Last night, I attended a meeting of the Long Beach Coin Club. The club is a decent sized club in the area that averages around 30-40 members at each meeting. Each meeting generally has a few door prizes, a show and tell, a raffle, a club auction and a guest speaker. The guest speaker for last night's meeting was Garrett Burke, the California State Quarter Concept Designer. He gave a pretty nice presentation not only on the design process of the California State Quarter, but also on the background and meanings behind several other state quarter designs. Mr. Burke is also the author a new book called "Quarterama: Ideas & Designs of America's State Quarters." Of course, we were introduced to the book which has over 150 of beautiful photos and text and copies were available for purchase and Mr. Burke signed copies upon request. His website for the book is http://www.quarterama.com/ if you are interested in checking it out. I thought it looked like a nice book, especially for younger collectors or anyone who collects the State Quarters. I was on the fence about buying a copy, but decided against it. I'm really glad that I didn't buy a copy because I just happened to win an autographed softcover copy of the book in the raffle which was held at the end of the meeting. Not too bad for $5 worth of raffle tickets! Here's a picture of the book and a picture of the page with the California quarter. At the meetings, club members can bring up to 10 items to auction off at the meetings and the club makes 5% of the sales. It's a fun way for the members to buy/sell coins and it also makes a few bucks for the club. At last night's auction, I brought some items to sell and ended up selling a proof George Washington Commemorative Half Dollar and a few circulated $1 silver certificates. I also bought a few coins including a few 1964 Kennedy Half Dollars and a 1976-S 40% silver Bicentennial Proof Set. The coolest item I bought was a one-ounce silver otter and pup medallion struck by the Alaska Mint. I just thought it was pretty neat and I got it for quite a bit less than the $65 price they sell them for on http://www.alaskamint.com/ :thumb:
Ive thought about going, it isnt too far from my dads but something about the bay cities coin club I am more interested in. Havent been to a meeting at neither but one day I hope too. Nice alaska silver. Wonder if you can find Plain on the reverse ;p
I have heard great things about the Bay Cities club, which would actually be closer to me, but they usually meet on the same nights as a club in Woodland Hills that I'm a part of which is even closer to me. If they weren't on the same nights, I probably would have tried out the Bay Cities club too. You should try a meeting of either club or both. I'm pretty sure all clubs allow guests to show up for free and then if you want to join it's usually around $10 to join a club for a year. I think Long Beach is $7.50 per year.
I read the newsletter on BCC and they do allow guests. Never found a website for Long Beach CC though.
Not sure the Long Beach club has an active website, but I know they allow guests for sure. If you private message me your email address, I can send you a copy of the last club newsletter if you like.
