Tuesday, June 5: The second day consisted primarily of working in the museum to set up the exhibit "Coins, Crown, and Conflict," an exhibit about the era of the English Civil War and Oliver Cromwell. The centerpiece of the exhibit is an extremely rare Charles II Petition Crown. The Crown is certainly a beautiful coin and a rarity by any standard. I did about everything in the museum from fixing display cases, to vacuuming, to laying coins out in the exhibit cases. During my lunch break, I checked out my first books from the library, Sheldon's Penny Whimsy, Noyes' work on large cents and the Browning classification, and the Wexler/Flynn book on Lincoln Cents.

Wednesday, June 6: I spent more time working with the new exhibit, as well as cataloguing some Roman Republic pieces. However, some interesting US pieces were found while sorting through the vault. I picked up a bin needing sorted, and found a group of coins and a stack of Paper Money. The first note was an 1862 $100 United States note in XF! This was something I had only ever seen in a book. Holding a $50,000 note in my hands was quite an experience. However, as I looked through the paper, it turned out to be a group of six $100 US Notes dating from 1862-1880, all in the VF-XF range!! I also found an 1890 $10 Coin Note, as well as a $20 Compound Interest Treasury Note from 1863-1864.

I began looking through the coins, and the first item I pulled out of an unlabeled envelope was an 1852 United States Assay Office Humbert Fifty Dollar Octagon and get to hold the raw coin! I then found a US Assay Office 1853 Twenty Dollar Round, followed by a raw Judd-1690 1882 Proof V-Nickel Pattern, at least a PF-65 piece. Toward the end of my day, I was able to schedule my Summer Seminar class. As all of the US grading and authentication courses were full, I decided to take the Introduction to Early American Coppers course. The class will be taught by Stephen Carr and Doug Bird, two EAC experts. I am really excited to expand my knowledge on early coppers.

Thursday, June 7: Thursday was a pretty hectic day, as the reception for the new exhibit began at five. I did everything from cleaning display cases, to wiping down walls, to straightening rare British pieces in their cases. Lunch involved a hectic trip back to the dorm to put on a coat and tie for the evening.

The museum opening was outstanding and met with great reviews. I had the pleasure of meeting former ANA President Ken Hallenbeck, as well as his son and former ANA Governor Tom Hallenbeck. Both were very friendly and first-rate individuals. I also had the pleasure of meeting Geoffrey Cope, owner of the Petition Crown, the centerpiece of the new exhibit. He was a gentleman. However, the most interesting character of the night was former ANA President and one of the most important individuals over the past 30 years to the ANA, Ed Rochette. He had more stories than I remember, and certainly enjoyed relaying them to me.

I was very happy, and somewhat proud after a number of thank yous, to see the "Coins, Crown, and Conflict" exhibit open so successfully.

Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, June 8-10: Friday was a slightly calmer day, with the new exhibit open to the public. It consisted primarily of organizing parts of the ANA collection, cataloging some Athenian ancients, and organizing some American Type coins for the Summer Seminar.

After an interesting but busy first week, a free weekend was a welcome relief. Saturday consisted of a walk downtown in Colorado Springs and a trip to Hallenbeck Rare Coin Galleries. They were very friendly and professional, allowing me great access to look through a large number of coins. I was primarily searching for nice, original mid-grade type material. I eventually settled on a 1876 Seated Quarter in original VF-30, a Fine-12 Bust Half Dime, a Fine-12 1882 Shield Nickel, a Fine-15 1829 Large Cent, and an interesting 1858-S Seated Half Dollar. The half dollar is completely original and evenly worn down to a barely identifiable state. Will it grade Poor-1 at PCGS for to make the lowest population…I hope so. I must say that Tom Hallenbeck treated me more than fair on the price of the group of coins.

Monday, June 11: Monday morning came very early. I was certainly dragging for the early part of the day. The day began with a quick breakfast, then an 8 o'clock ANA staff meeting. The meeting was basically meant to prepare everyone for Summer Seminar and the ANA World Fair of Money at Milwaukee in August.

The work for the day consisted of further organizing the ANA collection. In the organization process, I came across a neat collection of coin dies, hubs, and punches…very old. I also sorted through the ANA American coin collection, as a Summer Seminar instructor need a group of US coins for his course. I saw a very interesting piece, a Judd-2 1792 Pattern Cent. I also finished some cataloging of Roman Imperial Coinage, which contains some very nice specimens, although the area isn't of particularly high interest to me.

Tuesday, June 12: I spent Tuesday morning learning the ANA library system and beginning to work on a few details of the upcoming book sale during the Summer Seminar. The ANA library collection is truly remarkable, with any reference material one could need. A trip into the rare book room revealed some rare pieces, as well as some 19th century auction catalogs.

After lunch, I began working to catalogue Military Payment Certificates, and it was actually a very nice collection with some tough replacement notes. I worked to help straighten out one of the vaults, which had some very interesting ANACS binders from when they were part of the ANA. These binders had some very detailed counterfeit detection methods with great pictures, among other things. I also found a plaque donated by the director of the US Mint in 1969 that was made from the last remaining batch of the silver clad that the 1965-1969 Kennedy Halves were struck from…a very interesting piece.

Wednesday, June 13: Today, I finished cataloging the collection of MPCs, which took mostly all morning. Lunch was far from ordinary, as it consisted of a two hour meal at a local Mexican restaurant with some well-known numismatists and past ANA Presidents. In attendance were Ed Rochette, Ken Bressett, and Ken Hallenbeck. Again, Mr. Rochette had a number of funny remarks, and everyone was very friendly. After lunch, the rest of the afternoon was spent removing a traveling exhibit of replica ancients from an outdated back board in dire need of disposal.

Thursday, June 14: I spent the first half of Thursday working in the Library moving boxes of books and pricing them for the book sale during Summer Seminar. There seem to be some pretty rare and out of print books that have been donated. Some of the pricing information was difficult to locate, and when located, was fairly expensive.

Well after eating lunch I worked on a new batch of random MPCs. They were completely unorganized, and needed holdered, identified, cataloged, and sorted. After finishing the MPCs, I pulled out the US colonial coppers collection to catalog for Summer Seminar. I have not finished cataloging the entire collection, but the parts I have worked with are very impressive. There was a beautiful red, uncirculated 1773 Virginia Halfpenny, among many other impressive early coppers.

Friday, June 15: Today started off with finishing cataloging the US Colonial collection. There were some very nice coins, especially some interesting Connecticut spelling varieties. The only disappointment was when I got to the Colonial section for the Washingtons. I was excited when I saw nine coins in the section. What great pieces would I see? Sadly, all nice coins were the same 1959 one sided restrike. Friday afternoon, I went with the Collections Manager to the main vault to help select a nice CC Morgan for a magazine picture. While in the vault, I was allowed to look through some of the notes in the famous Beebe paper money collection. All I can say is WOW!! These were notes that I had only ever seen pictures of in the past. I'm talking about 1860s $100 US Notes in high grade, Coin Notes, rare National Gold Bank Notes, a 1934 Series $10,000 note…nearly anything one can imagine. I ended Friday by identifying a counterfeit CC Morgan that had been sent to the ANA. It was a cast copy made of pewter.

Monday, June 15: Monday was a bit of a hectic day, as the rush to prepare for Summer Seminar began to set in. The morning was spent pricing material for the book sale held every year during Seminar. The books consist entirely of member donations, and some nice items were included. I found an Overton Half Dollar book, several Noyes Large Cent Books, and some out of print foreign material that is rather expensive. Also among the materials, were a number of older numismatic pamphlets, including some Walter Breen and Wayte Raymond material. And, above all, are boxes and boxes and boxes of old auction catalogs. More auction catalogs than anyone would ever know what to possibly do with!

After lunch, it was off to do some paperwork for the Seminar courses. This consisted of a great deal of organizing and collating course materials. On the bright side, I was allowed to keep copies of some of the useful reference material. After doing all of this type of work, Monday's work day was quickly over. The evening had no major highlights, other than a jog, and the fact that I bid on $1,500 worth of eBay material and could not win one item. I was trying to add some Bust quarters and halves to my collection, but to no avail at any reasonable prices.