New office, new desk, new start

The Numismatic News office is moving.

After more than 65 years in Iola, Wis., the relocation will take it a half hour down the highway to neighboring Stevens Point.

Yesterday, the April 3 issue went to press.

In it are reminiscences by Clifford Mishler of his 55 years associated with Iola.

I say associated because in retirement, his wife decided to move to a lakeside home a half hour south of Iola.

Clifford commutes every business day to his private office on Main St.

Starting on April 9, my trip to the new office in Stevens Point will stretch my time on the road from five minutes to half an hour.

That will be a change, but if Clifford can do it, so can I.

Life is about change, isn’t it?

If we do this move right, readers will not notice a thing within the pages of the paper.

Of course, the physical address will change.

However, since most interaction nowadays is by email, a new address counts for much less than it used to.

I will provide the new address soon, but not today.

I don’t want to jump the gun.

This is not because I am resisting change, but to avoid the risk that readers will attempt to write the new office before I actually get there.

I learned of this possibility years ago when I would publish advance stories about new Mint coin offers.

This is helpful to most readers.

However, if a story was published too soon, there would be a few readers who ignored the start date and telephoned the Mint ahead of time.

The Mint order taker would refuse to take an order and often say they knew nothing about it.

Then the reader would telephone me to ask why the Mint claims to know nothing about the offer that I wrote about in the paper.

Sure, this sort of thing didn’t happen often, but it did train me to think of advance notice as something to be most useful when it is not too far in advance.

So start the countdown.

I will move soon, as will the rest of the office staff.

I will pack up my desk, files and books by April 6 and begin my new chapter on April 9.

It should be interesting.

Buzz blogger Dave Harper won the Numismatic Literary Guild Award for Best Blog for the third time in 2017 . He is editor of the weekly newspaper "Numismatic News."

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