Unusual exhibit takes first

Sam Deep’s collection of items from off the beaten path earned the American Numismatic Association member top honors at the ANA’s first Fall National Money Show, Oct. 13-15.

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Deep received the Radford Stearns Best-in-Show Exhibit Award and the People’s Choice Award for his exhibit, “Off the Beaten Numismatic Path.”

“What I like to collect are things you wouldn’t typically find in many dealers’ cases,” Deep said.

Deep’s exhibit evolved from a previous exhibit he called “101 Ways to Collect.” When he realized that his love for offbeat items was overshadowing the more traditional items, he opted to rework the collection.

“Off the Beaten Numismatic Path” still shows some traditional items, while the collection’s focus are those items he found when he wandered off that traditional path.

Among the more unusual items in the collection is a silver dollar puzzle coin made from an actual silver dollar, a wine-tasting cup in which the bottom of the cup is the obverse of a French franc, a coin watch in which the face is the reverse of a half dollar and a hand-engraved gold medal awarded at the first Pittsburgh spelling bee held in 1908.

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The first runner-up award was presented to Simcha Kuritzky for “Creating Modern Israel: The History of Zionism Shown through Numismatics.” The second runner-up award also went to Kuritzky for “Boy For Sale? Tokens for the Redemption of the Firstborn Son.”

Awards were presented in six classes, including History and Politics, Economics, Common Elements, the Arts and Science. This year, 23 competitive and 13 non-competitive exhibits were displayed, including a few ANA traveling exhibits.

For a complete list of exhibit winners, visit www.money.org.