The gift-giving season is upon us. I'm taking time to write this as we help one of our kids move into her new home, and as the entire family begins to plan for the holidays ahead. This time of year seems to always be especially busy. Aside from the shopping and holiday get-togethers, my family also has seven birthdays to celebrate during the month of December. We celebrated one of those birthdays last evening. A younger brother just turned over five decades, so he received a nice 1954 birth year coin set from me. It was one of his more unique gifts.

I have found that coins usually make well-received gifts even for those not normally interested in numismatics. Coins prove to be interesting artifacts to non-collectors because they tend to provide a thoughtful reference to an earlier point in their lives. When a coin set is opened by the recipient at a party-style function, it's not uncommon to hear ooooohhhhhs and aaaaahhhhhs coming from the other party guests. Most of them think it's a pretty neat gift idea.

Sometimes I'll be approached later by one of the party goers asking where they might find a nice set of coins to give as a gift. I've given coins for child births, birthdays, anniversaries, graduations, baptisms, weddings, and many other special events. Speaking of which, coins make great stocking stuffers for the holidays for kids and grown-ups alike. The next time you're stumped as to what to give a person for that special occasion, try a nice coin set to commemorate the event. You might be surprised at how well collector coins are received. And you never know when you might trigger the collecting bug in one of your recipients.

A while back, one of our members contacted me about our WINS Auction. He had some suggestions that might make the auction a little better. But, unfortunately those suggestions would also add considerably to the tasks of an already labor-intensive auction. As is noted in the auction rules, the WINS Auction is manually updated. After spending considerable time listing an auction, our auctioneer must then receive and manually post all bids. Obviously the larger the auction the tougher the job is.

Virtually all of the auction concerns voiced to date could be remedied by auction software which would permit automatic posting of bids and proxy bidding. This type of software would please many of our members and logically would prompt more bids; not to mention making the process considerably easier on the auctioneer. If anyone is aware of such software please advise the Board of Directors. Providing it's not too expensive, we certainly would consider purchasing it.

Speaking of our auction, WINS Auction #25 - our 2004 Christmas Auction - is pretty awesome. There are three new and interesting aspects to this auction. First, we have 214 lots, which is a record number for us. I believe our previous highest number of lots was 138 in our 2003 Christmas Auction. That increase is partially due to members being permitted to list up to fifteen lots in this auction. Second, the 2004 Christmas Auction will run for two full weeks rather than the usual week. That should give bidders an easier opportunity to place bids during the busy holiday season. And third, members were permitted to list non-numismatic collectibles for the first time, as long as they also listed a collectible coin in the same lot. Whether buying or selling, this opens the door to members' other collecting interests. And although this style of auction is being conducted as a trial, there's been some discussion on continuing with other collectibles if this auction is well received.

Ya say ya didn't realize that you could list other collectibles in this auction? Then obviously you didn't read last month's WINS Newsletter. That's where you'll find the announcement, and it's the only place it was mentioned. See ... aside from pure enjoyment, there's definite advantages to reading the Tarnished Truth each month. Now go take a look at the auction and bid early and bid often!

Just a brief update on a couple of items ...

The committee working on our Club Flyers - WINS information pamphlets which you can distribute to friends and take to hometown coin clubs and coins shows - is nearing completion. The committee chair, Ken Hughes, is excited about the product and will likely present the flyer for final Board approval soon. We hope the flyers will be a successful introduction to our club and aid in increasing membership.

The Club Token Committee, chaired by Ray Larson, is still hard at work seeking bids and compiling estimates. I'm not on the committee, but I've made a couple of additional contacts and hope to be able to add some additional fodder to growing information that we're considering. Please continue to be patient. Hopefully it'll be worth the wait.

I'd like to extend a sincere Thank You to the almost forty members who have contributed to the WINS Collecting Interests page on the club's web site Member Collecting Interests. If you haven't yet taken the opportunity to visit the page, please do so. You're in for a treat. You'll get to familiarize yourself with the brief collecting interests noted by many of our members. And you'll get to put a face with the familiar names of many members.

After you've enjoyed reading the page, please consider adding your own information and photo to the site. It's fast and it's easy. Just see the brief listing notes at the bottom of the page. For those of you who have submitted text but not photos, Operations Administrator JD White has provided a smiley-face character. And though these little characters are ever so cute, we'd much rather see your real smiling faces. So come on guys ... submit some pictures for us! You'll be glad you did.

Best Regards,

Ralph J. Huntzinger
WINS President