Little things can make for an interesting week. I figured I was pretty well done writing about the 2007-W uncirculated silver American Eagle coin.

In the Dec. 11 Mint Stats the asterisk went on the sales total of 562,877. The asterisk denotes that sales have stopped and the total is the last one available. In the Dec. 18 issue I wrote that the asterisk had come off because the total was rising again.

Earlier this week I received a phone call from someone who had read the Dec. 18 column, called the Mint and tried to buy one only to find that the individual coins were no longer available. He was  disappointed.

The Dec. 25 issue had not reached him yet telling him that the asterisk went back on and the only way now to get the coin is in the new 2007 Annual Uncirculated Dollar Coin Set that the Mint had created that includes the Presidential and Sacagawea dollars also.

I will be writing about the asterisk again. It comes off. Sales have resumed. I just had word yesterday that the 2007-W silver American Eagle goes back on sale today.

Sales were ended because the Mint had run out of packaging for the coin. The supplier told the Mint it can provide more in the middle of January. The Mint still has an unsold inventory of the coins, so rather than destroy them, sales resume.

Who would have thought I would be writing so much about asterisks? Who would have thought so many programs would stop and restart again this year?

Yes, I know that strong bullion markets often have been the provoking factor since September, but it sure is hard to keep readers informed of the on again, off again nature of sales this year.

The Mint has even sold coins on its Web site long after the program supposedly concluded with a sellout, because buyers stumbled on an offer on the site.

What a year. I know there are many collectors trying to gauge end-of-year rarity ranks of various coins and stop-and-go sales are not making this any easier.

How many more coins the Mint has was not revealed. We must keep guessing.

Applicants for the job of executive director of the American Numismatic Association will have the opportunity to personally deliver their resumes to ANA President Barry Stuppler at his bourse table at the Florida United Numismatists convention in January in Orlando.

Whether planned or unplanned, the Jan. 11, 2008, deadline for resume submission occurs during the show.

That is a good thing. Individuals who have numismatic backgrounds are the most likely individuals to be on hand at FUN to contact Stuppler there. It is to be hoped that someone among them will be able to take the ANA in hand to end the past decade of organizational tumult and take the organized hobby into the 21st century.

Last week when I first heard of the job posting, I wrote here that a hobby background is the critical factor in any future executive director. I have marveled and been mystified at the vehemence of opinion held by noncollectors about what collectors and their national organization should do.

That noncollector opinion I believe is what keeps leading ANA deeper and deeper into areas that are not only unproductive, but offend the collector membership.

One of these is the steady increase in what I call the police function. There is a strange supposition, again among nonmembers, that it is the responsibility of the ANA to be some sort of regulator of all nonmember conduct. That the opposite of what should be the case. ANA should have standing to regulate only member conduct.

ANA has loaned its good name to eBay to very little good result. If ANA does nothing, it looks weak and ineffective. If it does something, it infuriates those affected. In neither case does it help the ANA itself.

If the only contact you have with an organization is to have your wrist slapped,  or to be told of the many manifest failures of ANA to stop unethical conduct of nonmembers, why would you want to be associated with it?

ANA is supposed to be an educational organization established for the benefit of its members, not a police power haphazardly interfering in nonmember matters.

This week is a busy one in the Numismatic News office. Just as things speed up in the summertime instead of slowing down, the week just before Christmas is the one where our annual Florida United Numismatists convention special issue is put together.

Instead of being able to focus on the holidays, the staff must focus on putting together one of the largest issues of the year. I hope readers will enjoy it when they see it.

Always kept in mind is how the paper will look sitting on the table at the Krause Publications booth in Orlando come the actual opening of the show. We all want to be proud of it.

Corporate budget season also provides a background of frantic activity when most people would like to ease off a little bit to enjoy the holidays.

Regardless of what goes on here in Iola, I hope you will have some time in the remaining days of 2007 to relax a little, enjoy interaction with family and friends and re-energize for the coming of 2008.

The new year does not come in slowly. The FUN convention assures that it will come in with a bang or a bust. There is scarcely any middle ground. The FUN issue itself start Numismatic News off with a bang.

Occurring simultaneously with the FUN show Jan. 10-13 will be the New York International Numismatic Convention. Europeans will be in Gotham to buy up everything that is round and shiny with their strong euros. I don’t blame them. Make hay while the sun shines as the saying goes.

The question for 2008 is how far can momentum carry us? Paper money is hot. World coins are hot. Coins of the U.S. have become a bit more selective. That is to be expected. Prices have gotten very rich indeed for classic issues.

A redesigned $5 Federal Reserve Note will be introduced March 13, 2008, the Bureau of Engraving and Printing announced yesterday.

It will be better at resisting counterfeiting efforts because it will have two watermarks and a security thread relocated to the left of the large portrait of Lincoln.

Will anyone accept it? This question is less about counterfeiting and more about the battered prestige of the U.S. currency around the world. Since World War I, when the dollar began to be widely looked to as a store of value and a source of stability, it became a real competitor to  the British pound, which before then had been the international reserve currency.

By the end of World War II, British finances were shattered and the Bretton Woods treaty made the dollar’s dominance complete.

Dominance can be a bad thing if it creates an unreasonable arrogance, or an unrealistic laziness by those who experience it. Is that what the rest of the world is seeing in the economy behind the dollar, or is the value decline pure blind panic akin to a bank run?

It is no secret the dollar has been declining since 2002. The pace of decline accelerated this year.

I was in Germany in 2005 when the euro cost $1.25. It is now $1.45. Prices seemed high then. What will they be like when I visit Berlin in February 2008 to give Coin of the Year Awards? I am already curious.

World prestige and value questions aside, the new $5 bill will prompt more newcomers to take up the hobby of U.S. paper money collecting. That is a good thing. It probably means more good times for those of us who are active in the field, though that also means higher prices will be paid by collectors for prize notes.

Better buy them now before the general public becomes aware of the redesigned note. Most people probably won’t realize a new note exists until they get one in change. That means you have a 90-day head start.

Looking for a career change? The position of American Numismatic Association executive director might just be the position for you. Then again, it might not.

The ANA posted the job on Friday. Candidates have until Jan. 11 to submit their applications and resumes.

All you have to do is straighten out an organization beset by lawsuits, alienated staff, bleeding finances and a board as much focused on 1968 as 2008.

Sound like the ideal job? Far from it.

The ANA’s track record in finding someone to manage the organization has been less than stellar. It first took a turn toward professional management instead of hobby management in 1987 when it decided to hire a retiring director of the Bureau of Engraving and Printing at the Atlanta convention.

Professional management is all well and good, but with each succeeding candidate, the hobby connection seems to have been lost in the shuffle.

The ANA board seems to realize this – at least partially. The press release says candidates for the positioin “must have considerable knowledge of and interest in the subject matter dealt with by the ANA or a similar hobby field.”

What are we now, the hobby that dare not speak its name?

My view is the board has had its priorities precisely reversed. The single most important factor is actually being a hobbyist. Everything else can be taught.

The board’s philosophy has been to ask for a glittering management resume and the hobby part can be taught.

Well, the last decade of experience seems to indicate that it cannot be taught. We hobbyists have been treated condescendingly and we know it. We don’t like it. We are ANA members precisely because we are coin and paper money collectors and precisely because all other considerations are basically irrelevant.

The hobby qualification must be central in a new ANA executive director’s background. Other qualifications are significant but any one of them is not absolutely essential, unless of course you think that the next Vatican conclave to elect a new Pope should focus solely on management skills.

What does the future hold for us in 2008? Everybody would like to know. Many opinions are expressed, especially in the financial news media.

I am not in a position to take advantage of sophisticated economic models. I have to rely on what I can see and what I have experienced.

From that perspective, there is good news. Coin dealers and others active in numismatics have expressed their views in the most concrete way possible: with their cash.

I just deadlined the January 2008 issue of World Coin News. Display ad revenue decisively exceeded the target in our annual budget. The issue will be distributed at the Florida United Numismatists convention and the New York International Numismatic Convention in January.

This result does not mean the financial prognosticators who are pessimistic about next year are wrong, but it does cast some doubt. By both outlook and habit I am an optimist. I would love to be in the position of those hobbyists who live in the euro economies. Coins here seem incredibly cheap and euro-based buyers are aggressively in acquisition mode.

I saw a comment by World Coin News writer Bob Reis that his business was now higher abroad than domestically. That, he noted, had never happened before.

Every business person knows that profit is where you find it and you have to adjust behavior accordingly to maximize outcomes in ever changing conditions.

Conditions most assuredly are changing. But that isn’t necessarily a negative. It just means things are different. I like different. Hobby life would be boring if nothing ever changed.

There I go again, being the optimist.