Did you order one? The U.S. Mint may have issued another winner for collectors. The 2004 Lewis and Clark Coinage and Currency Set was sold out in six days. And although the $90 issue price was a bit steep, the after-market has already revealed significant increases for retail sales. As an example, a cursory check of eBay shows hundreds of completed and pending auctions with many of these sets are already selling in the range of $120 to $170. Will they continue to climb from there, or will they eventually settle in at a lower level? Only time will tell. Despite the high issue price, these sets have a lot going for them - a quick sellout, limited issue of 50,000, historical interest, and a portion of the proceeds going to the National Lewis and Clark Bicentennial Council and the National Park Service. The Mint limited the sets to ten per order in an effort to enable a wider distribution. If you beat the sellout and acquired one of these sets, you may very well have a winner on your hands.

WINS needs your help. In May, the Board of Directors finished discussing and constructing the guidelines for the WINS Club Token. This roster of guidelines is a list of considerations for the minting, sales and distribution of the token. Per the Bylaws, I commissioned a committee to research our needs and options. The guidelines will serve as the basis for the research, and will enable the committee to make recommendations to the Board of Directors for final approval. Vice President Ray Larson is the committee chair and, thus far, JD White and Joe Garbarini are the only other committee members. Ray has called for volunteers to serve on the committee. If you have any interest in helping your club acquire a beautiful WINS Token, please contact Ray or JD. Please review the token contest winning designs and consider putting your ideas to good use and giving your club some direction in this project. Thank you.

After some discussion, the Board of Directors has agreed upon a policy for the issuance and retention of membership numbers. When a membership application is accepted, a membership number is assigned. WINS retains all original database information from each member's original application. The database is a permanent, historical archive. The records remain sequential and chronological, and they are updated but never deleted. Once we have a member, s/he may become active/inactive off and on many times, but will always be associated with his/her originally assigned membership number.

If/when someone resigns from membership or is expelled, the original record will be permanently retained, but will be annotated with the date of resignation or expulsion. The same consideration applies to a deceased member with a notation of the date that s/he died.

Membership numbers will never be reissued. They remain reserved for the original member. If a resigned member someday wishes to reapply, s/he is required to file a new application through the web site. If the new application is complete and accepted, the resigned member will be reinstated to his/her former membership number. This will be accomplished by leaving the original database information intact, along with a new database entry containing the reinstated member's current and updated information.

If you haven't taken an opportunity to visit the WINS Members Collecting Interest opt-in page, you're cheating yourself of an enjoyable experience. The page lists members' numismatic interests along with their WINS membership numbers and general residential locale. But arguably the nicest feature is the option of placing a photo with your listing. It's pretty nice to be able to see mug shots of the members.

Twenty-five members have opted-in thus far. Go take a look! You'll enjoy the experience. http://www.winsociety.org/mbrinterest/member_interests.html. Please consider taking a moment and adding yourself to the roster. And when you do, please include a recent photo. For those members already on the page without a photo . come on, send us your mug! You can't be much more hideous than the rest of us [GBG]. Please send your information and photo to: JD White. Don't worry about reducing the size of the photo, JD will take care of it for you.

WINS Auction #22 is just a few weeks away. If you're not familiar with our auctions, take a look at the Auction Index page. WINS auctions are fun and potentially profitable. Please consider placing some items in your club's auction and join the bidding competition. Thanks a lot.

Best Regards,
Ralph J. Huntzinger
WINS President