As mentioned in last months newsletter, Robert Hall has center stage for the November. His topic of discussion will be either United States commemoratives or coin grading. It will be a presentation well worth seeing, as Robert has a great deal of experience in both of these subjects.

The new raffle prize is a BU 1910-D $10 Indian Head gold piece. It is a very attractive specimen worth several hundred dollars. Tickets sales will be limited to 100 at $5 per ticket. Get in on this one, as this piece would make a great addition to any collection.

The fall show season has begun with the Northway Mall show held in late October. The activity level was fairly good and sales appeared to be excellent. Several coin dealers even came up from the lower 48 to attend the show.

Robert Hall, as always, did a great job of organizing the show at the mall. Larry Nakata also had a very professional display set up on the subject of obsolete United States paper currency.

As for future shows, as of editing time, the prospect of having a show as a part of the Anchorage Gun Club is still up in the air. President Mike Orr has made a presentation to the gun club on our behalf, now it is up to their board of directors to decide whether or not to allow us to set up. Stay tuned - we should have an answer from the gun club before the December newsletter goes to press.

On this same topic, we are looking for individuals who would be interested in setting up a show at one of our local malls or other meeting place. It is not as scary as it sounds, and you do get one free table for your efforts. If anyone is interested, let the board know at any of the meetings.

There are essentially three things to do lo organize one of our shows. The first is to contact the mall and set up a dale with them. Next, you reserve the tables for the function, which is done with one phone call. Then, just take table reservations from the members and collect table rent.

Larry Nakata has finally received his long awaited computer system. He quickly signed up on the Internet, which will allow him access to a large database of articles that may be used in the newsletter.

In addition. Larry has also obtained a 1 megabyte Web page for the club, which will allow us to give the club national exposure. His plan is to let the YNs help with the design of the Web page which will primarily feature our newsletter. It will be interesting to see what kind of response we get, as we are only the second local club to put our newsletter on the Internet.

If anybody has any ideas for the use of our Web page, give Larry a call. The newsletter will only use a portion of the allocated space, so there is definitely room for more information.

The program for the month of October was the impressively titled "Evolution of US Paper Currency Since the Revolutionary War", Larry produced handouts for his presentation, but these were eclipsed by the two cases full of the real thing.

The entire display was reproduced at the Northway Mall show, along with extra copies of the handout, which were promptly exhausted. Way to go Larry!

It is time once again for our Christmas potluck, to be held on December 7th this year. This is probably the best attended club function we have all year, with about 50 to 75 people attending. As always, the potluck will be held at our usual meeting place on a THURSDAY, so mark your calendars.

You can bring almost anything edible to the potluck, and the club is providing the sodas, plates, plastic utensils, cups, and other basics. Larry Nakata will be supplying a ham, and Mike McKinnon will be bringing a turkey.

As always, all club members are invited, along with their families. The event is held in a large room in the downstairs area of the church, so there is plenty of room for everybody. Also - the more coins and / or cards that you bring, the better!

In keeping with tradition, several events will be happening that same night of the Christmas potluck. Not only will that be our regular membership meeting, it will also be the December YN meeting, as well as featuring an auction.

The auction will be limited to 100 lots. Lots may be submitted at any club function including the November membership meeting, the November board meeting, or directly al the December potluck. Remember that there is a limit of 100 lots.

The following lots have already been submitted:

1) Obsolete $5 State bank note / Bank of Pontiac Michigan / Good condition / dated September 1, 1863.

2) Obsolete $5 State bank note / Bulls Head Bank of New York / Good condition / dated November 10, 1858.

3) State of Louisiana $5 bond / Series of 1875 / Canceled bond / Uncirculated condition.

4) $1 Silver certificate / Series of 1899 / Speelman - White / Very Good to Fine condition.

5) Complete set of Peace Dollars (1921 to 1935) in Very Good to Uncirculated condition.

The big winner of the month was Larry Nakata who took home the raffle prize of a crisp uncirculated 1899 Silver Certificate. Larry also managed to win the door prize which consisted of a grading set of United States coins.

The membership prize was won by John Larsen, an uncirculated Morgan silver dollar. Not a bad prize at all!

Remember that the next raffle prize is the $10 Indian gold piece! We hope to have all 100 tickets sold in time to auction this piece at the Christmas potluck meeting.

Those of you who did not attend the October meeting missed an excellent presentation. Larry Nakata gave a talk on "The Evolution of US Paper Currency from Revolutionary to Modern Times". He is speculating that the one dollar note will soon be history, thus his collection of US one dollar notes should increase in value. Who knows, he may be correct! Certainly the rest of the world has realized that their similar denominations needed to be changed to coins. To me, it presents another opportunity to collect a new variety. At any rate, Larry did an excellent job as usual and his currency display was also featured at the Northway show. Thanks Larry, we all appreciate your fine efforts.

Another highlight at the meeting was the drawing for the Crisp Uncirculated Black Eagle note. As it worked out, Larry was the winner of the raffle. Rather ironic I would say since he was also doing the talk that evening. I noticed that his winnings went directly into his display case and the one he swapped out will be featured at our Christmas auction. With that in mind, all members wanting to submit coins for the auction can bring them to the November club or board meetings. Lets make this a good auction. As usual, we are looking for interesting material to feature at the December meeting. So lets see some new faces offering coins this time. Be sure to read the rules on the back page. They will apply to this auction unlit we have a chance to review and modify them, any ideas on this would be appreciated.

Come one, come all to our next meeting. Robert Hall will be the speaker for November. His subject will be commemoratives and from what he told me he has some nice material to share. This will give us older members a chance to review comments and the newer ones a chance to learn something different. Commemoratives are a field all themselves; one which cannot be overlooked if you stay in the hobby very long. Anyway, lets have some fun with it and bring your questions and coins to the next meeting.

This brings me to the Northway Mall show. It was a very successful and interesting show. Those of us who had tables were quite busy and many of our club members made the rounds. Larry had his display of currency there with his handouts. He ran out and had some more copies made and ran out again. I would say interest was very high. Also, the raffle prize arrived and we started to sell tickets for it. If we sell out by Christmas we will hold the drawing at that time. It was obtained for the club at cost by one of our dealer members with tickets selling at $5 each. When we sell 100 tickets, we will raffle the 1910-D $10 gold Indian. The tickets should sell rather fast so do not miss your chance on this one.

Also, something very different took place at this show. We had two dealers come up from outside. Marc Bettinger, who we met at the seminar, and Tom Cederlind. both from Portland. Thanks guys for attending and making the show more interesting. Both of them deal in ancients with Marc also into Medievals. We all owe thanks to those who worked hard behind the scenes to make this one a success, especially Robert. Last but not least, I have more good news. We have added three new YNs to our roster this month. Join me in welcoming Walker Julliard, Amanda Lenhardt. and Nathan Fellers. Also, we welcome two new regular members. Tom Cederlind and Steve Swank. We look forward to seeing more of you in the coming months as our club continues to grow. This is a good sign and I hope that we can also add to our officers as well. The need is becoming greater as time passes. That's all for this month. Good luck and good hunting!

The October 13th YN meeting saw two new YNs joining the club: Walker Julliard and Amanda Lenhardt. As our newest YNs, they will be receiving free copies of the "ANA Grading Guide" and the "1996 Redbook".

The October 13th meeting featured the latest ANA VHS tape narrated by James Earl Jones on "Money", The meeting also focused on programs that the YNs would like to see in the coming months. What will result will be programs on coin grading, errors and varieties, paper currency, and world coinage. Future programs in the coming months will also include a session on use of a computer in "Surfing the Internet" for Numismatic issues of interest. Also, there will be a future program in which the YNs will be designing the Anchorage Coin Club's WEB page for the Internet.

The YN meeting for November will be held on Friday November 10th at 7PM at the Central Lutheran Church. Pizza and sodas will be provided at the meeting. The meeting will concentrate on "Coin Grading". Since this is a very important subject in coin collecting, the "Com Grading" session will be spread over the next three YN meetings. The first session (the November session) will cover an introduction and discussion on elements of coin grading.

Finally, the December YN meeting will be held concurrently with the Anchorage Coin Club's Christmas party and auction on December 7th. This is a traditional event in which the club's membership meeting. YN meeting, and Christmas party are all held on the same day as one event.

Hope to see all of you YNs at the November 10th and December 7th meetings.............

As most people know, the story of the 1940's is largely the story of World War II. Essentially, the first half of the decade was spent fighting the war while the second half was spent cleaning up afterward.

By 1940, it was becoming obvious that it would be nearly impossible for the United Slates to stay out of the war. Germany had conquered Denmark, Norway, Holland, Belgium, and France. The Nazis appeared unstoppable.

The attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941 was the single event that drew us into battle. The next day, President Roosevelt requested that Congress declare war on the Japanese Empire, which they promptly did.

In Europe, the master plan was to send troops to northern Africa and go north through Italy toward Germany. It took six months to get organized in Africa before going on to Italy, and it wasn't until 1944 that Rome fell to the Allies.

The next step was to invade from the west. Over 130,000 troops under the command of Dwight Eisenhower went on shore at Normandy, France, on June 6, 1944. It took nine months to get to the German border and two months to conquer Germany with the help of the Russians attacking from the east.

Military leaders were not looking forward to invading Japan. Capturing just two islands, Iwo Jima and Okinawa, cost many lives and the loss of many of our warships.

It was decided to use Robert Oppenheimer's atomic bomb against the Japanese. The Japanese Emperor decided not to listen to the warnings about a new weapon which resulted in the destruction of Hiroshima. Three days later, still with no surrender in sight, a second bomb was dropped on Nagasaki, a large shipping port.

When the Japanese leadership learned that the United Stales had a third nuclear bomb ready to go, and that it was going to be used to vaporize Tokyo, they decided to surrender.

In other news, it was fifty years ago this month, in 1945, that the United Nations was set up by delegates from fifty nations. However, this was also the decade that saw the Communists take control of most of Eastern Europe, the Soviet Union, and China.

Numismatically, several modifications had to be made in circulating minor coinage during the war years. The Lincoln cent was changed to a zinc coated steel composition in order to save the copper to make shell casings. These same shell casings were melted down after use to be made into the cents of 1944 to 1946.

The Jefferson nickel series saw the introduction of silver into its composition during the years 1942 through 1945. Nickel is a very hard metal and thus it had many uses during wartime.

No changes were made to the composition of the silver series, but the dime was redesigned in 1946 to feature a portrait of Roosevelt, who died in 1945. Commemorative programs were generally put on hold during the war years.