Just back from a fascinating dinner with Oded Paz, a WINS member that was in Scottsdale for business. We had dinner at Islemadora Fish Company, a seafood restauraunt with a salt water tank the size of my house, lol. Oded is the Pres of the TEP, The Elongated Penny collectors society, and a member of the ANA as well. What a great dinner with a fascinating person ( to say the least ). I have had some great meals with you internet folks, JD White, GDJMSP, Clembo, Acanthite, it is getting to be a big list. I was not aware of the size of the elongated collector group, and some other oddball collections this fellow has. Coins from " nations " that do not exist, ceased to exist, etc. Oddball stuff. The best was the story of " Celestia" and a coin that went to the moon with John Glenn that is now in Oded's collection. We have made plans to meet up in Long Beach in the fall.
For a second there my heart stopped. I thought you meant TEP, Tau Epsilon Phi, my fraternity in college. Needless to say, I was a little off!
Whats the story of "Celestiia" and what coin went to the Moon? Thats really awesome. John Glenn is one of my hero's, one has to envy the Astronauts, being able to view the earth from space. harry
Heres the Cliffnotes version. Maybe I'll ask him to eloborate here, he had some fascinating stories of his oddball collection. A man in the 60's filed for papers to declare "space" outside the earths atmosphere as " his" domain and took this scam all the way to the USA State Dept with some misleading paperwork, and then onto the UN with some state dept correspondence as " proof", and actually had a flag flown atop the UN building for 3 months before the scam was discovered. In the meantime, he flattened and overstruck US gold dollar coins with the " coinage" of Celestia, and was able to convince John Glenn to take one to the moon as a symbolic jesture of some sort. Oded has somehow gotten this coin and it resides in his personal collection.
you've had supper with folks from CT otehr than Clembo?.. frick living in Canada has its downfall about collecting.. and being on CT.. Iw anna have supper with people
You're going to have to add Phoenix to that list soon. Sounds like you had fun, congrats! :thumb: Phoenix
John Glenn - a great, great man. A true hero. Character. Backbone. A real man. But he never went to the moon... he was the first American to orbit the earth.
