The subject of the ANA's Comstock tour has been bothering me since I read about it months ago. Don't get me wrong, I'm very pleased that the ANA recognizes the importance of disseminating knowledge concerning the historical, social and numismatic contributions of the Comstock region and the Carson City mint.
However, the closer the tour gets to Carson City and Gold Hill, the more its feels plagiaristic. I don't know the principals involved, nor how they happened to construct a Comstock tour so closely resembling the C4OA's own tour a while back. But clearly, something is fishy.
The ANA is promoting the tour as "Mining and Minting in Carson City." The event is introduced on the ANA's web site as follows;
"... spend a day at the Nevada State Museum, formerly the Carson City Mint, where you'll learn about the mint's history and its errors. See a demonstration of the historic Coin Press No. 1 and learn about the cancelled coin dies found buried in the parking lot. Discover the Chinatown gold coins from Lovelock and watch the Old West come alive."
Certainly, the Museum's curators will do an excellent job lecturing about these topics, though it seems that Mr. Nylen's scheduled lecture about the museum's own collections has the potential to fall short of the expectations for this potentially savvy, numismatic audience.
But whether or not Mr. Nylen does a good job on the subject of the Biltz Collection and the museum's other donated coins, it bothers the heck out of me that Rusty Goe was not asked to provide some kind of lecture about Carson City coins from the more appropriate viewpoint of a numismatic expert... particularly THE numismatic expert about Carson City coins. After all, shouldn't one consider the knowledge level and interests of the American NUMISMATIC Association's members when scheduling the lectures they will attend?
Of course, underlying all of this is the ongoing, stultifying mystery of why the Nevada State Museum has not made the slightest good faith attempt to have a "quid pro quo" relationship with Rusty Goe and, or the C4OA, given that the museum is a mere 30 minutes drive from the club's headquarters and the home of perhaps the world's leading expert on Carson City coins.
The ANA tour is a perfect opportunity for the museum to pull out all the stops, collate their intellectual and physical resources...read, call the C4OA or Rusty Goe specifically and ask them to contribute a killer lecture! The Nevada State Museum's directors could easily make the ANA tour's visit to the old Carson City mint building the absolute highlight of the entire tour.
I have given some thought to writing a courteous, but informative letter to the ANA regarding this event's copy cat nature while in the Comstock region, as well as its failure to give the ANA members attending the tour the benefit of a true numismatic expert's Carson City coin related expertise.
In this letter, I might point out the seemingly logical conclusion that the tour's attendees are mostly COIN COLLECTORS and, or COIN DEALERS who have traveled, some from great distances, to attend a national COIN show. Would it not automatically follow that when COIN COLLECTORS and COIN DEALERS tour the CARSON CITY MINT, they might be interested primarily in a CARSON CITY COIN presentation in greater depth than the usual overview? Does the ANA believes this group of attendees will be satisfied to hear that the mint opened in 1870, stopped minting coins in 1893, produced "X" amount of coins, blah, blah, blah, together with an overview of the museum's own, obverse displayed-only, CC collection, blah, blah, blah, culminating in a mind-blowing display of the cancelled dies found the parking lot. Snore..ZZZZZZZZZZ
Is it just me who thinks these numis-tourists just might anticipate a serious Carson City coin lecture worthy of the time and effort they took to attend this ANA sponsored event? I know I would.
The ANA is no virgin when it comes to internal squabbles and controversy. The issues surrounding the copy cat nature of the tour while in the Comstock area, together with its glaring deficit of true CC coin expertise, will never make national headlines. But some of us C4OA members who also pay dues to the ANA, believe these issue are important, perhaps even important enough that they should be brought to the ANA's attention.
Am I the only one this has occurred to?
Belay Off
C4OA Lifer!
