To honour numismatics’ role in connecting cultures, the American Numismatic Association (ANA) has chosen “Connecting Cultures: From Many, One” as the theme for its 95th annual National Coin Week.
During the April 15-21 event, the ANA will host a range of activities online as well as at the Edward C. Rochette Money Museum in Colorado. The activities will focus on U.S. and world coins throughout history, commemorative medals, monetary unions, designs on euro notes and more.
“Symbolism is often an important part of designs on coins and currency,” said Andy Dickes, ANA collections manager and coordinator of the 2018 National Coin Week.
“For example, the first coins struck for circulation at the United States Mint in 1793 were large copper cents about the size of today’s quarter-dollars, and the ‘tails’ side design on those cents depicted a chain with 13 links forming a circle. It symbolized the unity of the 13 original colonies.”
ANA-sponsored activities for National Coin Week include:
- a writing contest open to ANA members about how numismatics creates unity (topics can be historical and research based or personal experiences about people coming together through numismatics, and winning and high-quality entries will be featured on the ANA National Coin Week blog and website);
- a daily online trivia challenge with a new question released on the ANA’s social media channels and nationalcoinweek.org;
- the annual coin club trivia challenge, where ANA member clubs test their numismatic knowledge and compete for prizes;
- a youth activity, “Bridges on Coins,” which shows close-up illustrations of bridges featured on coins and paper money and challenges participants to identify the objects;
- online resources on nationalcoinweek.org including articles from The Numismatist, promotional documents, links and suggestions from the ANA library and more; and
- an open house at the Money Museum on April 21 (includes free admission, activities for children and adults and the minting of the 2018 National Coin Week medallette in the museum’s Mini-Mint).
For additional information, e-mail ncw@money.org, call 719-482-9814, or visit NationalCoinWeek.org.