classical Numistatic Review turned it down. In effect, Kerry Wetterstrom said, "Well done but we know all that. Read these books." So I did. I found that other numismatists had already raised the same issues and it strengthened my arguments. The article has been rejected in various forms by The Numismatist and The Freeman and many other magazines on history, coins, economics and money. I was embarrassed to learn that CNR ran the improved version because I was telling Victor England about my ideas when he stopped me to tell me that he reads his own magazine. Apparently a lot of people read his magazine. It's too bad that he didn't win an NLG award, but to do that, he'd need lots of old numismatists writing about Wheat Cents and Trade Dollars.
Michael E. Marotta
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