Sep 6, 2010 | administrative
As we come to the end of the summer season with the beginning of school, the ramping up of work, and the start of football season, it is time to settle down into a routine. As much as most of us do not like the hum-drum of a routine, it is inevitable.
For your humble blogger, I also want to settle into a routine or regular postings but I am looking for some interesting things to write about. I know I have not visited many shows lately or made many purchases, but there has to be more to numismatics than my purchases. So I am asking you, the over 600 unique visitors (according to Google Analytics) who read my posts, what would you like me to write about? What do you want to read?
I will say that I have been working on a note about the trials and tribulations of selling gold. A friend tried to sell some old gold jewelry and gold commemorative coins. It was an eye opening experience! I want to let everyone know what I learned and how you can avoid getting taken!
Otherwise, I will not make any suggestions to steer the discussion in any direction. I want to make this blog as interesting, instructional, and entertaining for you to read as it is for me to write. Tell me… respond to this post and leave a comment.
I hope everyone had a good summer and Labor Day weekend!
Jan 29, 2010 | administrative, technology
As many knows, the US Mint’s public view of technology barely makes it to the end of the 20th century. While other government sites have used the change in administration to refresh their websites, the US Mint is now beginning a “study” as to what they should do. The way the US Mint’s administration manages themselves, it would surprise me if they change their website before the end of the current administrative term.
Miraculously, the US Mint does offer RSS feeds. Of the four feeds they offer, two have been updated on a quasi-regular basis. The US Mint Press Release/Public Statement feed is updated when the Mint ’s press office publishes another release. They also have a Product Information Update feed when new items appear in the online catalog.
After finding a service that will take an RSS feed and post it on Twitter, I decided to add the ability to take the US Mint’s RSS feeds and post them to the blog’s Twitter feed, @coinsblog. If you do not understand how to use RSS, you can either follow me on Twitter or see the tweets on the left side of this page where it shows my last five tweets.
If the US Mint is not going to take advantage of technology to keep you informed, I will do what I can to bring the information to you.
Jan 18, 2010 | administrative
Over the last few weeks some people have been trying to leave comments containing links to commercial web sites. In the blogging world, comments thinly disguised as advertisements are called “comment spam.” I have also received criticism for configuring this blog to moderate comments and requiring the entry of a captcha. Unfortunately, when I turn off the captcha requirement the blog is inundated with automated comment attempts from Asia—I think they are written in Chinese. I was deleting 5-10 of these messages daily.
I hate to place restrictions on posting comments because I want to know what you have to say. But I have to prevent the blog from becoming an place for spam. Therefore, I will keep the moderation and captcha policies in place. I will continue to allow anonymous comments but reserve the option to disallow them if they contain inappropriate material. All comments that contains a link, reference, or a URL to a commercial-related web site will be rejected regardless of how cogent it may be.
Rather than trying to fight comment spam, I decided to accept a limited amount of advertisement. It is my intention to make the advertising visible, but not intrusive to my readers. Therefore, if you want to advertise on this blog, the terms are as follows:
| Advertisement Type |
Format |
Costs for Six Months |
Additional Information |
| Text Link |
14 point, 140 displayed characters |
$25.00 |
Formatting options include changing font (serif or sans-serif), changing font color, and adding a background color. Add any or all options for a flat $5 fee. |
| Display Advertisement |
225 × 225 pixels |
$50.00 |
No annimated GIFs. Width is a fixed size. Height longer than 225 pixels but not longer than 450 pixels will be an extra $50. |
| Banner Advertisement |
650 × 90 pixels |
$200.00 |
I will only accept one banner ad that will appear at the top of the text column. No annimated GIFs. |
My common sense conditions are as follows:
- All advertisements must be related to numismatics.
- Advertisements for bullion and related products will be accepted.
- Advertisements for multi-level marketing schemes will not be accepted.
- Advertisements will be added to the blog template and will appear on every page. As I write this there are over 560 blog entries.
- The number of readers of this blog can be found in the widget on the left column under the title “RSS Feeds.” Google’s AdSense reports 75-100 more readers than the widget. The RSS widget counts access through the RSS feed and the AdSense service counts impressions of the AdSense banner in the right column.
- All advertisements must be paid for in advance using PayPal (account information will be provided to advertisers).
- Any dispute filed with PayPal will result in immediate cancellation of your current and future advertisement. Rather, contact me first and we can discuss any issues like reasonable adults.
- Advertisements will appear for six months and are renewable.
- Advertisements may be cancelled on request of the advertiser or if multiple users complain. Don’t worry, I will discuss the complaints with you before taking action.
- There will be no refunds for early cancellations.
- I reserve the right to reject any advertisement for any reason.
- If there are content-related issues, I will request changes to make it acceptable for posting.
- Advertisement space will be limited. The limit will be based on size and my discression.
- Advertising on this site does not imply endorsement of your product or service.
If this is acceptable then please contact me via email to discuss your advertisement. Thank you.
Jan 17, 2010 | administrative, commentary
The Coin Collectors Blog is a labor of love. I love numismatics. I love to collect various numismatic items. I love to write and I love to write about what I do numismatically. Entries on this blog range from my experiences, to news about numismatics, to my opinions. It is one person speaking from one corner of the numismatic world.
In real life, I am an expert in information security which I use to help the federal government keep their systems safe. It is a difficult job but gratifying when the systems I work on are hardened to prevent the issues you might have read about in the newspapers. I have been working professionally with computers for over 30 years and spanned quite a bit of interesting computer history—but that will be the topic of another blog (stay tuned). Numismatics and learning about numismatics is an enjoyable hobby that I used to escape from the bits and bytes of my working life.
Recently, someone came across my July 22, 2008 post Paper v. Coin Dollars where I make the case for the US to cease production of the paper $1 federal reserve note. The reader did not like what I said and posted an anonymous comment that began “The whole dollar coin scheme is a leftist globalist scheme anyway.”
Excuse me? If this commenter thought that post was leftist, I wonder what that person would think of my Reforming America’s Currency series?
The posts I make to this blog are purposely non-political. Everything I write on this blog are either reporting the news or observations. Editorial content has no political slant or agenda. It is what I feel is the best for the hobby and country.
I do not mind if readers disagree with me. In fact, I would love to hear from more people who disagree with me because it provides a different point of view that I can learn from. But please do not accuse me of having a political agenda because my only agenda on this blog is numismatics.
Nov 26, 2009 | administrative, history
Thanksgiving was first celebrated in 1621 by the settlers at Plymouth, Massachusetts to celebrate a successful harvest. It was a tradition that the Pilgrims brought with them from England. After the birth of the United States, President George Washington issued a proclamation honoring the Thanksgiving harvest during his presidency. The only other president to issue a Thanksgiving proclamation was President James Madison. As part of his attempt to maintain the union, President Abraham Lincoln issued a proclamation that made Thanksgiving Day a national annual event.
Be thankful for your life.
Be thankful for your family.
Be thankful for our hobby.
Be thankful for everything.
Happy Thanksgiving!
Image of The First Thanksgiving at Plymouth by Jennie A. Brownscombe courtesy of the Pilgrim Hall Museum.
Nov 20, 2009 | administrative, fun
Do you tweet? Tweeting is what you do when you post a message on Twitter, the popular social networking website where messages are limited to 140 characters. Twitter hosts many very active communities discussing everything from politics to sports to news to technical support and everything in between. Interestingly, breaking news spreads faster on Twitter than on many news organization’s websites!
Rather than reading every tweet on the single timeline, you would read your timeline which includes your tweets and the tweets of the people you follow. This way, you can create your own community and just watch the tweets of the people you are interesting in reading.
Those who run Twitter has let it evolve into its own culture with conventions that users adhere to communicate community of interests. The primary convention is one built into the Twitter software is using the “at symbol” (@) to identify a user name. By using the at-symbol in front of the user name, it allows the software to recognize the tweet as a message to or about that user. Direct replies to a user begins with the user name. For example, I use the username coinsblog for numismatic tweets. I would see references made as “@coinsblog” as part of my timeline.
Another convention using the user name is the re-tweet. A re-tweet is a message from another user that I am replaying for those users that follow me. If I tweet something you like and want your followers to read, you would send a message that begins with “RT” followed by the at-symbol prefixed user name followed by the message. This way you give credit to the original tweeter.
One useful way to use Twitter is to point to something on the web that further explains your tweet. For me, I will post something to the blog and tweet about it. However, URLs of the post may be too long to fit with the message in 140 characters. In order to fit the URL into the message, I would use a URL shortening service. A URL shortening service is a website that takes the long URL and shortens it to a few parameters. Two popular URL shortening services are tinyurl.com and bit.ly. Both will take a long URL and provide a shorter one that will be expanded when you click on the link. For example, the URL to my last post was shortened to http://bit.ly/2Nqyaw.
The final convention that I will talk about is the use of hashtags. Hashtags are keywords that begin with the pound or number symbol (#) to indicate that those interested in the keyword can use to search for similar tweets. Hashtags are created by the community. There is no organization managing these hashtags, which can cause interesting conflicts. So far, there has not been a problem with hashtag “squatting.” Currently, I am not aware of the use of hashtags for numismatic tweets but I am thinking of defining a few.
Today, I will be using the hashtag #followfriday, which is used on Fridays to announce who you follow that other people who share your interests should also follow. Users named on the #followfriday tweet will be prefixed with an at-symbol so that the software will recognize the user names.
Today’s #followfriday includes:
Twitter is another tool to help us communicate as a community. If you have not joined, join now and start following these people.
Jan 23, 2009 | administrative
Change came in many forms on January 20, 2009. Not only was Barack Obama inaugurated as President of the United States, but his staff changed the official administration website WhiteHouse.gov. The downside to the change is that the web designers did not keep the same directory and file layout of the previous administration’s website. For this blog, it means that links about presidents that pointed to the White House website are broken and will not point to the page about the president.
It is not feasible to find and edit the links in over 300 postings. If you want to visit the pages about the presidents at the White House website, you can find them at www.whitehouse.gov/about/presidents. Future postings will point to the president biography pages as they are programmed today.
I apologize for the inconvenience, but I think it is a small annoyance to deal with!
Oct 28, 2008 | administrative
For the last three years, in over 400 posts, I have written about the coin collecting news, stories, interests, and my collection in this blog. It has been a labor of love and a lot of fun. I enjoy hearing from my readers and find it satisfying to know that someone is reading.
On the third anniversary of the Coin Collectors’ Blog, I am considering branching out by adding a podcast to my repertoire. For those who are unfamiliar with podcasts, Wikipedia defines a podcast as “a series of audio or video digital-media files which is distributed over the Internet by syndicated download, through Web feeds, to portable media players and personal computers.”
The podcast would be a half-hour show (on the average) consisting of a review of news in the numismatic world along with stories and features. I would take audience questions and answer them or find someone who can help me answer those questions. I would try to find guests to interview and even take input and reviews from the listeners. My goal is to make the show entertaining and informative.
If I record a podcast, I will record an audio show and make it available for download from the Internet. I would do it in a way so that listeners would be able to subscribe to the show using Apple’s iTunes and other syndication services for easier access. Advanced listeners will be able to manually download the show.
Are you interested in a coin collectors’ podcast? Let me know what you think. Please let me know by participating in the survey on the right side of this page. The survey will be available until November 16. If you would like, post a comment with your opinion to this note.
We seem to be in a voting mood this year. Vote now!
Thank you!!
Oct 1, 2008 | administrative, commemorative, legislative
As part of the clean-up before the Senate expected to leave for their fall campaign, H.R. 3229, National Infantry Museum and Soldier Center Commemorative Coin Act, and H.R. 5872, Boy Scouts of America Centennial Commemorative Coin Act, were passed by unanimous consent. Both bills will be sent to the president for his signature.
H.R. 5872 will authorize the Mint to strike one dollar proof and uncirculated silver coins to commemorate the 100th Anniversary of Scouting in the United States in 2010. The bill stipulates that the coins can be only struck at one Mint facility and would be distributed starting February 8, 2010. A $10 surcharge will be added to the price of the coins that will be paid to the National Boy Scouts of America Foundation.
National Infantry Museum and Soldier Center Commemorative Coin Act calls for uncirculated and silver dollar commemorative coins, struck at the West Point Mint that would be “emblematic of the courage, pride, sacrifice, sense of duty, and history of the United States Infantry.” Coins will be issued in 2012 and the $10 surcharge will “be paid to the National Infantry Foundation for the purpose of establishing an endowment to support the maintenance of the National Infantry Museum and Soldier Center following its completion.”
The president is expected to sign both bills.
ADMINISTRATIVE NOTE: Regular readers know that I like to keep up with the numismatic legislation. One of the sites I use is GovTrack.us, a site that aggregates a lot of legislative information for political junkies, like me, to use. They recently released a widget service that allows me to add legislative information to websites. I am taking advantage of this service on the right side of this page in the box with the title “Coins and coinage.” We can watch all numismatic-related legislation together.
Jul 29, 2008 | administrative, ANA, Baltimore, shows
In addition to following CoinsBlog on Twitter to see my 160-character or less reports from the World’s Fair of Money, you may also follow the pictures I hope to post on a new Photobucket account I set up today. Since my iPhone includes a 2 megapixel camera, why not take advantage of it and bring you images from Baltimore.
There are a few test pictures posted to Photobucket sent from my iPhone for testing. Those pictures will be deleted this evening.
To follow me during the day, just tune into the user coinsblog on both Twitter and Photobucket. I hope all of this works!
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