Hard drive archeology: My TEC News 9/11 editorial
Today on Facebook, a penny-smashing friend of mine told me that she remembers how upset I was today 12 years ago. She remembers my posting the smashed-penny email list about the events of the day. It reminded me of the editorial I wrote for TEC News, the elongated coin club newsletter I was editing at the time. I used it for the issue of the newsletter that I published immediately after the event. I've dug out that editorial to share here:
Editorial Impressions: On collecting, sentiment and history
In June 2000, I went home to New York City to visit family and friends, and to get together with TEC member Egon Pavlis and his wife Margo. Egon, Margo and I met in the grand concourse at the bottom of the World Trade center, then took the speedy elevators up to the observation deck to take in the view and press some pennies. It was a beautiful day: warm, sunny and clear. We each smashed as many coins as we could, took some pictures and then departed for dinner.
I have fond memories of that day. It was the last time I was in New York and, consequently, the last time I’ll ever go to the WTC Observation Deck. I recently found the pictures I took: a picture of myself with Egon, Margo and myself with an elongating machine; a picture that faced north, showing all of Manhattan. I’ve looked at the ECs from that trip a lot lately. I owe that visit purely to my enthusiasm for this hobby and to Egon and Margo’s willingness to change their plans so we’d all be in New York at the same time. Until September 11, I thought of that day as just a fun day meeting new friends. Now, that memory is a treasure, something I’ll tell about in years to come the way my mother told me stories about her teenage years during World War II. It feels like it was a different time.
Many of the longtime collectors in TEC see their collections as an investment, and rightly so. These coins, their art, their rarity, have a value that is clear and significant. But many collectors come to the club as souvenir hunters first, unaware of the secondary collectors’ market or of the colorful history of the hobby, preserved by the Smashed Penny Museum. Souvenirs, like those I gathered on my visit to New York, can have an emotional value that can’t ever be quantified financially. Sometimes in our zeal to add to our collection, we lose sight of the fact that most ECs are reminders of some kind: of a place we visited, or of a historical event we remember or wish to commemorate.
ECs are also travelers through time. Think of the penny smashed at the 1893 Columbian Exposition in your collection. Now think about how that valuable antique came to be: At some point, someone--maybe a little boy and his father--were at the Columbian Exposition, experiencing the wonders coming to be at the end of the 19th century. That EC was pressed, probably on an Indian Head cent, as a souvenir of a wonderful day. Now, more than 100 years--two World Wars, several major police actions, the falling of the Berlin Wall and the democratization of Russia--later, it’s a collector’s prize, but once it was a treasured memento.
Recently, on the elongated coin collector’s e-mail list, one subscriber scolded others for seeing ECs purely for their financial value rather than as sentimental keepsakes. We each have our own reasons for collecting elongated coins, and each of those reasons is a valid one. No one can predict which coins will be more valuable than others. I’m sure that at some point, coins from New York’s World Trade Center will become coveted collector’s items, and their value will be legitimate: the dies were lost in a historic catastrophe that touched the entire world. In the meanwhile, I’m going to keep my WTC ECs safe, mementos of a time and place that will always be important to me, and to the nation.
Editorial Impressions: On collecting, sentiment and history
In June 2000, I went home to New York City to visit family and friends, and to get together with TEC member Egon Pavlis and his wife Margo. Egon, Margo and I met in the grand concourse at the bottom of the World Trade center, then took the speedy elevators up to the observation deck to take in the view and press some pennies. It was a beautiful day: warm, sunny and clear. We each smashed as many coins as we could, took some pictures and then departed for dinner.
I have fond memories of that day. It was the last time I was in New York and, consequently, the last time I’ll ever go to the WTC Observation Deck. I recently found the pictures I took: a picture of myself with Egon, Margo and myself with an elongating machine; a picture that faced north, showing all of Manhattan. I’ve looked at the ECs from that trip a lot lately. I owe that visit purely to my enthusiasm for this hobby and to Egon and Margo’s willingness to change their plans so we’d all be in New York at the same time. Until September 11, I thought of that day as just a fun day meeting new friends. Now, that memory is a treasure, something I’ll tell about in years to come the way my mother told me stories about her teenage years during World War II. It feels like it was a different time.
Many of the longtime collectors in TEC see their collections as an investment, and rightly so. These coins, their art, their rarity, have a value that is clear and significant. But many collectors come to the club as souvenir hunters first, unaware of the secondary collectors’ market or of the colorful history of the hobby, preserved by the Smashed Penny Museum. Souvenirs, like those I gathered on my visit to New York, can have an emotional value that can’t ever be quantified financially. Sometimes in our zeal to add to our collection, we lose sight of the fact that most ECs are reminders of some kind: of a place we visited, or of a historical event we remember or wish to commemorate.
ECs are also travelers through time. Think of the penny smashed at the 1893 Columbian Exposition in your collection. Now think about how that valuable antique came to be: At some point, someone--maybe a little boy and his father--were at the Columbian Exposition, experiencing the wonders coming to be at the end of the 19th century. That EC was pressed, probably on an Indian Head cent, as a souvenir of a wonderful day. Now, more than 100 years--two World Wars, several major police actions, the falling of the Berlin Wall and the democratization of Russia--later, it’s a collector’s prize, but once it was a treasured memento.
Recently, on the elongated coin collector’s e-mail list, one subscriber scolded others for seeing ECs purely for their financial value rather than as sentimental keepsakes. We each have our own reasons for collecting elongated coins, and each of those reasons is a valid one. No one can predict which coins will be more valuable than others. I’m sure that at some point, coins from New York’s World Trade Center will become coveted collector’s items, and their value will be legitimate: the dies were lost in a historic catastrophe that touched the entire world. In the meanwhile, I’m going to keep my WTC ECs safe, mementos of a time and place that will always be important to me, and to the nation.