Status: U Return-Path: Received: from web5204.mail.yahoo.com ([216.115.106.85]) by runyon.mail.mindspring.net (Earthlink Mail Service) with SMTP id thvbm1.psd.37kbi7f for ; Thu, 7 Jun 2001 12:41:37 -0400 (EDT) Message-ID: <20010607164133.24424.qmail@web5204.mail.yahoo.com> Received: from [64.12.102.37] by web5204.mail.yahoo.com; Thu, 07 Jun 2001 09:41:33 PDT Date: Thu, 7 Jun 2001 09:41:33 -0700 (PDT) From: MPCgram Subject: MPCGram 358 To: MPCGram@yahoo.com MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii ============================================== MPC Gram ============================================== Covering the Entire World of Military Numismatics ----------------------------------------------- Series 002-Number 358 Thurski, June 7, 2001 World War II War Bond Drives By Larry “Ski” Smulczenski During the War years of 1941-1945, the government made a consorted effort to sell Savings Bonds to the populace. Seven War Loan Drives and a Victory Loan were conducted to encourage individuals to invest in our war efforts against the axis nations. The Series E, F, and G Bonds were not the only securities that were made available during these War Loan Drives. Remember that an individual could only purchase $5000 maturity value Series E Bonds annually and $50,000 (later $100,000) of Series F and G Bonds during a year. This sounds like a lot of money to you and I, but there was a lot of money held by individuals, partnerships and trust accounts that was available for investment in the war effort. Besides War Bonds investments inclulded Treasury Bonds, Treasury Certificates and Treasury Savings Notes. Some of these were bearer instruments while others were registered in a name. Interest ranged from 2 1/2% for a Treasury Bond that matured in approximately 25 years to 7/8% for a certificate maturing the following year. There were provisions for banks to hold some of these securities. These documents are extremely rare and have only been seen in National Archives. In January 1944, the E, F, and G Bonds were reduced to half the size of the former ones. The horizontal dimension remained at 185mm but the vertical dimension decrease from 205mm to 100mm. This was to save paper and reduce production costs for the Treasury. Eight bonds could now be printed on a sheet of paper in place of the four that had been. Advertising stated that "The new war bonds will do just as much work in winning the war as the big-sized ones." There were two additions to the Series E Bonds during 1944-45. A $10 denomination was added in June 1944 for the military members who wanted to participate in the Savings Bond Program. The low ranking soldiers had a difficult time buying a $25 bond on his wages, therefore the introduction of the $10 bond which could be purchased for $7.50. The vignette on this bond is that of Benjamin Franklin. The $10 bond was sold to the military through March of 1950, before being terminated. These bonds are scarce and seldom seen on the open market. On April 12th of 1945, President Franklin D. Roosevelt passed away. Shortly thereafter on July 5, 1945, Secretary of the Treasury Henry Morganthau resigned. President Truman appointed Frederick W. Vinson, the next day. Over the next couple of months, Vinson's signature replaced Morganthau's on all fiscal instruments. There can be no correlation between the date Vinson was appointed, the issue date of the bond and whose signature is on the bond. Old supplies of already printed bonds with Morganthau's signature continued to be issued, until the stock was exhausted. A new denomination, $200 Series E Bond called the Roosevelt Memorial Bond was authorized on the 28th of July, 1945. Roosevelt's portrait, the dates of his life (1882-1945) and a quotation "Every single man, woman, and child is a partner in the most tremendous undertaking of our American history" appear on the new bond. Since the Roosevelt Bond was not issued until September or October of 1945, the word War was deleted from the title. The $200 Series E Bond is also quite a scarce issue, that is seldom seen for sale. =============================================== Editorial ---------------------------------------------------- June 11 is the deadline for application for exhibiting at the Atlanta ANA convention. I failed you because I should have mentioned it many times. This points up the need to reinstate the Gram Calendar which is our intention. However, there is still time. The application can be found on the net (www.money.org) and faxed to headquarters in Colorado Springs. There is no time like the present to prepare that exhibit that you have been thinking about! Obviously, you do no have to have the exhibit finished by Monday, but you do have to get the application in. I have a fantasy about the ultimate MPC exhibition at an ANA convention. This is not a single exhibit, but an array of exhibits making a massive exhibition. The idea is to have multiple collectors exhibit their collections in as many categories as possible. Obviously, in the United States paper money category there would be a regular issue type set. There could also be a replacement exhibit, and possibly a specimen exhibit. Probably there are others that would fit in this category too. In the error category we would certainly have an exhibit of MPC errors. World paper money might (but probably would not) cause an argument with an exhibit of MPC coupons. This exhibit might include the Vietnam era MPC series along with the coupons (being mindful of the required distribution to qualify for the category). The literature category could clearly include and MPC literature exhibit and might even carefully work in a specimen book of MPC to spice it up a bit—they are books after all. Actually, quite a bit of MPC could be included just being careful to met the distribution requirement (60% I think). General and specialized might include MPC checks, shipping materials, or even MPC Fest memorabilia. Hm, where would a collection of MFC go? Probably also in general and specialized. Other possibilities that come to mind are Western Americana and Local Interest. Certainly if Indianapolis had an ANA convention the case could be made to exhibit 691 and 701 notes and probably others as well. Ah, for a Boston convention, Forbes/Tudor printed MPC could be used in the local category. Western Americana seems a little harder, but there must be a way. Certainly the HAWAII and ALASKA overprints could easily be exhibited here and MPC shows as follow on issues, but that is weak. I expect that you get the idea by now, this would indeed be an MPC event for the ages. While this discussion has been a bit whimsical, this could be done—and should be. I will put it on my list of things to do, but it might happen a lot sooner if a reader stepped forward and became the organizer for such a coordinated “attack. Ok, I was kidding about the Alaska overprints. =========================================== Mail Call ---------------------------------------------------- Dear Gram, This letter is in reply to Warner's question regarding what material to cover in an MPC presentation. As most gramsters know, I just love to exhibit as well as talk about MPC whenever the venue presents itself. Local coin club meetings are great for this purpose. I suggest that Warner prepares his presentation with the five basic questions in mind: who, what, where, when & why. It may be necessary to focus on one of these questions, since time constraints for presentations at these meetings are usually limited to no more than 20 to 30 minutes. Once you determine which area you want the focus of your presentation to be, the other areas can be covered in handouts or displays. Setting up a display is always beneficial to your discussion, so spend some time in preparing which MPC you wish to display. If space is limited, select a representative note from each series and then select MPC that are of special interest to you. It is also a good idea to jot down a few notes or a mini itinerary of the topics you want to discuss, just so you don't forget to mention anything important. In my last presentation I focused on 'why' we needed to issue MPC and enhanced it by giving a demonstration. From my computer I printed out a wad of German marks and another wad of US Greenbacks. During the presentation I selected a few members to be soldiers, who were paid in both mediums by another member who was selected as paymaster. Then I had the soldiers exchange their German marks back into US greenbacks, but unknown to the paymaster and the rest of the members at the meeting, these soldiers already had a pocketful of German marks which I gave them prior to my presentation. These represented money received from the 'black market', or by other means than from their payroll. The paymaster soon ran out of greenbacks to exchange all of the marks, and thus an overdraft was created. A silly demonstration perhaps, but when the amount of overdraft ($530,775,440) was revealed, it brought into focus the magnitude of the problem, and thus answered the question 'why' we needed MPC. I also suggest to allow time in your presentation for questions. Get your audience involved and your presentation will be interesting. Hope these ideas help. William E. Yanchick ================================================ Departments --------------------------------------------------- WWII numismatics seminar at ANA Summer Seminar 2001 --------------------------------------------------- Not only does the scholarship fund have an official identity but also has a bank account! Any further donations should be paid to the order of "Military Numismatists Scholarship" and sent to: Military Numismatists c/o Marcus Turner 8103 East US Highway 36 Suite 163 Avon, IN 46123 THE UPDATED LIST OF SCHOLARSHIP BENEFACTORS 3/22/01. These folks have generously provided money or material to finance scholarships to the ANA WWII Numismatics seminar. Your contributions will help promote collecting WWII material and be greatly appreciated. Many donations were received at CPMX and MPCFest. David Amey, Mr. Anonymous Donor, Mike Cummings, Sue and Keith Bauman, Ed B., Doug Bell, Tom Denly, Continental Coin Invensor, Inc., Howard A. Daniel, Denly's, R. A. Medina, Harold “MPCKid” Kroll, Leo "Paymaster" May, Mrs. R.C. Matherne, Bill McNease, Marv Mericle, Mel and Jeremy Steinberg, Marcus Turner, Larry Ski, Guido, Fred, PK6, Joel Shafer, World Wide Ventures, Pam West, John and Nancy Wilson, Neil Shafer, W. E. Yanchick, Mark Watson, Al Glaser, Phil Goldstein, Rod Hardy, Wesley Hardy, Gary Hicks, Jack Lippincott, Ian Marshall, Kevin Maloy, David Seelye, Nick Schrier, Elmer Smith, Dan Swartz, Tom Warburton, Dick Freyser, Tim Kyzivat ==================================================== Post/Base Exchange (PX/BX/NEX) Dump your dupes! Your classified advertisement for items for sale 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. Send in a list of items for sale and we will list them here in the gram. In all cases confirm your order via email first. FOR SALE Your items for sale will be listed in the Gram for FREE. Send your listings now. You items for sale support the gram by making it more interesting for everyone! WANTED 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 or sale in the above section. This is a trial, if you like it, send your list. =================================================== Staff: publisher and editor: Fred Schwan - fred@papermoneyworld.com; assistant editor - Phil Goldstein IWANTMYMPC@aol.com Tuesday columnist Joe Boling – JoeBoling@aol.com Thurski columnist Larry “Ski” Smulczenski – ski@papermoneyworld.com critic: Harold Kroll - MPCKid@papermoneyworld.com; index manager: Ed Beaman webmaster & technical advisor: Doug Bell - (Wiz): doug@papermoneyworld.com; 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. 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