Four to go

I always think of the late Bill Pettit when I am about to travel. He often sang Willie Nelson’s “On the Road Again” when it was time for the staff to hit the road.

Bill left the Krause staff in 1985, so it isn’t like I haven’t had enough time to forget. It is just one of those memories that replays in my mind at the appropriate time.

I am on my way to Berlin, Germany, this morning to attend the World Money Fair. If all goes according to the schedule, I will arrive in Berlin at 10 a.m. on Tuesday.

Three of my colleagues are going along. Publisher Scott Tappa heads the delegation. Tom Michael, our pricing editor for the Standard Catalog of World Coins, is going and so is Lisa Bellavin, our online guru.

The four of us hope to apply the lessons we learned the first time we went, which was last year.

Our first lesson was to go a day earlier. Jet lag hit us last year, but we had to jump right into our scheduled activities. This year we have time to take it a little easier and get our body clocks better adjusted.

Among our tasks is to give the Coin of the Year Awards to representatives of the winning mints and central banks. I expect to see U.S. Mint Director Ed Moy, who will attend to collect three category awards, which will be more than any other mint. I look forward to offering my congratulations to him and to the U.S. Mint.

The top award was won by Mongolia and the People’s Choice Award was captured by Hungary.

It will be an interesting trip.