Baseball season, coin buying season

I suppose it is difficult for the Mint to produce the cupped-shaped coins for the National Baseball Hall of Fame that are promised for this year.

I hope this doesn’t turn into another version of the late-year issues of the First Spouse gold coins. I wish the Mint well. It was a great idea for these and I am impatient to see what the gold $5 coins, silver dollars and clad half dollars look like.

Introduction of these coins during the baseball season would be most appropriate and could be what the Mint is waiting to do. I am jumping the gun a bit by writing this, but the beginning of spring training has got me thinking along these lines.

Besides a passing look at a French coin, my early learning experience of non-flat coin shapes was of putting cents on a railroad track so they could be run under the wheels of a train. I was a kid the. I did only two, not because it was dangerous, but because I was not so flush with cash that I wanted to lose the value of the coins I possessed.

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Obviously, the 2014 commemoratives are neither do-it-yourself, nor will they be cheap. But they do capture my imagination.

Mint packaging has to be designed to accommodate the coins. Third-party grading services will have to be able to slab these as well.

What are the characteristics of the MS-70 grade on coins with one side being recessed and the other side rising upwards? I don’t know. It gives the concept of finding wear, or rub, on the high points a whole new meaning.

How about proof coins? How will the frosting that we are all used to on the high points be imparted consistently? It will be opportunity to study this question.

Can these baseball coins be called cameo proofs? Frosty baseball seams? The mind can conjure all sorts of quirky angles for these novel coins.

But no question, it will be nice to have something new under the sun to study.

I hope we will see an occasional mentions of these commemorative coins by major league baseball.

I do not expect miracles and a sudden influx of noncollector buyers to the program, but it would be helpful for the National Baseball Hall of Fame coins to be promoted to baseball fans across the country. It will be a boost to collecting. Perhaps a major league star touting the coins will get through to potential Young Numismatists as our graying generation of average collectors cannot.

More than one player spokespersons would be helpful, because if someone from the team I root for doesn’t endorse them, would I if I were not a collector?

How about a charity auction to buy a set for display at the Hall of Fame? It might give collectors a record price to chew over and all of us a buyer to be grateful to.

Unlike the Girl Scouts, which unfortunately became the first organization not to receive surcharges earmarked for them, baseball has many avenues of promotion open to it. I hope we will see some evidence of this during the season.