Knowledge as valuable as gold

One of the successes of the Young Numismatists programs of the past 40 years has been the growing number of coin dealers who started out as YN's and learned the ropes.

Dwight Manley is just the most visible of these because of his generous donations to the American Numismatic Association.

The Texas Numismatic Association is building on this achievement and augmenting it. At the next show May 18-20 in Fort Worth, TNA is conducting its YN Dealer Initiative.

The initiative is for YN's to sign up for a dealer table for Saturday, May 19. There is no cost.

YN's must be from 12 to 17 years of age and must have a letter or email of approval from parents. The YN and a close relative must be current TNA members.

It is expected that the numismatic items that will be allowed at the table will have a value of $100 or less each. That leaves out gold and rarities, but with these and a few other limitations, YN's will then be able to learn the ropes of being a bourse dealer.

Those interested in participating should contact Jack Gilbert at gilbej@yahoo.com no later than April 15.

What a great idea this is. I hope TNA YNs take advantage of the opportunity.

Such a program demonstrates that the hobby continues to generate new ideas and new approaches.

Too bad there isn't something like this for adults. I'm not joking. Some of the prevailing hobby myths and bad blood between collectors and dealers would disappear if collectors had the opportunity to see what numismatics is like from the dealer side of the table from pricing inventory, negotiating each sale and interacting with all of the public that comes up to the table.

Of course, this YN program is a great start and I wish it every success.