As I posted earlier, last week I taught part one of the coin collecting merit badge to a group of 13 twelve and thirteen year old boy scouts and had a blast doing it. NOTE: In a post a few days ago regarding the boyscout commemorative out next year, some of the discussion went on to certain policies of the boyscouts and it got a little political. Please refrain from posting similar thoughts in this thread because this is about the experience of teaching young people about coin collecting, not politics. Thank you!!!! SETTING THE STAGE: I had the scoutmaster invite parents to come to this meeting as I would have "give aways" of old coins for the boys. Before they arived, I placed open dansco albums of Morgans, Kennedy halves, Lincoln Cents and State quarters. I also had a GENEROUS donation from Jason (cointalk member jmon) of a bag of coins for each scout (a bunch of wheat cents, plus various other coins including older Jeff Nickels steele cents, and most had some type of silver coin. plus Jason donated a whitman folder for EACH scout and some door prizes--THANKS JASON!). STARTING THE MEETING: To begin with, I asked for a volunteer. When the scout came forward, I pulled a $10 bill from my walet and asked the scout to throw it away in the trash. I then asked how many of them would do such of thing (no one raised their hand). I then asked how many of them have ever thrown an unwanted cent outside (nearly everyone raised their hand). I told them that after tonight, I'm going to tell them about how some cents have errors that may be worth 7 to 10 bucks or even more. I showed them a 1998 WAM and said, "This is a cent I found a could months ago and it is worth between 7 and 10 dollars. At the end of the night, I will show you why. If this same error was on a 1999 cent or a similar one on a 1992 cent, it would be worth much more than 10 dollars." I told them how just that day at a bank, I asked the teller if they had any half dollars and in the 3 bucks I received, there was one 1967 40%er. I showed them how to detect silver and gave hints to the parents of how to find them. It was very cool. Every single one of them was on the edge of their seat. I then showed them an off center strike cent and a blank planchet cent that I found and told them of their approximate worth. MERIT BADGE TIME: We then went through the requirements of the merit badge talking about how coins are made (I showed them a copy of an ancient roman coin), coin terms, etc. Then I taught about grading and showed them a quarter of every grade. They loved the old silver ones (the only ones I have in low grades). I taught where the mints are and different types of collections. I then brought out my paper collection and showed them my Educational note, Black eagles, red seals, silver ceriticates, fractional currency, etc. Funny that their favorite was an extremely beat up and holed 1928 $2 bill because it looked very old (I have some other 28s in fine condition, but didn't get much of a rise from them). Our time was up so I explained why my 1998 WAM was special by giving them each a pre 93 cent and a post one and had them all look at the difference, then explained the errors. I explained about the bicentenial of Lincoln's birth and gave them each a log cabin and a log splitter and challenged them to find the other two. I gave them each a bag of coins and a whitman folder and explained what they needed to collect before our next meeting (September 30) for the merit badge. I also showed them the different designs of the boy scout commemorative due out next year. I then gave out some of the door prizes donated by Jason. I explained that there is an error coin that we discussed that we will look for next time (Jason donated a 2000 WAM, so I have it mixed in with about 15 similar cents and will see if the boys can spot it, we will then have a drawing for it). And, I saved a couple of door prizes for next time. I will also be giving additional coins for any boy who finishes the merit badge and a silver coin to the first boy to finish. I had the attention of both boys and parents the whole time. I had a blast, will do part two soon, and hopefully converted 13 youngers to the joy of coin collecting. Thanks for listening! Bob
very cool. Wouldn't it be great if everyone at CT could bring one new person into the hobby this year.
Good to hear that they were on the edge of their seats. That's great. It sounds like fun. What a great year to get into this too, with the commemorative coming out next year and the Lincoln bicentennial. It seems like a lot of focus on error coins. How many historic coins do you plan to teach them? How far back? It seems like there's a lot of ground to cover. The 1928 $2 is awesome. I discovered them not too long ago myself. I had never seen one before. I own 4 with that design now. I didn't pay attention to your last thread on this. What's the long term plan? Do you have to go by the book for them to earn the badge?
Bob, excellant thread I was a boy scout many years ago, and had I had a presentation like that I might have started collecting 35 years before I did. excellant job!!!!:bow::bow:
I spent the time on the error coins just to get their interest up. I also spent time more time on finding silver than my post. Yes, I had to cover a lot of ground for the merit badge, we'll have to do the same on the 30th. I plan on asking for a third time period in which I can just show stuff and have fun. My wife was there and she thinks I ought to do a little mini junior coin club with them and meet once a month or every other month. Fine by me. I'll have to see what the interest is.....it seemed quite high. I'll report again after my next meeting.....and thanks for the nomination, my first.
