And which Civil War would that be?

Just did a display for Veterans Day, and when talking with a group of 5th graders about events that occured on June 6, 1944, and refered to D-Day, one student asked me, "What was D-Day?" Guess they don't include that in the history texts any more.

 

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A nation is an imagined community. The south thought they were a nation, so recognized or not, they were. Same thing with the United States during the revolutionary war. That was a "civil" war by your standards as well.

 

You get to D-day. The current school system tries to keep the most violent stuff out until later grades. I covered it in high school. I'm not even positive they get to WWII by 5th grade. I know in 4th grade we were still on the indians.

 

that's almost as crazy as calling a coin company that advertises in coin world to place an order for a 1965 $20 Saint Gaudens double eagle. I've done that once as a prank call which I made while broadcasting on Ustream and I actually recorded that prank call.

 

The coin company asked if I meant 1865 and I said, "I'm referring to the 1965 $20 double eagle" and after the person on the other end told me that coin was never made, I hung up and got quite the chuckle out of it.

 

Well said, sir.

Yes, there are strong analogies. In a since, the American "Civil War" was a mini-American Revolution - an attempt at separation to establish one's own nation - which failed. There are many big differences, of course.

 

My girlfriend teaches fourth grade, and she tells me that with all the state and federal testing that the schools are mandated to do, they pretty much have to focus on teaching what's on the test. There's no time for the teacher to cover anything else until that test is over, which is in March or April. I remember a fourth grade teacher who taught us to play chess, read us "The Hobbit," played his guitar and sang songs and used games to make math fun. I still remember him as the best teacher I ever had, but today he probably wouldn't have the chance to do those things because we would need to be cramming for the state test.

 

Or even worse that teacher would have lost his job to someone with less experience who required less pay...It's sad how our country has gone in reverse in so many ways. It used to be about quality...now it's about cheapest. The reason that teacher could do those things with the kids was because he was skilled at his job, he was a quality teacher. Now you have teachers doing their job to make a check and clamoring to get students to pass a state test. This obviously isn't ALL teachers, but every good teacher that still has a job can attest to my statement above. This same "cheapest" scenario applies to many things: Take the crappy service you receive in restaurants/fast food places, or your newly constructed home that is a falling apart POS that a contractor hired an unskilled flunky to do because he was the cheapest. The list goes on and on, someday things will have to change or we will really be in a mess.

 

Ah! That is the POINT! The South believed the Union was the servant of the several SOVEREIGN STATES (ie NATIONS), whereas the North believed the Union was the SOVEREIGN power with the States simply being subsidiaries. This is why those with Southern roots call it the War Between the States and those with Northern roots call it a Civil War. Moving forward after 1865, this issue had been settled by force of arms to the latter position. But that wasn't the case in 1861.

Interesting tidbit, prior to 1861, the language commonly used would describe the United States ARE... with the 'are' coming from States which is plural and United used as an adjective; afterwards, it became United States IS... with the IS coming 'UNITED STATES' as a singular Title or name.

 

I think a great deal of blame can be delt upon many of the parents in cases like this. Asking you kid, "How was school today?" or What did you learn in school today?" is also part of being a parent. Turning off junior's video games and playing an educational game with them that deals in history of things like the Civil War is also being part of being a parent.

 

Maybe they just meant the coin circulated during the Civil War, which it did.

 

True, unless of course it was hoarded like most coins in that era. Maybe we should give the guy the benefit of the doubt.

 

The auction has ended, but the seller clearly stated that the piece was, quote, "issued during the Civil War" -- followed by two exclamation marks.

Christian

 

either the seller is a con-artist or he's just plain stupid. I hope it's the latter, either way it's hillarious that someone could possibly not know that the civil war happened in the 1860's not the 1840's close to the time of the gold rush of 1849. That's why the San Fransisco football team is called "the 49ers". There's no way we could be actively engaging in war during the gold rush, it's just not possible because it's way too dangerous to go digging for gold during a war. That's almost as stupid as thinking the civil war was fought over an argument over mining jurisdiction when it comes to silver mining as a result thinking the civil war was called the "silver war".

 

To kind of bring this all back together again, the biggest reason I like collecting coins is the history. When I see something with a date that starts with 18 or even better, 17, that just sends a little thrill through me. To think of what was going on in the world at the time this item was made, and how long it has been around. That's why I'm not that concerned about condition when I buy coins, because I like the age and history attached. But if a person didn't know anything about history I would think they would have a lot less incentive to be a coin collector. At least for me it would be the case.

 

Speaking of the Civil War (aka War Between The States), if you come to Colorado you should drop by the ANA museum. The current exhibit is "A House Divided: Money of the Civil War". As usual it is very interesting, well-thought-out exhibit. Being a bit of a Civil War buff and a coin collector I find the exhibit very interesting. I have led a few tour groups of school kids through the exhibit (I live 6 miles from the ANA and I volunteer when they need another tour guide).

You better hurry if you want to see this exhibit; it has run much longer than most exhibits and will be replaced with the next exhibit soon.

 

Could be he went to a school system like the one I did. We had US History for the first time in third grade and we "studied" US History in fourth thru eighth grade and again in the tenth grade. That is seven years of US History. And we NEVER got past 1870. Every year we would start over again with Columbus discovering America, work our way through the Civil War and end up the school year around 1870. The next year we repeated the same thing. For us the Spanish American War, WWI, the great depression, WWII, Korea, and Vietnam never happened. Lincoln was the only President to die in office, etc.

 

If 13-year-olds don't know when the moon landing was or who Buzz Aldrin is I have no hope for a 'brighter' tomorrow. Sunnier maybe, but not brighter...

 

Of course, no part of the Civil War took place anywhere near CA.