Help! Upcoming BSA Coin Collecting Merit Badge Event

Hey Folks,

I’ll take any advice on my first Boy Scouts of America presentation. If you’ve done this in the past, seen one, or have an opinion, please send me your advice/lessons learned!

From time to time, I take all my excess world coins and I donate them to a Boy Scout Troop. Recently, I came across a post for a local BSA group and I volunteered to help the Scouts earn their coin collecting merit badge. I’ll be presenting early March and want to come prepared.

My passion lies in World Coins, though I dabble in US and variety/error coins. I know that most folks in the US prefer US coins. I want to share my passion, while also connecting with the Scouts in a way they might spark their interest.

I plan to give them enough world coins to meet the requirements for the merit badge. I’m going to start pulling aside coins and unique stories to possibly share with the group.

I think I need to keep the presentation to maybe 15 minutes? And then activities for the rest of the hour. I was thinking of a US table, grading table, a world coin table, an error table, a token table, and one with books. I don’t have a lot of lockable glass containers, so theft will be a concern.

Any thoughts are welcome!

 

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Theft at a Boy Scout Meeting?

 

I don't think you know what my generation is capable of, lol.

Especially since we are talking about kids fresh out of elementary school. So I think the concern is real if you're showing off nicer items to unsupervised boys/girls with sticky fingers.

Find someone local who hosts shows. Maybe, they have a couple they loan out. Here, the loaners are pretty rickety but better than nothing. I'm excited for you, and the kids. Maybe it will inspire something in them.

 

Note that my mood is sarcastic.

 

Fun challenge for you.

Are you doing this for just one troop? How many are in the troop?

Depending upon the time, space, and number of scouts you might have, I might show one, or more, of the Mint videos that pertain to the Scout requirements for the badge.

From the current Boy Scout manual



COIN COLLECTING


https://filestore.scouting.org/filestore/Merit_Badge_ReqandRes/Coin_Collecting.pdf

3.Explain the grading terms Uncirculated, Extremely Fine, Very Fine, Fine, Very Good, Good, and Poor. Show five different grade examples of the same coin type. Explain the term proof and why it is not a grade. Tell what encapsulated coins are.

Maybe make up a display showing each grade with brief explanations.


6. Do ONE of the following:

(a) Collect and identify 50 foreign coins from at least 10 different countries.

Which means you need to provide that many coins to each. That's a lot of coins if your turn out is large.

Good luck.

 

Good thinking about asking local dealers/hosts! I’ll try to reach out.

This is a local troop, there’s a boys and a girls troop. I anticipate less than 20, but the coins in that box weigh over 50lbs, meaning there should be ~5,000 coins. Should be enough for 100 Scouts, if everyone brought a couple of friends. I’m happy to give them to anyone who might someday become a numismatist.

I wish I owned more slabbed coins to help show the grades, but I’m sure I can scrounge something together.

 

Theft was utterly unimaginable in the Scout Troop I was once a member of. My Scoutmaster and Troop committee would've ripped us a new one had we done something stupid of the sort. With that being said, I think you'll be fine @Seattlite86, just be aware of the grabby little Webelos Scouts. Those little buggers can be quite energetic and annoying at times.

 

It's a shame theft is an issue for you but it is real these days! With some wood strips and plexiglass you could easily build some barriers that would at lease make theft more difficult! Kind of a look but don't touch unless I say it's OK hint! For such an event you might even find a store willing to provide the material at cost! Just Food For Thought (JFFT) A great thing you are doing for our youth! Best of luck!!

 

I did this for our troop and here were a couple things that worked well:

The ANA will send you materials to give away if you ask.

I also asked some of my dealer friends in town to donate small items (proof sets are really popular with the kids and are cheap and plentiful) and made a box of items where they could pick one thing out when they completed the badge. It was good motivation to do it.

I also asked the boys to bring any coins they had laying around at home they wanted to learn more about. Some brought in some old silver dollars, Liberty nickels, etc. they were really interested in learning about their own items.

Good luck!

 

Wow that looks fun,good luck.

 

"I volunteered to help the Scouts earn their coin collecting merit badge."
Your generosity of time and coins is extremely commendable. Scouting always appreciates mentors that lend their time and expertise. Thanks.
Both sets of my grandparents were what could be called 'jet-setters' before the age of jets. They had they fortune of galivanting around to different locales during the heyday of leisure travel. Pan Am Boeing Clipper ships and cruise liners like the Original RMS Queen Mary & the SS Normandie. I used some of the foreign coins they brought back to help me earn my merit badge. I don't know how I would have accumulated so many foreigns without an adult's help.

 

Thank you for your service to scouting, I was a leader for many years and taught the coin collecting MB. You seem to have everything pretty much handled. Have fun with this. One thing I did was hand out small bags of coins and then encourage the scouts to trade coins to complete the MB. Also if you have a coin album of cents show that as a way of showing collecting from pocket change. God luck

 

You'll be surprised.

 

I also commend your efforts at helping the Boy Scouts. I am the merit badge councilor for Coin Collecting. At the moment, we've only had one scout take on this badge, but it has been amazing to watch his passion and enthusiasm. Plus it's been an honor to share my collection and knowledge with him. May I ask, are you also a councilor, or are you just helping out? If just helping out, find out who in the area is a councilor for this badge and work with them for your presentation. Hopefully, you'll be able to get several scouts interested enough to take on the badge. Even if no takers, it's still an amazing idea for a presentation for a meeting.

If you are a councilor, then you'll already know all the requirements that scouts have to fulfill to earn the badge. Your ample collection of foreign should be enough for interested scouts to go through to meet the requirement(if they choose the foreign coinage option).

If you have any questions, feel free to PM me directly and I'd be glad to discuss further. It is always a good thing for our hobby to get young folks interested.

 

Thanks for the tip! I reached out to them and they said they’d send me something. I’ll let everyone know what comes in the mail.

I’ll start looking up local dealers for cases to borrow.

Good call on the album of cents. I’ll have to bring mine and pass it around.

Thanks! I’m signing up to be the merit badge counselor. I’ve done all the requisite online training. I’m swamped with work, but will try to reach out in the next week or so.