ANDA Show Project - Helping Kids Build 5¢ Date Sets by Noodling

[acrellin]

Morning All,

ANDA is looking to add a few interesting activities for kids to take part in at the shows we hold this year.

The idea of these activities is to introduce a new generation of collectors to the fun of collecting coins.

We have 2 ideas at this stage:

1. Foreign coins - kids pick out a range of world coins from a (big) pile that they put into an album sheet, they write up the details of each coin (Country, date, denomination, etc) on the backing sheet.

2. 5¢ coin date sets - kids sort through (another big) pile of 5¢ coins, and add one of each date to an album page that's been laid out to hold a date set.

We aren't kidding ourselves that this is going to work exactly the way we'd like to from the outset, however we're going to make a start, and adjust as we go along and learn.

We'd like these events to be something they remember for years to come, so we're thinking we'll get some stickers made up like "I'm a coin geek!" that they get if they finish, and have a pullup sign with a big photo of "Dollar Bill" (from the 1966 decimal currency marketing campaign) that they can have their photo taken in front of.

All of this is good and well - we've got about 40 kilos of world coins for the Perth show which is more than enough, we've also got the album pages and backing sheets, but haven't yet worked out how to get a decent range of 5¢ dates that they can sort through. We can fund the cost of getting the 5¢ coins easily enough, and have thought 10,000 coins / $500 should be enough.

So here are our questions for you expert noodlers:

1. Is 10,000 coins going to be enough? If not, how many 5¢ coins do you think we should get?
2. What are the chances of getting a reasonable range of dates out of circulation? It isn't realistic to offer every kid the opportunity to get a complete set, however it'd defeat the exercise if they can only get 3-4 dates.
3. Is there any way of increasing the chance of getting a good range of dates?

Thanks in advance for your time, please let me know what you think (good, bad or indifferent).

[JeffH]

Re. question 2: I put all 5¢ coins from change into a container and when full noodle to make date sets. Unsurprisingly not often a 1972 turns up. However from just under 2kg (say $35/700 coins) usually get at least one of every circulation year.
So $500 of 5¢ should give a very good spread of years -probably even a few 1972.

Only way I can quickly think of to increase the range of dates is to ask around to see if anybody has hoards they would be willing to sell. If you have good contacts with bank tellers same result might be achieved if they would put aside any that come in from moneyboxes. That might increase the chances of getting more of earlier years, which are mostly smaller mintages than later years (plus increase the chances of seeing some better ones).

What happens with the date set(s) that is made up?

Is the intention with the foreign coins to let the children keep their sheets?

Jeff
P.S. How about a bounty of a few dollars for any 1972 found. They sell well on eBay so never a problem to move them on.

[serial]

in my experience 10,000 coins or $500 of 5 cent coins will net you every date in reasonable numbers except the 1972 5c. you will generally pull 2 from every $100 subject to the lot you are noodling.

[acrellin]

Jeff,

Thanks for your feedback. The purpose is to definitely let the kids take home the sets of both the 5¢ coins and the foreign coins they make up. Hopefully a few will get the bug and go on to completing date sets of the other denominations.

The tellers at my local Westpac aren't always happy to see me when I take in my NCLT $5 coins and scrappy paper decimal notes to bank, they don't like extra work it seems! We have a bit of time up our sleeve, so I'll ask them this week if they think they can help.
Sounds like the harder task will be getting enough coins for the kids to noodle through during both days - if we had 20 kids per day (as an initial guesstimate), is $500 / 10,000 coins going to be enough? Should we budget 100 coins per kid?  

[trout]

First of all What a fantastic idea :yahoo:
I imagine that a bunch of kids noodling together would help each other out finding the different dates and would have a lot of fun doing it instead of following Dad, Mum or Grandad around a show which I think for a kid would be pretty booring if they aren't collectors yet :good:

As there are only 2 Mint set only ( 1985 1986 these should be intentionally left out of the required set) this is the best choice of denomination and a kids young eyes will have no problem at all checking the dates.

I wish you all the best with this project and if it is helpful I am more than happy to donate some funds to help cover the cost of the 5c coins :ok:

[Mister T]

Whenever I look through 5c pieces I usually get $8 to $10 at a time - I don't look that closely but I seem to get coins from most years. 1987 onwards is basically a certainty, 1984 and all of the 1960s and 1970s aren't always there (but are usually), 1978 is infrequent and 1972 is rare.
The majority are going to be 1999 or later though so even with 10,000 coins you'd probably be left with 7,500 duplicates of fairly recent issues.

[ausjack]

First of all What a fantastic idea :yahoo:
I imagine that a bunch of kids noodling together would help each other out finding the different dates and would have a lot of fun doing it instead of following Dad, Mum or Grandad around a show which I think for a kid would be pretty booring if they aren't collectors yet :good:

As there are only 2 Mint set only ( 1995 1996 these should be intentionally left out of the required set) this is the best choice of denomination and a kids young eyes will have no problem at all checking the dates.

I wish you all the best with this project and if it is helpful I am more than happy to donate some funds to help cover the cost of the 5c coins :ok:

Not to be picky but don't you mean 1985 and 86 trout not 1995/96 :angel:

[runway]

Nice incentive
Probably stick to Australian coins that kids can relate to
10c coins as well
Get RAM on board to donate money for the cause that will be in their best interest too in the long term

[trout]

Not to be picky but don't you mean 1985 and 86 trout not 1995/96 Angel

Fixed.
Thanks Mate :good:

[ausjack]

All good mate :blush2:

[kchan1111]

Nice incentive
Probably stick to Australian coins that kids can relate to
10c coins as well
Get RAM on board to donate money for the cause that will be in their best interest too in the long term

Obviously the $1 would be the most interesting with all the different reverse designs.

Cost is the issue but would it work if we make it a swap? Kid could find 20 different designs to take away in exchange for $20 from mum or dad. You need someone to man a booth though, or perhaps a honour system will do if you can wear some potential losses.

You can spice it up by asking RAM or dealers to donate a few NCLT into the pool with a few posters around to tell the kids what to look for. Hopefully this would create awareness for future business for both dealers and RAM. If kids saw one of the cute animal ones and couldn't find one they might pester parent to buy them one in the show.

50c might work too?

[Nevol]

Sounds good to me.  Good luck with it and don't forget to let us know how it goes.

[acrellin]

The ideas re the 10¢ and the $1 coins make sense and are great ideas. We might start with the 5¢ coins and see how we go from there though!

The albums printed by Ashton Scholastic are great for kids and the decimal coin sets, we just can't get them in quantity however.

Plastic sheets it will be in the meantime. Come along to the Perth show to see how it goes, if it works well and we can get volunteers, we'll be running the same stands at each of the other ANDA shows in 2016.

[trout]

I hope to catch up with you Mate.
I will do my level best to be able to attend the Perth show on the 27-28 Feb :ok:

[humpybong]

Over the last 2 years The Redcliffe Coin and Phonecard Club has given away foreign coins to kids who attend the annual Redcliffe Show in July each year.

We had donations of coins and made them up of about a dozen or so coins in a plastic bag and gave them to all kids who passed our table.   I we get one new collector out of this we would be very happy.  Many kids loved geting the coins so you idea should go well.

Good luck.

Maybe we should try this at Brisbane ANDA as well??