CHOO CHOO's ANA Convention Medals

Set Description
This set is comprised of the numbered 3-medal sets that were produced for the ANA National Conventions for the period 1969-1982. For each city that hosted this annual convention, the design represents selected aspects of the culture and/or history associated with that city.

Set Goals
In 2005, I came across a listing on eBay for a 3-medal set commemorating the 78th anniversary of the American Numismatic Association Annual Convention in Philadelphia. The set consisted of a 38mm silver, 38mm bronze and a 19mm bronze. What made this set so appealing to me was that it was designed by Frank Gasparro and depicted his rendition of Libertas Americana. I knew then and there that I just had to have it.

I was still relatively new to the NGC forums, and to be honest, it was my first venture into online forum participation of any kind. I guess you could say that I was still a rookie to the ways of the internet world. Anyway, I mentioned this set on one of the forums and how much I liked it. I had placed what I thought was a very strong bid of $150. My bid continued to hold throughout the auction, but in the final moments, I lost to a snipe and it sold for $152.50. As it turned out, the winning bidder, Mark Hooten, aka Hoot, happened to be a well-respected member of the NGC forums, but when the news got out a number of the other members expressed their disapproval for his actions. I actually defended Mark, saying that he wanted it more than I did.

However, Mark unknowingly did me a favor because the following week another 1969 set surfaced on eBay. I guess this new seller figured he would cash in on the “feeding frenzy” that occurred in the previous auction. This time I wasn’t going to take any chances. I didn’t just place a strong bid, I placed a ridiculously high bid of $250, and when the auction closed, I was the winner for $54. So, Mark saved me about $100.

This same seller also listed seven other ANA 3-medal sets, and when the rest of the auctions closed, I was the proud owner of six of them. The seventh was for the 1980 Cincinnati convention, and one of my friends on the forums, Victor Easley, aka EZ_E, said that he liked it so I didn’t bid against him.

In researching these sets, I learned that the ANA offered the 3-medal sets for just 14 years, 1969-1982, and I thought it would be easy enough to put together these as a limited collection. Most of them had been produced by the Medallic Art Company and the artwork, much of which is in high relief, is outstanding. All of the silver medals were produced in .999 fine silver. The mintages for these sets varies between 350 and 750, but no specific data is available for the 1969 set. For three of these sets, 1973 Boston, 1974 Bal Harbor and 1977 Atlanta, the silver medal was struck in Proof.

In less than a year, I was able to acquire 11 of the 14 sets. The only ones that I lacked were the 1978 Houston, 1980 Cincinnati and the 1981 New Orleans. The Houston set surfaced on eBay in late 2006, and I placed a relatively high bid on it. There were still a few days left in the auction, several bids had been placed, but I was still the high bidder. One morning, I went to check on the status, and the auction listing was gone. I couldn’t figure out what had happened. Just before Christmas, I received a package from one of the other forum members, Hayden Tubbs. In it was the 1978 Houston set. It seems that “Tubby” knew the seller, and he got him to pull the auction so he could buy it to give me as a Christmas gift.

The following year, Victor sent me the 1980 Cincinnati set as a birthday present. That left me with one last set to complete the 14-year run of 3-medal sets. Didn’t I say I thought it would be fairly easy to put this set together? Well, it took me 5-1/2 years to find the 1981 New Orleans set. It finally surfaced on eBay in 2010, and once again, I wasn’t going to take any chances. I placed another of my ridiculously high bids to ensure that I would win.

When I began this collection, I had it in my mind to have them graded by NGC. The only problem was that NGC didn’t grade ANA medals. So, every year beginning in 2006 when the Q&A opened at the NGC Luncheon at the FUN Show, I would ask if they had any plans to grade them. I guess they finally grew tired of listening to me from year to year, because I learned in late 2010 that they would now accept them for grading. I submitted all 42 of the medals at the 2011 FUN Show.

Overall, I was very pleased with the grades. The majority were graded either MS68 or MS69. The proof specimens didn’t fare as well, though. Unfortunately, a couple of the 19mm bronze medals must have been placed in a piece of jewelry because they came back in slabs, “Details – Mount Removed”. Again, this isn’t any cause for concern on my part. I didn’t undertake this project with the intent of ever selling the set. All, except three of the medals, were numbered on the edge with the same number stamped for each of the medals for that particular year. It was probably just an oversight during production.

I would like to extend a special “Thank you” to Bob Campbell, aka Robec, for imaging these medals for me. His work is outstanding! For one thing, his images enabled me to see the things that were the cause for some of the lower MS grades.

Perhaps, my next project will be to submit some of these to NCS to see if some form of conservation will improve the lower grades. It certainly would be nice if all of the bronze medals had similar grades from MS67 to MS69.

Enjoy!

Chris