Whether you voted for Barack or not, you might want to let you members know about getting an OIM. I found out that the OIM is not being handled by the usual Inaugural Medal Subcommittee of the Official Inaugural Committee. It is being handled directly by transition team.

As a result you have to buy directly from the transition teams web site rather than through dealers like Presidential Coin and Antique Company (Joe Levine) or Stack’s. So there won’t be advertising in the NN or Coin World. Also the variety is limited – just one bronze inaugural medal ($60) unless you want to also buy a challenge coin.

You can get them by going to the following URL: http://www.pic2009.org/content/home/

Once there click on Inaugural Store at the top menu bar then click on either collectibles or jewelry as it is listed in both places.

Update: Both bronze ($60) and silver ($400) versions are available.

Vision Trading Partners offers this piece as a tribute to Obama’s historic nomination as the Democratic candidate for president of the United States… Each historic Obama silver medal coin measures 39 millimeters in diameter and weighs one ounce of silver. All medals are deep cameo proofs struck by Sunshine Minting of Idaho.

The Professional Numismatists Guild (PNG) on Monday released an articulate statement cautioning that President-elect Barack Obama “Coins” are not rare investments.

In part, PNG President Gary Adkins said the following regarding the items,

“All of the items we’ve seen offered so far on television and online are merely political mementos that certainly may be enjoyable as a keepsake, but typically will have little or no re-sale value later in the mainstream numismatic market.  Privately-produced items are not legal tender U.S. coins.  In cases where a marketer has altered an actual U.S. coin after it left the Mint, such as putting a sticker with Obama’s picture on it, knowledgeable collectors usually consider that to be merely defacing the coin.”

Tip: CoinNews.net

The September 2008 meeting of the Atlantic County Numismatic Society (ACNS) was held on September 3, 2008 at the Linwood library at 7pm and the theme was “Medals of the Olympics.”

Club president Jason O’Grady gave a presentation on how medals are part of the field of Numismatics and when better to discuss them than around the time of the Olympics? Medals were a timely topic for the meeting which took place just after the closing ceremonies of an amazing Summer 2008 Olympics in Being.

Some of the things that we learned included:

• Each Olympic medal must be at least 70mm across and 6mm thick.
• Gold medals contains 6 grams of gold and the remaining 92% is silver. The gold is gilted on to the silver.
• Silver medals contain 99% pure silver and the remaining 1% is raw unprocessed silver.
• Bronze medals contain 1% silver and the remaining 99% is what is called coinage bronze, which is made up of 97% copper (Cu), 2.5% zinc (Zn) and 0.5% tin (Sn).
• 10.5 Kg Of Gold, 1050 Kg of Silver, 1054 Kg of Copper was used for medals at the Beijing Olympics.

You can download the presentation here (1.5MB PDF). Requires Adobe Acrobat reader.