From: mpcgram-owner@mail.papermoneyworld.net on behalf of MPCgram [mpcgram@yahoo.com] Sent: Wednesday, April 19, 2006 9:48 PM To: mpcgram@papermoneyworld.net Subject: MPCGram 1453 ------------------------ / MPC Gram News Letter / ----------------------- =========================================== MPC GRAM =========================================== Vol 7, no 1453 Wednesday April 19, 2006 Camp 7 Museum by Nik Sharplin Just back from a short 2 week holiday and I am filing the following report for the gram. I was hoping very much to catch up with all my fester friends at the summer seminar, but looks like all my plans have been shot down so to speak. So it will have to be 2007! My home city of Melbourne, has just been hosting the Commonwealth games, and as the school holidays were also brought forward to co-inside with this event, we decided to avoid the crowds, get out of town, and show the kids some of our home state of Victoria instead. During my previous travels around the state I had discovered a museum in the small town of Tatura,(population of about 2800) but it was never open! So this was the only stop planned that related to our hobby. I forgot to mention the significance of this museum, it is devoted to the 7 POW camps that were in the area during WWII. The largest concentration of such camps in Australia during this conflict. We were very fortunate as the husband and wife team of Arthur & Lurline Knee, opened the museum especially for us & I spent approx 3 hours talking, looking at the exhibits & rummaging through their archives. I could have spent a lot longer, but three young and impatient children put paid to that! The visit was fascinating as they had many unusual and interesting items from the various camps of the region. And yes they did have a few of the tokens issued and even a Camp Hay sixpence note, & guess what Harold, it’s the highest serial number I have recorded in my database C41937, that now makes 86 of these sixpence notes that I know exist, 10 more than previously recorded. But the item that took my breath away was an old photograph of a piece of artwork. The photo was very faded & unfortunately they had no scanner, but are going to try & locate the negative for me. The artwork was by E.Wittenberg & was an alternative design for a one shilling note for Camp 7 Hay! Wow!! However Arthur & Lurline and the other volunteers have no numismatic knowledge. They claim I am the first numismatist to visit, they have had plenty of philatelists though! All of their items were mostly unlabelled and exhibited in dark corners, at opposite ends of the museum, with little or no correlation to each other, or archived. Consequently I volunteered to organise a permanent display for them. Another job to add to the list, (Me & my big mouth)! At least it has given me a great excuse to re-visit, this time without the family! I can foresee a longer rummage through their archives coming! Who knows what else I will find. ANA Atlanta by Joe Boling  With all those nice words from Fred Wednesday, I guess I had better get a column written this week.  At tonight's meeting of the South King County Coin Club, I showed a Great Lakes Banknote Company product that was available (for a price) at the ANA convention in Atlanta last weekend. On Friday there was a casino night, co-sponsored by three major numismatic firms (whose major dealings are in fabricated metal discs). They paid for the room and the eats (I assume), so that the ANA could pick up all the fees paid by conventioneers to attend the event. The cost was $25, which got you a (very) light buffet and $500 in player scrip (which had to be exchanged for chips to actually play with). There was also a commemorative ANA chip in a Contain for each player. The scrip was printed by our own GLBNC.  Veteran festers would recognize it immediately. By MFC all being in the stacks of unaccessioned stuff a few feet from this keyboard, I can't just pull it out and inspect it. But I can say that many of the designs of the ANA Casino Coupons (ACC) borrow heavily from those of existing MFC. Six denominations were issued - $1, $2, $5, $25, $50, and $100. To make up the $500 packets, the denominations listed above appeared in the following numbers - 1,2,4,3,4,2 (making $500). All packets had this mix of denominations - stars and low numbers were spread across the 150 packets (a few stars were not used, there being fewer errors pieces than the number of stars furnished by the printer). The $1 will be the key for this issue, only 150 having been distributed (many more were printed, so there is a potential for remainders to eventually enter the market).  The contractor shipped the notes to ANA in sheets, where they were separated by the convention staffers. This process resulted in some notes being miscut - those were mostly replaced with stars (some notes cut close on the left end were present in too many examples to replace completely, so this minor error may be found in many holdings).  Most of the $1 and $2 notes were printed in eight-note sheets, four $1 notes on the left, four $2 notes on the right. This configuration lends itself to double denominations - if a printed uniface sheet is turned in the stack before the second side is printed (I don't know whether the backs or the faces were printed first), then all eight notes will have backs that do not match the faces. One such sheet was printed, but its presence was detected during a quality control inspection prior to disbursement, and all such errors were replaces by star notes. There were also a few uniface sheets, where two sheets would go through the press together, resulting in one missing that printing. One sheet missed its face printing, and several missed their backs. All such notes were also replaced with stars. The contractor's salesman (CFS) was willing to let the error printings go into circulation (perhaps thinking that this was a one-off job and he didn't need to worry about repeat business), but the quality control inspector (JEB) felt that it would not be a good example of GLBNC's work to let these notes escape into circulation. All error printings and miscuts that had been removed were delivered to ANA for disposition.  Minor varieties exist of the $50 note (check the bugs on the back, escapees from MFC series 052). Both minor and major varieties exist of the $1 note, but it is not known whether all of these entered circulation, since the distribution of $1 notes was so limited.  Speaking of series number - the ACC are designated series 061. Can fest VII attendees see a potential connection to the MFC that were issued there? If I were a speculating man (and the GLBNC president has taught me to never anticipate anything from them) I would speculate that ACC may be coin of the realm when students arrive at Summer Seminar this year. *********************************************************** Championship Question Corner Question: Who made the first Fest coin belt buckle? Question 112, difficulty 3. What series of MPC was ordered as one series number but issued as another (a favorite question). Question 113, difficulty 3. Yesterday's Question: Where are post war barter stores confirmed to have operated? Question 111, difficulty 2. Answers: see below Comments from the field: Bill Myers wrote Question 111: Berlin and Frankfurt am Main, Germany. ========================================== Editorial ========================================== Another week just plain snuck away. Darn they are fast. I was going to tell you a little story about bidding on an item on ebay. I guess I will still tell the story, but it is a little different than I had expected. Among all too many things, I collect pictures of military personnel and money. MPC and AMC are favorites, but most any soldiers (also sailors, airmen and marines) and any money are OK. I only have a few. The ones that I had through 1995 are shown in World War II Remembered. I have found some since then (and of course will use them in Remembered II as appropriate). A few friends know that I collect these photos. Occasionally they find a photo for me especially on ebay. Such a thing happened recently. A friend sent me an ebay item number that was for a fantastic photo of some British soldiers examining Allied military francs that had just been issued to them. I liked the photo and put in a bid, but there is more to the story. Much more. First, it was amazing. I knew the photo in question. In fact, I had been pursuing the photo for years. I first saw it in D-Day The Invasion in Photographs. Thankfully, there was also a photo credit that the original is in the Imperial War Museum. I tried several times to obtain a print (or nowadays a scan) of it to no avail. I was therefore delighted to see a print on ebay even though the it was cropped differently (substantially) than the one in the book. Nonetheless, I wanted it. I placed a rather substantial (I thought) bid with a snipe service. I was surprised when I did not win the item. I was astounded when I saw the price realized--$341! Even though I was a little disappointed, I would not have paid that price for that photo. I might pay that for some photo, but not that one. I have paid on the order of $100 for some special photos (real special), but so far that is the limit for me. Wait, there is still more. I planned to put a link to the item or at least the item number here so that you could look at it. When I went to the item, here is the message that I got: This listing (#6268393109) has been removed or is no longer available. Please make sure you entered the right item number. If [I do not understand the if here in this context] the listing was removed by eBay, consider it canceled. Can anyone tell me what happened here? ========================================== Mail Call =========================================== Dear Gram, RISING PHOENIX. Now that really jerks me around. I borrowed ole Profski's Funk and Wagnals and found out that "it made for itself a funeral pyre when each life span of 500 or 600 years was over." How can you associate me at 39 years of age with a 500-600 year old "animal". You could have said that I just returned from a short sabbatical when the promise was made that pictures would be incorporated into the Gram. --Bi-Thurski Dear Editor,   Two weeks without articles from Jim Downey or Joe Boling. What's the story?   David Klinger Comrade Dave, No excuse, but we are starting a new five year catch up plan. Editor Dear Editor, Per your request, here is the website for Army Transportation Museum: http://www.transchool.eustis.army.mil/museum/museum.html JAD Dear Jim, Cool, this worked but the sublink did not. Drat. Editor =========================================== Calendar =========================================== 2006 The London Paper Money Fair has moved to: Victory Services Club, 63 Seymour Street, off Edgware Road, Marble Arch London and the dates are: May 7, July 2 and Nov 26. see: www.britishnotes.co.uk or www.londonpapermoneyfair.co.uk June 1-3 Long Beach, mini fest to be announced 16-18 June Memphis 1-14 July ANA summer seminar 16-20 August ANA convention, Denver September 14th-16th, Long Beach, mini fest to be annuonced The World Paper Money Fair, organised by the London chapter of the IBNS will be September 30/October 1 at the new venue: Hotel Russell, Russell Square, Bloomsbury, London.  see: www.ibnslondon.org.uk Oct/Nov Pcda St Louis ========================================== for dealer Hot Contact list, ANA MPC museum holdings and other static information please click this link: http://www.papermoneyworld.net/Gramattichments.htm ========================================== 2006 scholarship fund Donations of cash and numismatic material will be gladly accepted. Generally the numismatic material is auctioned at MPCFest, but might be sold via ebay or other places. Your scholarship donations help the hobby by sending qualified individuals to the ANA summer seminar military money class. Except for unavoidable charges like ebay fees, 100% of your donation goes to scholarships. Donations are now being accepted for the 2006 scholarship fund. Applications are also being accepted for the 2006 scholarships. Donors to 2006 scholarship fund: Sue McCarty (list pending) Contact me at: "Marcus Turner" mail to: maturner@indy.rr.com Checks should be made out to the "Military Numismatists Scholarship." or Marcus Turner Marcus Turner PO Box 191 Danville, Indiana 46122 USA Contributors to the 2005 scholarship were: Ed Hoffman, Warner Talso, RA Medina, John & Nancy Wilson, Keith & Sue Bauman, Dan Freeland, Tom Koch, Doug Bell, Cuneyd Tolek, David Seelye, Brian Giese, Larry Smulczenski, Joe Boling, Dick & Loretta Freyser, Mark Watson, John Cheney, Roger Urce, Harold Kroll, Al Glaser. (also Memphis Belle note purchasers and summer seminar participants. irie Harris, Robert Connell, William Benton, Ed Beaman, Frank Clark, Howard A. Daniel III, Dick and Loretta Freyser, Dan and Kathy Freeland, Jack Hunter, Harld Kroll, Tim Kyzivat, Leo May, Robbie Robinson, Joel Shafer, Neil Shafer, Larry Smulczenski, Steve Swoish, Roger Urce, Ron Waddell, Pam West, John and Nancy Wilson, Adolf Witzke, Wendell Wolka. IMPORTANT SCHOLARSHIP INFORMATION Additional information can be found at the link below. We encourage everyone to print copies of this information and distribute it to those who might be interested. Further you are encouraged to e-mail the pdf document to anyone you see fit. Thank you http://www.papermoneyworld.net/news/Military Numismatists Scholarship Fund 2003.pdf Scholarships from the ANA: See the following location for an application for financial aid to the summer seminar: http://www.money.org/sumsemfin.html ========================================= POST / BASE EXCHANGE(PX/BX/NEX) Dump your dupes! Your classified advertisement for items for sale, purchase or trade will be run here for free. Send your ads to the gram. This service is for everyone, most humble dealer or most advanced collector. The point is to make the gram more interesting. In all cases confirm your order via email first. WANTED SECTION: Collectors may submit lists of items wanted for their collections for listing here. Dealers and collectors who have these items, are then encouraged to list them for sale in the above section as a reply. Wanted listings will run for a period of 1 month. ============================================= MPC Gram Staff: Publisher, editor: Fred Schwan fred@papermoneyworld.net; Subscription Manager:Doug Bell- doug@papermoneyworld.net Tuesday Columnist : JoeBoling- JoeBoling@aol.com Friday Columnist: Warner Talso: wtalso@aol.com Fest Auctioneer: Larry "Ski"Smulczenski - skitex@cox.net, Critic:Harold Kroll - HARBONS@aol.com Scholarship Coordinator: Marcus Turner- marucs@papermoneyworld.net; Webmaster and Technical Advisors:Doug Bell "Wiz" - doug@papermoneyworld.net Russ Walsh - russ.walsh@gte.net Fact Checker: Warner Talso -Calendar Coordinator: John and Nancy Wilson -The Boss: Judy Schwan MPC Gram is published by BNR Press and papermoneyworld.com as a free service to the community of military money collectors. Your suggestions, criticisms, complaints, editorial contributions, letters, and even praise are very welcome. The entire contents including linked illustrations are copyright protected by the publishers. In the case of contributors, the copyright is protected on behalf of the creators. Please send all correspondence regarding the gram to MPCgram@yahoo.com. Thank you very much for your participation. __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com mpc gram mail list To subscribe to a list, send a mail message to "imailsrv@papermoneyworld.net" at this address with the following in the body of the message: subscribe mpcgram your_full_name To unsubscribe from a list, send a mail message to "imailsrv@papermoneyworld.net" at this address with the following in the body of the message: unsubscribe mpcgram if you have any problems please report then to doug@papermoneyworld.net