Two leading experts on the acquisition and trading of gold coins and bullion will provide a wealth of inside information on those subjects – free of charge – during the ANA World’s Fair of Money (www.WorldsFairOfMoney.com), the year’s biggest coin show, on Friday, August 13, 2010, at the Hynes Convention Center in Boston, Massachusetts.

The experts, Scott A. Travers and Maurice H. Rosen, will be the featured speakers at Coin Collector’s Survival® Conference 2010, a 90-minute seminar that will give attendees useful information on how to “survive and thrive during the decade of gold.”

The Survival Conference will start at 10:30 a.m. August 13 in Room 200 of the convention center. Admission is free, and everyone who attends will receive a copy of one of the bestselling books authored by Travers, as well as a newsletter published by Rosen. The free books and newsletters will be vintage copies of earlier editions.

Travers is a nationally known New York City coin dealer, author and consumer advocate who has written more than half a dozen award-winning books, including The Coin Collector’s Survival Manual®, a hobby bestseller that will have its seventh edition published by Random House in November. The New York Times has described him as “the Ralph Nader of numismatics” for his consumer activism.

Rosen is a prominent professional numismatist and coin market analyst from Plainview, New York, whose influential Rosen Numismatic Advisory is recognized perennially as the outstanding newsletter in the field of rare coins and precious metals. He forecasts in the soon-to-be-published edition of the Survival Manual that “by the end of 2020, the price of gold in U.S. dollars will be $5,000 to $10,000 per ounce.”

Travers and Rosen both foresaw the tremendous advance in the market value of gold well before it began. Travers was predicting $1,000-an-ounce gold in books and articles several years beforehand, when the price was less than half that amount and barely one-third its present level of about $1,200.

Also taking part in the symposium will be Jerry Jordan, award-winning news editor of The Examiner, a newspaper in Beaumont, Texas, who wrote a series of articles exposing apparent abuses by traveling gold buyers. Jordan’s four-part series revealed that in many cases, the itinerant buyers – operating out of hotel suites – apparently offered unwary sellers a small fraction of the true value for their gold coins and jewelry.

The Maynard Sundman/Littleton Coin Company Lecture Series will be presented August 12 during the American Numismatic Association’s 2010 World’s Fair of Money at the Hynes Convention in Boston. This annual series features new scholarship on a numismatic topic; the topic this year is “New England Numismatics and Numismatists: Then and Now.”

The lectures will take place in Room 209, and are free and open to all attending the show. A luncheon will be held Aug. 12 from 12:15-1:45 p.m. in Room 204, near the lecture area. Attendees may choose from Chicken Roulade, New York Sirloin or a vegetarian option. The luncheon is $10 per person, and is underwritten by the Maynard Sundman Littleton Coin Co. Lecture Series Endowment and David Sundman. To register for the luncheon call 719-482-9857 (pre-registration required).

Below is the lecture schedule for the 2010 Sundman/Littleton Coin Co. Lecture Series:

10 a.m.: “Colonel Edward H.R. Green: Collector Extraordinaire”

Peter Huntoon is a renowned numismatic researcher, author and instructor

Born into a wealthy Bedford, Mass., whaling family, Edward H.R. (“Ned”) Green had an eccentric and miserly mother, Hetty. After her death, he took his half of her fortune and became a famous philatelic and numismatic collector, acquiring anything and everything in his sights, including all five 1913 Liberty Head nickels.

11:15 a.m.: “It May Prove a Drugg in Time: The Rise and Fall of Wampum in 17th-Century Massachusetts”

Max Spiegel is a prolific author and former ANA Young Numismatist of the Year

For three decades, wampum circulated alongside gold and silver coins in Massachusetts Bay. Its widespread use in the colony arose from both necessity and a desire for quick profits from the fur trade. Governor William Bradford’s warning turned out to be a remarkably

accurate prediction, and wampum’s rapid rise was followed by its sudden fall and disappearance.

2 p.m.: “Making Money in Massachusetts”

Richard Doty is a curator with the Smithsonian Institution’s Division of Political History

Colonists found ways to obtain metal and produce coins without attracting the attention of the British. Massachusetts also got into issuing paper currency, and in the process found it was a fragile medium subject to alteration and counterfeiting. In response, Jacob Perkins of Newburyport invented siderography (the art and practice of steel engraving) and steel-plate printing, making safe money available in abundant quantity to a growing nation. (more…)

The Professional Numismatists Guild will conduct another in its continuing series of PNG Share the Knowledge seminars at the Central States Numismatic Society 71st anniversary convention in Milwaukee, Wisconsin at 1 p.m. on Friday, April 30, 2010. The educational session is free and open to collectors and dealers, and a complimentary light lunch will be available for audience members.

“Gary Adkins, Jeff Garrett and Julian Leidman, three outstanding professional numismatists including two former PNG Presidents, will conduct an Ask the Experts session to answer the audience’s questions about the hobby and the rare coin marketplace,” said PNG Executive Director Robert Brueggeman.

“Any and all numismatic topics are open for questions, from what to collect, the best ways to buy and sell, third-party grading and so on,” explained Paul Montgomery, PNG President. “These three distinguished panelists have over 100 years of cumulative experience and knowledge in numismatics.”

Former PNG President (2007 – 2009) Adkins is President of Gary Adkins Associates, Inc. of Minneapolis, Minnesota and helped create the PNG Share the Knowledge series that was launched in 2008 to underscore the organization’s motto, “Knowledge. Integrity. Responsibility.”

Former PNG President (2005 – 2007) Garrett is President of Mid-America Rare Coin Galleries in Lexington, Kentucky and Sarasota Rare Coin Galleries in Sarasota, Florida. A current member of the American Numismatic Association Board of Governors, he is the author of Encyclopedia of U.S. Gold Coinage and co-author of 100 Greatest U.S. Coins, among other books, and was a featured speaker in the first PNG Share the Knowledge seminar in February 2008.

“Sometimes the world of coin collecting can be quite confusing. Having access to a seasoned professional can be informative and useful, and collectors of all levels will be able to get answers from us on a wide range of subjects. Remember, knowledge is one of the most valuable assets when purchasing rare coins,” said Garrett.

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