Kids take swing at baseball designs

Collectors can now vote on coin designs submitted to the U.S. Mint in its kids’ version of the baseball coin design competition.

Anyone from the public can vote and they have until July 29 to do so on the U.S. Mint’s website.

I have to admit that I probably won’t fit the profile of the average voter.

I visited the section of the Mint website devoted to the kid designs and was surprised to find 225 designs that I could review.

Perhaps it was the pressure of my deadlines that prevented me from looking at each and every one.

But, frankly, I was overwhelmed by the number of entries.

From the point of view of public participation, this is a very good thing.

From the point of view of trying to make some sort of considered judgment, I decided it there were just too many for the time I wanted to spend.

There are certainly too many designs for me to publish.

Perhaps I will feel differently on the weekend when I am more relaxed.

I did check the numbers in terms of how many submissions were recorded in each of the three age groups.

As you would expect, there were only seven submissions in the 0 to 5-year-old age range.

The largest number of submissions came from children 6 years old to 10 years of age. Here there are 184 to look at.

In the age group of 11 years to 13 years, there are 41 submissions.

Now I know my attitude would probably be entirely different if I had a child or grandchild who had entered the contest.

Then I would want to evaluate for myself what I think the chances are of winning.

The Mint is to be congratulated for undertaking this contest. Participants, I am sure, will remember the experience.

Anybody who truly gives some thought to each and every design entry has my admiration.

If you would like to give it a try, here is the link:

http://kidsbatterup.challenge.gov/

Buzz blogger Dave Harper is editor of the weekly newspaper "Numismatic News."