| Volume 63 No. 1 | January 2017 |
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Although it appears that there will be no CPMX or CICF in Rosemont early in 2017, there will be some shows in the area. For paper money, the PCDA show is moving from November to March. For world and ancient coins, the new Chicago Coin Expo will be held in early April in the Chicago Cultural Center (it was the downtown library, on Michigan Avenue, many years ago).
The show dates are listed in the Important Dates section later in this issue, and there are links for more details.
Paul Hybert, editor
The 1176th meeting of the Chicago Coin Club was held December 14, 2016 in the Chicago Bar Association Building, 321 S. Plymouth Court, Downtown Chicago. President Elliott Krieter called the meeting to order at 6:45 PM with 22 members and 1 guest, Katherine France.
A motion was passed to accept the November Minutes as published in the Chatter. Treasurer Steve Zitowsky gave a detailed financial report for October showing assets of $29,814.87 with November revenue of $835.00 and expenses of $47.00. A motion was passed accepting the report. The Treasurer announced he is collecting reservations of $55 per person for the January 11, 2017 Annual Banquet at Marcello’s Restaurant, 645 W. North Avenue, Chicago, IL. He announced that Sharon and Kevin Blocker donated the funds to cover the cost of a banquet speaker and guest which was met with a warm round of applause.
Steve also announced and distributed a schedule of multi-day coin shows where the club will staff an information table and hold a meeting.
Katherine France’s application for membership received a second reading and a motion was passed accepting her into membership.
The President announced the Nomination Committee of Bill Burd, Jeff Rosinia, and Robert Feiler put forward the following slate of officers: President, Richard Lipman; First V.P., Marc Stackler; Second V.P., John Riley; Archivist, William Burd. For the board: Dale Lukanich, Melissa Gumm, Mark Wieclaw, and Steve Ambos; and Immediate Past President, Elliott Krieter. The positions of Secretary and Treasurer are appointed by the President with the approval of the Board. There being no other nominations from the floor, a motion was made and unanimously passed electing the nominated slate. Robert Leonard swore in the new officers.
A proposal from Kevin Foley asking the Club to sponsor the Boy Scout Merit Badge Clinic at Central States Numismatic Society Convention at a cost of $500 was explained. This had received the unanimous support of the Board at their November 16th meeting. Following a discussion, a motion was unanimously passed to support this event for the 2017 convention.
The featured program of the evening was the annual auction.
The meeting was adjourned at 8:25 PM.
Respectfully Submitted,
Carl F. Wolf,
Secretary
These are the realized prices for the lots listed in the December Chatter.
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a presentation by Clifford Mishler, David Harper, and Joel Edler,
to our November 19, 2016 meeting,
Chet Krause was a generous man, who was a mentor to each of our three speakers, who all worked at Krause Publications. Chet was not a chamelion — he was genuinely interested in dealers while walking a bourse floor, and while walking the company floor, he could make you feel like you are the only one who could do your job.
David Harper first met Chet after he started working at KP in 1978, and he told us that Chet had the knack to put you at ease. Cliff Mishler might be the first KP employee who was not hired by Chet (in 1963), and he, too, first met Chet while on the job. Joel Edler joined KP in 1984, and first met Chet after a few days there; Joel now works as the Iola village manager.
Chet grew up about six miles east of Iola, and he graduated from highschool in 1941. He was drafted in 1943, and served as a mechanic in Europe. Back home in 1946, he worked as a carpenter; he liked to know how things worked and were built. One of his lifelong useful skills was the ability to break things down into smaller pieces, and concentrate on each piece in turn. At the time, a range of resources were available to the coin collectors who were located in urban areas; Chet investigated ways of having coin collectors in small towns and rural areas reach out to others in a similar situation, and decided on a social network using the printed medium. The first issue of Numismatic News appeared on October 13, 1952.
The early issues were put out with help from family and employees, using the home of Chet’s parents for a time. It took 18 months to break even, being down $1,800 at the worst point. Growth was done carefully, frugally, as shown by an arrangement with an insurance agent, whereby Chet paid the rent and the agent hired the secretary. Chet dropped carpentry work and became a full time publisher in 1957. Growth of the numismatic field continued into the 1960s, with a crunch hitting at the end of 1964. KP had 36 employees at the time, and was on the verge of going broke. There were no firings, but neither were there hires to fill openings; Chet counted phones in the offices, cut the number from 40 to 25, and explained to some people why they would no longer have their own phone; Chet’s Wisconsin National Banknote collection was sold to make the payroll; and the company survived.
With numismatics experiencing a downturn, KP looked to other fields for expansion. Chet was methodical in analyzing each market and what each market could use. The numismatically successful pattern of a price guide and a magazine was repeated in a number of fields. The decision on which fields to study was not difficult — he started with the fields that interested him, figuring that if he was interested in it, others might be interested, too.
Not all problems were purely financial. A full page ad in Numismatic News took the ANA board to task, so the board demanded to know who had placed the ad. Chet did not divulge the person’s name, so the board suspended Chet from the ANA — new ANA president Pittman reinstated Chet. Chet was not one to hold a grudge. At the ANA headquarters, a plaque lists the donors to the ANA building fund; Cliff stated that the leading entry of Anonymous is for Chet’s donation of $100,000.
When the clad coinage was introduced to replace the dropped circulating silve coins, the D and S mintmarks also were dropped from the coins. Chet was part of a group to restore the mintmarks; by finding sympathetic members in the government, and asking them some questions, in time the mintmarks were brought back. During the presentation, we saw a number of slides of Chet among a group of numistic leaders at various venues: testifying before Congress, at a presentation by US and Canadian mint directors, and at major gatherings.
When we saw a slide of Chet in front of a wall with front covers of Coins magazine, David Harper noted that these were called the dinnerplate covers because each cover had a large image of a single coin. David’s first such cover placed a Roosevelt dime on a blue background. Blue is considered a cold color, and Chet pointed that out to David. No fuss, no dramatics; since then, David has mostly used red (a warm color) on covers, and has not used blue again.
The Standard Catalog of World Coins started out during the recovery from the mid-60s US coin bust by focusing on a new area for KP, world coins. Instead of directly competing against the Amos Press magazine on world coins, the first effort started as a series of price lists, slowly issued one country per month in a Krause publication. Realizing that it would take too long to cover all countries, the format was changed to a catalog.
Joel Edler drew on his experiences as Iola village manager to show how Chet has been very committed to the health of Iola. Part of State Street was nice, but the other part was not as nice. Chet gave $750,000 to improve the street, add sidewalks, and other touches. A new effort for Iola Street started last year after Chet promised $60,000 per year for a few years. Chet had firm ideas of progress, with no place for angled on-street parking. Depot Street is the only street with angled parking, and the Depot Street business owners liked it. Chet missed the city meeting that discussed this matter, but someone decided to avoid any conflict by not painting any lines on the street!
The current three-day annual car show grew out of some car collectors coming to town for a fried chicken dinner. Chet’s vehicle collection included many military vehicles, even including an operating Sherman tank. It also included 24 different types of jeeps, from a prototype to a recent humvee, making veteran’s parades in Iola very special. The current car show has staff provided by civic organizations from Iola and surrounding towns, with a good part of each organization’s annual budget resulting from their involvement. Recently, 4,400 vendors were at the show, along with 2,500 show cars. Although there might be only 15 or 20 Model A cars now, early shows had 100-125 of them; Cliff noted that collectors prefer the cars from their youth. Of course Krause has some publications targeting the old car market.
The program wound down with examples of Chet as a philanthropist. Cliff mentioned a number of quotes from Chet, including, “I do not want to be the richest man in the cemetary,” “Give until it feels good,” and “I want my check to the undertaker to bounce.” The Marshfield Clinic and Rawhide Boys Ranch were mentioned as notable recipients of Chet’ assistance.
Under a slide of Chet and KP employees singing O Lutefisk over the KP intercom system a week before a past Christmas, the program ended with David and Joel heartily singing two stanzas of this homage to treated cod, an acquired taste of some lore, sung to the tune of O Christmas Tree. [For the uninitiated, lutefisk is made by soaking cod in lye water, then hanging it to dry on a fence; when stiff as a board, it is ready for storage. Prior to eating it, boil the lye out of it in water; served with butter and sugar, it tastes just like butter and sugar! David likened it, politely, to Cod Jello.]
| CSNS Convention | Chicago Coin Company |
| PCDA Convention | Harlan J. Berk, Ltd. |
| Date: | January 11, 2017 |
| Time: | 6PM to 6:45PM Cocktails and Hors d’oeuvres
6:45PM to 9PM Dinner and Meeting |
| Location: | Marcello’s Restaurant, 645 West North Avenue, Chicago, IL 312-654-2560. Ample free parking is available in their parking lot. If public transportation is taken, it’s just east of the North Avenue subway stop on the CTA Red Line. |
| Menu: |
• We will start with a Caesar Salad tossed with Crispy Croutons served with Caesar Dressing,
and continue with:
Oven Roasted Rosemary Chicken,
Cheese Stuffed Mushroom Ravioli smothered with Marcello’s Signature Marinara Sauce,
Crispy Broasted Potato Wedges,
and Grilled Asparagus Spears brushed with Extra Virgin Olive Oil and Fresh Herbs,
all served family style.
Dessert will be assorted Mini Pastries including Chocolate Mousse,
Strawberry Cheesecake, and Carrot and Lemon Chiffon.
• The cost is $55.00 per person and reservations are required. Our PO Box will not be checked for the next few weeks, so it is too late to mail your check. Email your reservation to carlwolfco@msn.com or call 773-771-1311, and plan to pay at the door. • Please make reservations as early as you can so we can plan for an appropriate room size. |
| Program: | We will try something new — a program of brief talks on our non-numismatic collections. Other members, visitors, and spouses would find this interesting. We will probably limit this to just 5-6 talks, so submit your subject idea, to carlwolfco@msn.com, as soon as you can for consideration. Please do not bring more than one piece. This idea is an outgrowth of Jeff Rosinia’s September presentation on the coinage from the 1892 Columbian Exposition. To accentuate the program Jeff showed a small, functioning, hand-operated, Singer Sewing Machine carried by their traveling salesmen. Jeff has agreed to bring to the banquet this amazing little machine, which is sure to interest engineers, machinists, and anyone who used a sewing machine. Another member has proposed to speak on antique fountain pen collecting. Submit your idea soon to carlwolfco@msn.com. |
| Agenda: | Cabeen Award Presentations |
Unless stated otherwise, our regular monthly CCC Meeting is in downtown Chicago on the second Wednesday of the month; the starting time is 6:45PM.
| January | 11 | CCC Meeting - Annual Banquet starts at 6:00PM at Marcello’s |
| February | 8 | CCC Meeting - Featured Speaker - to be announced |
| March | 2-4 | PCDA National Currency and Coin Convention at the Crown Plaza Chicago O’Hare, 5440 North River Road, Rosemont, IL. Admission is $5 good from 1pm on Thursday through Saturday. Details at http://www.pcdaonline.com |
| March | 4 | CCC Meeting - 1pm at the PCDA National Currency and Coin Convention,
which is held at the Crown Plaza Chicago O’Hare, 5440 North River Road, Rosemont, IL.
No admission charge for our meeting.
Featured Speaker - to be announced |
| March | 8 | CCC Meeting - Featured Speaker - to be announced |
| March | 9-11 | ANA’s National Money Show at the Orange County Convention Center, Orlando, Florida. Details at http://www.money.org/NationalMoneyShow |
| April | 6-8 | Chicago Coin Expo which is held at the Cultural Center in downtown Chicago. There is no admission charge. For details, refer to their website, http://www.coinexpo.org. |
| April | 12 | CCC Meeting - Featured Speaker - to be announced |
| April | 27-29 | 78th Anniversary Convention of the Central States Numismatic Society at the Schaumburg Renaissance Hotel & Convention Center, 1551 North Thoreau Drive, Schaumburg, IL. Free public admission. For details, refer to their website, http://www.centralstates.info/conv.html. |
| April | 29 | CCC Meeting - 1pm at the CSNS Convention,
which is held at the Schaumburg Convention Center.
Featured Speaker - to be announced |
http://www.ChicagoCoinClub.org/
All correspondence pertaining to Club matters
should be addressed to the Secretary and mailed to:
CHICAGO COIN CLUB
P.O. Box 2301
CHICAGO, IL 60690
| Elected positions (two-year terms): | |
| Richard Lipman | - President |
| Marc Stackler | - First Vice President |
| John Riley | - Second Vice President |
| William Burd | - Archivist |
| Directors: | Steve Ambos
Melissa Gumm Dale Lukanich Mark Wieclaw |
| Appointed positions: | |
| Elliott Krieter | - Immediate Past President |
| Carl Wolf | - Secretary |
| Steve Zitowsky | - Treasurer |
| Paul Hybert | - Chatter Editor, webmaster |
| Robert Feiler | - ANA Club Representative |
chatter_editor@yahoo.com
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with a little cutting and pasting to fill out each print page.
The webpage is available before the Chatter is mailed.
If you would like to receive an email link to the latest issue instead of a mailed print copy,
send an email to chatter_editor@yahoo.com.
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