The Chicago Coin Club is inviting everyone to attend its 1000th meeting on April 6, 2002. This is an event very few coin clubs reach so Club members are planning to celebrate it in grand style!
It will be held in conjunction with the Chicago International Coin Fair (CICF), April 5-7, Holiday Inn O'Hare Hotel, 5440 N. River Road, Rosemont, Illinois.
The first session of the 1000th meeting begins at 1 PM on Saturday, April 6th, with featured speaker Steve Album, Santa Rosa, California. Album is a foremost expert on Islamic coinage and he will cover The Development of Islamic Coinage, 650-1250 AD. Today newspapers and television showcase many Islamic history programs. But what most coin collectors don't know is that Islam did not strike distinctive religious coins during its early years. For the first seventy years Islamic coins imitated the Byzantine and Sasanian coinage. Everyone is invited to attend the meeting and hear Album tell the story of this unique time in history. He published A Checklist of Islamic Coins, now in its second edition, and is currently a senior fellow at Worchester College, Oxford, England and in this position he began publishing the first of ten volumes of a Sylloge of Islamic Coins in the Ashmolean (Museum) in 1999. Volume 2 of this impressive work has just been printed and is now available.
For the fourteenth successive year the Chicago Coin Club will also present every attendee with an educational card dealing with some area of primitive money. Researched and written by Robert D. Leonard, Jr., the 2002 issue will cover Gold Dust Currency and each souvenir card will include genuine gold dust. History is sprinkled with stories of gold dust being used as money including California in the 1850s, Georgia in the 1830s and as recently as the 1980s in the Amazon Rain Forest in Brazil. Perhaps the most enduring example is the gold dust system used for over 1,000 years by the Ashanti tribe in Ghana, Africa. Only 150 copies printed and extra copies will be sold for $5.00 + $1.00 for postage.
The activities culminate at an evening banquet held in the hotel, with featured speaker Dr. Ute Wartenberg, Executive Director of the American Numismatic Society, New York. She will speak on Owls to Athens - The Dollar of the Ancient World. Formerly the Assistant Keeper and Curator of Greek Coins at the British Museum, Wartenberg wrote the book After Marathon - War, Society and Money in Fifth-Century Greece. In it she describes the political and economic world of ancient Greece, under the leadership of Athens, as reflected in their coinage. Athenians referred to their coins as "owls" because of the common reverse design showing an owl, the symbol for Athena the patron goddess of Athens. Those who attend this presentation will enjoy the slides of these magnificent and miniature masterpieces from the British Museum and the ANS cabinet.
Cocktail hour will be begin at 6 PM and dinner at 7 o'clock. Banquet tickets are sold on a reservation basis and are available at $45.00. Those who want to attend should send a check payable to Chicago Coin Club, P.O. Box 2301, Chicago, IL 60690.
Wartenberg's talk complements the Club medal struck to mark the milestone. The obverse shows a reproduction of an Athenian tetradrachm. Athens was one of the great commercial centers in the ancient world and their "owl" coins circulated throughout the known world for 600 years and imitated as far away as India and South Arabia. The Club chose the design to acknowledge the great commercial center of Chicago and to recognize a forerunner, the Chicago Numismatic Society, where the owl represented the group 100 years ago. The owl also symbolizes the Club's dedication to numismatic education. The reverse side shows the appropriate dates and the Club's Latin motto Docendo Discimus that translates to "We Learn By Teaching."
The medals are being struck at the North American Mint, Syracuse, NY and are available for sale to collectors. A .999 fine 5-ounce silver medal is available at $48 + $11 for registered mail on a pre-order basis. After March 15th, the price will go to $55 + $11 for registered mail. There are two outstanding strikes available on pre-order only - no extras will be ordered. They are a .999 fine 5-ounce silver/with gold highlights ($63 + $11 for registered mail) and a 24-karat 8-ounce (approximate) gold medal ($2700 + $15 for registered mail; price subject to changes in gold bullion price). Checks should be made payable to the Chicago Coin Club, P.O. Box 2301, Chicago, IL 60690.
A souvenir program is planned that collectors will keep for years to come. Everyone at the banquet will receive one and copies will be mailed to Club members who cannot attend. They will also be made available to every new member for years to come. The program will include a history of the Club, a descriptive list of the medals issued with photos, a roster of Past-Presidents, Medal of Merit Recipients and the Club's Constitution and By-Laws. Coin dealers are invited to buy congratulatory advertisement in this souvenir program. The categories are full page $100, half page $50 and quarter page $25. To be sure that you're properly recognized, everyone should be sure their response is in by March 15, 2002 and should be mailed to Chicago Coin Club, P.O. Box 2301, Chicago, IL 60690.
An event like this requires considerable resources and the Club is asking members and collectors to participate in a separate patron program. The categories are Platinum $500, Gold $100, Silver $25 and Bronze $10. Every patron will be properly recognized in the official program so be sure you respond by March 15th.
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