The U.S. Mint cares about the opinions of average collectors. I believe it. The real question is do you believe that?

More proof for my opinion arrived late Wednesday afternoon when I received an e-mail from the U.S. Mint asking if Numismatic News would mind sharing the results of a recent online poll conducted here at www.numismaticnews.net asking whether the dollar coin should be abolished.

I requested the full data for submission to the Mint yesterday and off it went. We had published the results of the online poll on Page 4 of the May 22 issue, but that just provided percentages.

What probably got the Mint’s attention and spurred the urge to explore further was the fact that 49 percent of the respondents said that the dollar coin should be struck but the dollar bill should be abolished. This flies in the face of national polls done over the years and would constitute an earthquake shift in opinion were it true.

The trouble with online polls is that they do not use scientific sampling technique to assue that they are an accurate reflection of the broad population.

An online poll is just that, the opinions of the very specific group of people who choose to respond to it..

What does that tell me? It tells me that the Mint does care about collector opinion and wants to gather the broadest data possible. Will it change current Mint policy governing the dollar coin? Not likely anytime soon, but who knows?

If collectors like you get in the habit of participating in online polls, you know that whatever your opinion is will be picked up by the U.S. Mint. That’s a good thing to know. Your opinion matters and your voice is heard.

When I was a child, my father smoked Tarryton cigarettes. (He quit when he was 40). The brand had a catchy slogan: “I’d rather fight than switch.” Print ads showed guys with black eyes holding their cigarettes.

Some collectors would rather fight than collect. I write that because I got a phone call yesterday from a reader who wanted to dispute something written in a feature story.

The story recalled that mint sets were abolished in 1982 and 1983. The consequence of that is some of the uncirculated coins with those dates are scarcer than coins from other years because collectors don’t have the supply of mint sets to raid for high-quality coins.

This is settled history. The caller called it an error. He said there were mint sets in 1982 and 1983. I said, “No, but there were souvenir sets.” He immediately agreed, but then insisted it was wrong to say there were no mint sets in those years.

I demurred. Settled hobby definitions apply the term “mint set” to specially produced sets of uncirculated coins from all of the active minting facilities of that year. The most prominent producer of these is the U.S. Mint itself, which has done so in modern times since 1947.

Mint sets can be produced privately. They were a staple in the hobby for many years, especially in 1982 and 1983 when my firm created its own to help sell newspapers. Private sets need to be labeled as such to be distinguished from the official Mint products, which are what make it into the price guide books. There are no price guides that I know of for 1982 Krause mint sets or of those of any other private producer.

Common collector parlance uses “mint set” in a settled way to refer exclusively to the U.S. Mint product. Legally, there is nothing to enforce it. However, by the standards of this newspaper, we are in the business of being as clear as possible and not to use common terms in an uncommon way to mislead readers.

So, the existence of souvenir sets does not make the statement of a lack of mint sets in 1982 and 1983 untrue. Besides, the basic point of the original statement is the lack of millions of official mint sets make uncirculated coins more valuable. The few thousand souvenir sets that were produced during those years make absolutely no difference to this true statement. Souvenir sets also did not include all uncirculated coins of the year. They included only those from specific mints, so you need further modifiers of "Denver mint set" and "Philadelphia mint set" to be accurate.

So, I guess I would rather fight, too. I fight for clarity, but then again, that’s my job.

Would you know if you were in the presence of greatness? Attendees at the annual awards breakfast of the Central States Numismatic Society May 12 in St. Louis certainly did. They were assembled to honor Eric Newman, a man whose long life and scholarly numismatic pursuits have made him a living legend.

James Moores, a member of the CSNS board of governors, was given the honor and duty of presenting a special award to Newman. It is a Lifetime Achievement Award that was given, “In recognition of your contributions to numismatics for over 80 years and for your role as one of the founding members of CSNS.”

CSNS was founded in 1939, Newman was the first secretary, but his credentials don’t stop there. Moores hit some of the highlights.

Moores noted that Newman began in the hobby at the age of 10, more than 85 years ago and at one time owned all five 1913 Liberty Head nickels.

“I’m a living fossil,” Newman declared when it was his turn to speak.

“I’m extremely grateful for the honor.” He said it came in “recognition of all the fun I’ve had.”

He reminisced. His mentor was Burdette Johnson, a St. Louis dealer who would not sell him a coin until he had read a book about it. “He was the greatest numismatist in the United States in any language and any period,” Newman said in tribute.

Newman cited a number of other anecdotes and mentioned other historical hobby figures, but he also knew his audience. He mentioned that he attended the first CSNS convention in 1940 in Burlington, Iowa. Guests didn’t get any sleep then because the hotel was right over the rail switching yard and cars were banging together all night long.

He also recalled that B. Max Mehl, the famous Fort Worth, Texas, dealer who died in 1957, “asked me to be a shill in one of his mail auctions.”

The CSNS membership loved it. They knew they were in the presence of greatness. I was lucky to be there.