Next Meeting:
7th of July 7:30 p.m.
NEW Meeting location:
Carrow’s Restaurant
605 N. Wells Avenue
Reno, NV
Robert Nyland will be speaking on the new Lincoln penny release in conjunction
with the Nevada State Museum
Raffle Results from High Sierra Coin Show
Thanks to all who donated prizes for our raffle.
Winners included:
1oz gold eagle: Paul Williams
1884-CC GSA $1: Ken Hopple
$2 bill: Jo Breedlove
1902-O $1: Doug
1921 $1: James Hinton
1980 $1 Set: Dave Lau
Silver certificate: Shane Glenn
1972 Ike dollar: Jim Conrad
1971 Ike dollar: Barb Hageman
$10 roll of silver quarters: Bob Larkin
Maria Theresa Thaler: Jim Cauley
$5 sheet of uncut notes: Larry Demangate
Cal Fraction Gold Book: Steve Ewing
Silver rounds were won by:
Leo Russow
A. Janus
Brett Miller
Doug Daniels
Mike Patton
Shane Glenn
Nick Rinehart
Rusty King
A. Jacob
At The Last Meeting
In June the early bird prize was won by Doug Cummings, a roll of the new 2009
Lincoln pennies. The quarter pot would have been won by Doug McDonald but he
wasn’t present.
Raffle prizes were won by:
Rolf Johnson, Gerald Breedlove, Ralph Marrone, Dan Waterman, David Elliott,
Steve Podhurst, Ken Hopple, Pete Plath, Jamie Thompson, Karen Sanguinetti,
Daniel Trabke, and Doug Larson.
It was pizza night so everyone ate and showed their favorite coin.
The Reno Coin Club 25th Anniversary medallion should be ready by November.
The grading class at Grand Gold Coin has been suspended temporarily.
Upcoming Coin Shows
August 2
Sacramento Coin Show
Red Lion Sacramento Inn
1401 Arden Way (Next to Sears)
Hours 10-5
August 21-22
2009 Carson City Mint Coin Show
Nevada State Museum
600 N. Carson Street
Carson City, Nevada
Hours: Fri. 8:30-4:30
Saturday 8:30-4:30
RCC Officers
Doug Larson…. President……843-0162
David Elliott…Vice Pres…..…746-2180
Ralph Marrone…..Treasurer.…882-6741
Shannon Holmes ..Secretary….827-4359
Glenn Fruehan…Director……827-4914
Ken Hopple…Director…….....677-1544
Ed Waselewski…Director……354-0287
Gerald Breedlove….Director...425-2967
Paul Williams…ANA Rep...…720-5395
The RCC Board meets the third Tuesday of the month at the NANG SANGA
facility. All members are invited to attend board meetings.
The Other Coin
The Coins of Lost Christianities
Surgery has kept me home for a couple of weeks, and I got to catch up on my
reading.
Two books: “The Lost History of Christianity” by Philip Jenkins and “Arab-
Byzantine Coins” by Clive Foss. Both books share the opinion that in the 7th,
11th, and 13th century the largest Christian Churches were destroyed by Muslims,
culminating in the Armenian Genocide of 1915-1919 and the current jihad.
Coinage reflects these periods of ethnic cleansing and genocide.
The Roman Empire existed fairly intact until the Arab invasions in the 600's. They
invaded North Africa, Egypt, and Palestine as well as the Persian Empire.
Constantinople had exhausted itself defeating the Persians and the Black Plague
depopulated the whole of the Roman Empire, leaving the Arab areas, too hot for
the infecting flea to live, almost untouched. So temporary was thought to be the
Arab Muslim conquest that they continued issuing Byzantine style coins complete
with Christ and crosses until the end of the 7th century. Hence the earliest Muslim
coins are called Arab-Byzantine coins.
Islam expanded and grew with occasional pogroms against Christians as well as
many civil disabilities including taking all the better churches for mosques, not
allowing Christians and other religions to wear fine clothes, ride a horse, or hold
office. The non-muslims also paid heavy taxes. Only the Zoroastrians were
routinely slaughtered until the 11th century when the Armenians in their new home
in Cilicia, having fled encroaching nomads, allied with the Crusaders, Byzantine,
and later Mongols to defeat Muslim Arabs and Persian. So successful were the
Christian forces and their Mongol allies that when the Egyptian Mamluks finally
defeated their opponents, who could not seem to coordinate their armies, that the
Mamluks stamped out Christianity wherever they found it. Armenian coinage was
overstamped with Arabic dies as every trace of the Crusaders and Armenians
were destroyed.
Even more disastrously, the Mongols who had been wavering between Christianity
and Buddhism, replaced their pagan religions with the victorious Islam, making
Persia, China, Russia, and all the countries of the Silk Road Muslim. Golden
Horde Coins changed from bearing tamghas, family crests, to Muslim prayers. The
Great Christian Churches of Alexandria, Jerusalem, Edessa, and Antioch had
spread from the Middle East to India, China, and Japan. become moribund and
exists today either not at all or as fossilized and dying remnants. Christianity
almost died and changed into Catholicism.
Numismatically yours, David Elliott
Court Rules against Fortune Hunters
A federal magistrate in Tampa has recommended Odyssey Marine Exploration Inc.
return to the Kingdom of Spain more than 500,000 gold and silver coins and other
artifacts recovered from the ocean near the Straits of Gibraltar.
Odyssey Marine has been seeking recognition from the court that it should have
ownership rights to the items, which it recovered in 2007 in a project it code-
named “Black Swan.”
In a decision handed down Wednesday, U.S. Magistrate Judge Mark Pizzo said the
court lacks jurisdiction to hear the case and recommended granting Spain’s
motion to dismiss. He also recommended Odyssey Marine return the coins and
artifacts within 10 days.
Odyssey Marine said in a release that it would file a written objection to the
recommendation and would “continue to vigorously defends its rights to what it
has legally recovered.”
Spain has said the artifacts came from the "Nuestra Senora de las Mercedes," a
warship carrying treasure back from Peru when it was sunk by British gunboats off
the Spanish coast in 1804, and claimed the treasure as its own. The magistrate
ruled there was enough evidence to confirm the recovery site was that of the
Mercedes and that the vessel and its cargo are subject to sovereign immunity.
“I’m very surprised,” Greg Stemm, Odyssey Marine’s chief executive, said in the
release. “Odyssey has done everything by the book. For the Court to find that
enough evidence exists to conclusively identify the site as the Mercedes and that
neither Odyssey nor the claimants who owned the property have any legal interest
is just wrong. I’m confident that ultimately the judge or the appellate court will see
the legal and evidentiary flaws in Spain’s claim, and we’ll be back to argue the
merits of the case.”
Carson City Coin Show Returns in August
Thanks to sponsors Friends of the Nevada State Museum, Vams & More, and Dan
Wilson Numismatist, the Nevada State Museum will be hosting a two day coin show
on August 21 & 22.
Last year’s show was cancelled due to construction at the building which housed
the Carson City Mint during the 19th century.
The show will feature 30 coin dealers, free appraisals, fabulous raffle prizes, gold
panning and activities for children. Hours are 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. both Friday
and Saturday.
Admission is $5 for adults, $3 for seniors and under 18 are admitted free.
For more information, call 775-687-4810, ext. 237.
The 2008 American Bald Eagle commemorative coin is shown below, and the
American silver eagle dollar reverse.