Hello everyone! I hope this finds you very healthy and happy!
What we are experiencing in this day and era is unlike nothing we or even a generation before us have ever faced before. It is uncertainty, it is fear, it is concern for our fellow man! I will start out this vlog with telling you that I give a heartfelt thank you to each and every person in the United States and around the world who is considered ESSENTIAL and needs to go to work on a daily basis. Although I consider myself a coin dealer /collector, I do have a full time job and am considered eseential to making the world go round in this hectic time. I am in the Food/Beverage industry and part of the distribution network. We are working hard and around the clock to keep your grocery store shelves filled in this time of need. I have always in one form or another given back to the community that I have lived in and urge each and every one of you reading this to help in whatever way you can! Be creative, ask around and have compassion for those who need assistance. Whatever your political party or worldy beliefs, we are one in this world and we all depend on each other. Be a decent human being!
With all that said, lets get down to the real reason you’re reading this! YOU probably have or are suffering from some sort of COIN COLLECTING withdrawl! I feel you, I really do! I live on the east coast and I make it a point to mark my calendar for the Baltimimore Whitman Coin show. I usually attend every Friday and it is an event that I am gladly willing to burn a personal day for at work! I leave my house early and head for the cheapest parking garage I can find in Baltimore. It’s always usually a few blocks from the Convention center and I enjoy the walk downtown! I park and go to have breakfast at Corner Bakery Cafe. It is a MUST to catch before you head to the bourse floor. The food is great, the people are friendly and you will leave with a full stomach! I check in with my coin club friends at the show and wonder the floor for a couple hours. I head back out and grab a bite to eat and a couple beers across the street at the local pub. Head back down to the bourse floor and conduct some more business. I wasn’t able to do this and like so many of you that do attend know, the show was canceled. What an utter disappointment to me and many other thousands of people in our community.
The first feeling I felt is that of disappointment. The second is that I knew it was coming. We have an aging population in our hobby and it would be down right selfish to continue and hold the show. Now HOLD ON! The reason we canceled this show is not due to our aging population, It is due to the fact that this virus has killed an unconscionable amount of people. We can’t see it and we surely can’t know who has it since the testing isn’t sufficient to do so. We can’t say you and you and you need to stay home and the rest of us can function through out our daily lives. We don’t have that luxury. What we do have is the ability to stay home and try to help the world overcome this virus and protect the very weakest amongst ourselves along with the health care providers around the world!
I feel that something we can take positive out of this pandemic, in the coin collecting community, is that we need to offer more online and virtual offerings to our group. Young and old. It will help in times such as this and it will help in other times as well. If you are saying to yourself that there is no way that your grandfather who has collected coins since 1925 will ever get on the internet and be able to enjoy this type of thing well then, you are WRONG! YOU, as a younger numismatist, need to help the older generation to remain engaged as long as possible and share their invaluable information to the younger generation who is engaged in online activities. Think about it! My coin club has a vast attendance. We have ages from 7 to 87. What happens when the gentleman who is 87 and driven only to our coin club meeting once a month looses his ability to get to the meetings? He still doesn’t loose the want or the passion to be involved in our community! He just cannot drive or get to the meetings! If you are of the technological background to be able to help this population to be engaged, please do so. Help them figure this world out and get them involved. Show them how to listen to The Coin Show Podcast or many of the other podcasts available online. Attend a virtual meeting with their local coin club! Do your part to engage everyone you can!
I LIVE to attend each of the Baltimore Whitman shows every year. I usually go by myself and have a great day. I wake up happy knowing I’m going and I go to bed fulfilled and happy that I have attended. This year I was very disappointed that the show was canceled. Not so much because I couldn’t go but because of everything that was going on that caused the cancelation of the show.
Please listen to the people in office and stay home. Stay home because you want to go to the Baltimore Whitman Coin Show in the future. We really don’t need to go that bad and what we ultimately want to do is protect each other.
It’s not fair to the emergency workers to be greedy in this time. It’s not fair to the health care workers or the truck drivers or the grocery store workers or the elderly or anyone else for that matter who is considered an esesential worker. Get this over with as soon as we can by staying home and help those who cannot help themselves. We are all in this together. We truly are. Our coins are online, our hobby is not dying, our brotherhood is not lost and our care for each other and the good of man is still there.
Be safe through these times and help out wherever you can! If you are an essential worker or know someone who is in our hobby, share this with them and have them add a comment below. I want to give them a personal thank you for making this world go round. They may not think they are appreciated however they truly are and they need to know that. True to these words…… The world is going round because of the few, the essential and we need to thank them for all that they do.
Happy coin collecting and be safe and healthy!
The 7 House Coins - Currency - Bullion 