Beginning Monday, I will be in charge of an after school club for collectors (in general) at the middle school where I work. I am doing this because when I was in school, we didn't have squat. I want these kids to work on two things while having a good time in the club. First, I want them to work on their research skills by independently studying about whatever it is that they collect. Second, I want them to work on their public speaking skills by giving a small presentation to the group about their collection. In their presentation, I want them to cover three things: What they collect. Why they collect it. How they got started. As the club organizer, I will address several topics that I feel should be important to all collectors of any item: Ethics Safety/Preservation Research Buyer Beware Preferences/Specialties Appreciation Getting involved in local activities Finding others of similar interests Graded items Bandwagons/Past hot collectibles I'm looking forward to this. I am primarily a coin collector, so I can bring a lot to the group in that sense. However, I wanted it to be a club for all kids their age to share their collections and have something to be proud of. Do any of you have any suggestions for improving the club?
Great suggestions. Keep in mind, the club is for kids who collect everything. Whether it's coins, baseball cards, bugs, rocks, model cars, etc... I'm just hoping I don't get that kid that collects fingernail clippings or scabs or severed Barbie heads.
Sounds like a great club. :thumb: Like hamman said, www.freepowerboards.com/yncc would be a great base site, as it was created specifically for YN's.
I hope you don't get that kid either. Sounds like a great thing your trying to organize. I don't seriously collect anything besides coins myself, so I don't know alot about collectables in general. You should definately try to get in touch with all kinds of collectors in your area. They could come and talk to the kids. Plus, I've heard alot about coin clubs and individuals donating coins to YN's. Maybe you could find people to do the same among baseball card collectors etc. It sounds like your facing a difficult task. I would think that gathering info on collectables other than coins, sports cards, model trains, antiques or comic books would be difficult. Anyway, getting the kids to do some research is a good idea.
The main reason I want them to do the research and give a presentation is because they're going to be in high school soon and they need the practice. Especially if they get placed in my wife's class. Hahaha
Good luck with your club. The US Mint provides items for YNs. These things might only be of interest to your coin collectors but sometimes the collecting bug covers a wide area of items.
Hahaha. Cool. Thanks for the suggestions. Again, this is a club for collectors of everything. I will certainly use the previous suggestions for the kids who do collect coins though. Does anyone have anything that they can suggest that could apply to collectors in general?
Thats kind of a tough question to ask in a place like this. I only know about coin collecting. But I have family members who collect sports cards and model trains. Maybe you can look for a forum some of the other hobbies out there??? I'm sure there are people out there on this world wide web somewhere who could help you with other collectables.
Interestingly enough ~ coins in and of themselves cross into other hobbies and can be used to introduce and merge those. The designs on the coins are a good segway to art and history. The precious metals and determining scarcity (supply and demand) are great examples for the young investors. The historical references of coins are great introductions for the writers, researchers, speakers. Travel clubs will enjoy searching through piles of coins from the countries they are planning to visit AND may bring some back from their summer vacations.
I too agree that you should mention to use Coin Talk. Kids of those ages love the internet so why not have them use it as a learning tool. Pending on the area you live I would stress security and a little secrecy if in a not to nice area. For example I'm in the Chicago area and to publicly anounce you have a coin collection is just not smart. Of course in some areas, kids are different and actually don't steal from each other. Don't know if you have a large amount of Wheat Cents available, but you may want to acquire some. To start them, you could pass out one to each kid as a started and explain how those are not made anymore. Then when something is accomplished in the club by a student, the reward could be another of those Wheat Cents. May not sound like much to an adult, but to some kids it is Gold. Of course include the possibilities of who knows what is on a quarter from, say 2003 and can you name the states represented. Again, a penny for your thoughts. If you can use a projector with slides, you may want to have some made of different coins from all over the world. Many can be downloaded from web sites and turned into a slide. You may want to stress the monitary gains of collecting some coins while young so that when they are as old as you they could be worth a lot of money. If any flea markets in the area, check out for a pile of foreign coins for a cheap price. Also, a neat thing to pass out for kids that collect anything. Possibly ask on this forum if anyone has a large amount of some foreign coins for cheap price. Kids like to put stamps, stickers, stuff in general in books or albums. Show them some for coins.
