Dear WBCC members and non WBCC members,

At the moment it is quiet a temperature here in the Netherlands (28
Celcius/81 Fahrenheit). Still have the time to serve you with this weeks
WBCC Newsmail. I realy hope you enjoy reading it !!

1. ANA World's Fair of Money®......by Larry Friemel, USA

Just a reminder that The ANA World's Fair of Money is being held in
Chicago, Illinois on August 11-15, 1999 at the Rosemont Convention
Center,  9301 West Bryn Mawr.

I have arranged with the ANA to provide the WBCC a meeting place
Saturday during the convention for anyone able to attend. It is no host
-- so anyone making it there is on there own other than a room is
available. The WBCC has been assigned room 9 in the convention center
on Saturday, August 14 from 1:00 -2:30 p.m.

I am unfamiliar with the area, but the AAA guide shows many hotels in
the vicinity, as the convention center is near O'Hare Airport. For a
listing of the scheduled events for the five days check out the ANA
website at...
http://www.money.org/annualcvnschchi.html

For ANAs listing of hotels check out...
http://www.money.org/cvnannualhotels.html
The original survey about a year ago showed about 12 people interested
in attending. I hope that they (and others) make it to share their
bi-metallic experiences. To the best of my knowledge, Cliff Anderson is
attending and as such is the official WBCC board member in attendance.

2. A new WBCC member....by Martin Peeters, WBCC Focal Point

We have a new member. Let me introduce him to you:

Name:        John Denham (WBCC memner #140), USA
E-mail:       denham@airnet.net
Age:           31
Profession: Self-employed @ Denham Signs
Hobby:       Token collecting
Goal:         Collecting Bi-metallic token & coins; collecting all types of
tokens from Alabama
Against:     People not sharing information

3. Bi-metallic gamming tokens from Rhodos, Greece.....by Frans Dubois

The two Bi-metallic gaming-tokens from the Playboy casino in Rhodos which
you can see now on the WBCC Homepage are made by the Dutch Mint. However
they have now Mintmarks, I was told that these tokens with value of 1000 and
5000 Drachmes were produced by our National Mint in Utrecht

4. Tri-metallic from Andorra....by Martin Peeters, Netherlands

The following I could read in the July 1999 issue of MDM's newsmagazine MDM
Journal:

--Quote
Neue Millennium Muenze
Die neue Gedenkmunze aus Andorra innerhalb der Millennium-Serie bildet im
Zentrum des Motivs den in Silber gepragten Globus ab, der von einem
mittleren Ring aus Kupfer/Zink umgeben ist und das Weltall darstellt. Der
aussere Rand mit dem Nennwert 5 Diners ist wieder in
Silber gepragt. Spezifikationen: Millenium, Globus,1999, 5 Diners, 925
Ag/CuZn/Ag,st, 38 mm, 30 g, Auflage 10.000.
--Unquote

Tranlated into English it say:
--Quote
New Millenium coin
The new commemorative coin from Andorra within the Millenium serie, shows in
the centre a globe made of Silver, what is surrounded with a Copper/Zinc
middle ring and dipcits the world. In the outher ring the domination of 5
Diners. Specifications: Milenium, Globe, 1999, 5 Diner, .925 Ag/CuZn/Ag,
38mm, 30grs, 10.000 pieces
-Unquote

Order address:
MDM
Eversbuschstrasse 192a
80999 Munchen
Germany
Phone + 89 89 21 650
Fax + 89 89 21 65 31
Homepage: http://www.muenzpraegstatt.de
E-mail: SERVICE@mdm.de

--Remark: The mentioned piece is the first Tri-metallic from Andorra.

5. Bi-metallic Edward VIII pieces...by Cliff Anderson, USA

Refering to WBCC Newsmail 151, Item 3 more information about trhe Edward
VIII Bi-metallics. The Edward VIII tokens illustrate what is described by
both René Müller and Paul Baker, Coincraft's recent strikes resembling the
pattern crowns of Edward VIII, but particularly in Bi-metallic. Clearly,
these are a bit like the ICB Tri-metallics, made for the collectors' demand,
but they still look nice. These to me are the nicest looking of the six
designs shown. I only got two of these pattern crowns, though there were six
offered. Edward VIII's head is the obverse common to all these and other
non-Bi-metallic pattern crowns. Pictures can now be seen in the WBCC
Homepage: http://www.geocities.com/RodeoDrive/7513/wbcc/wbcc.html

Many members know Coincraft as a London coin dealer offering interesting
pieces. They issue what René Müller described as "The Phoenix", a monthly
newpaper advertising British and world coins and pieces of all kinds. I'm
not touting Coincraft, although I am a happy customer. But in my role doing
public relations for WBCC, I think it's appropriate to refer members who
don't know about Coincraft to their address, in case members want to get on
its mailing list. They do NOT have any website or email, so the only contact
is snailmail or fax:
Coincraft, 44-45 Great Russell Street, London WC1B 3LU, UK; fax (from US)
011 44 207 323 2860.

6. Bi-metallic wedding-token......by Frans Dubois, Netherlands

The 21th of May 1999 was the wedding-day of Hille and Patricia. For this
special occasion the young couple handed all guests of this weddingparty a
Bi-metallic token. There is an image next week on the WBCC homepage.

7. Bi-metallic info from Birmingham Mint.by Paul Baker, WBCC Research Centre

In the WBCC Newsmail 143, Item 3,  I said a lots about the Bi-metallic mint
samples I have from The Birmingham Mint - this information included, as you
may remember, descriptions of the samples and an amount of historical
information. For a long time I have always thought there must be more
British Bi-metallics to find about, other than those from the past e.g.
encased farthings, Moore's models and plugged farthings & halfpennies. I was
sure that there must be some recent pieces somewhere other than those
currently known about by the WBCC.

My number one research tool is of course the internet and so what could I do
with it? The main thing was to find the sites of the British private mints
and/or their distributors/representatives. (Much is known already about the
Royal Mint and the private firm Pobjoy Min.) The first site of relevance to
this was the site of Eurocoin Limited - the URL is
http://www.eurocoin.co.uk/ This firm's name is a name often seen on European
machine tokens and obviously can be a bit misleading, though often the words
will be "EUROCOIN LONDON". Having seen numerous different "Eurocoin" tokens
I thought this could well be a firm to have produced Bi-metallic tokens or
to have had them made for their customers so that the could be sold with
(gambling) machines they also sold to these customer.
After some communication with a man at Eurocoin Ltd., he sent me the
bi-metallic sample pieces I have. I also learnt of the connection that
Eurocoin Ltd. has with The Birmingham Mint, it is that  Eurocoin Ltd. is the
European sales agent for the tokens produced by The Birmingham Mint.
Eurocoin's other products are all to do with gambling too. In fact hey are
distributor/agents for a broad range of companies such that they can supply
completely everything required for a casino to be set up - they supply
"turnkey" solutions.

More through luck than patience (url guessing in fact...) I came across the
website of the Birmingham Mint, it is http://www.the-birmingham-mint.co.uk/
, this was some time after my communications with Eurocoin Ltd. I knew that
The Birmingham Mint would have something they could tell me about
bi-metallics (helped by a few hints). Also by this time an image had
appeared on the Eurocoin Ltd. site of a Bi-metallic token for "London Clubs"
a British casino chain. So I asked The Birmingham Mint many things including
questions about my Bi-metallic samples, the "London Clubs" pieces and of
course the (future legal-tender) Euro coins.
Their reply included the following section of three paragraphs.

--Quote
With respect to bi-metallic coins and blanks, we have long made these,
initially for the casino trade (yes to London Clubs) although you may well
have some of our samples which do go back eight years or so.
In general, we now use a High Speed Bi-metallic Minting press by Schuler to
mint this type of coin although we have several slower, older presses which
we have adapted. Such facilities were made to make bi-metal blanks for
several countries and also bi-metal coins which are in circulation.
Unfortunately, I cannot commit to paper the names of those countries for
reasons of confidentiality.
We are involved in making Euro Blanks - last year alone we made in excess of
1700 tonnes. This was mostly in Nordic Gold and CPS but contained an element
of Euro components ( 1 Euro nickel brass rings) for national mints to
strike. We, this year are also again involved in selling rings to one
country and both ring and inner (in clad cupro-nickel on nickel) to another
country.
--Unquote

The above is all very useful information - especially the facts about
British involvement with production of a series of coins that our British
government is still opting not to use. (I seem to remember that the Royal
Mint has a large involvement of some sort with coin-blank production of Euro
coins too - but I have no details on this particular to Bi-metallic blanks.)
The Birmingham Mint also sent me some of their sales literature and on this
there was an image of a further Bi-metallic - it is a small piece resembling
a pure brass parking meter token I have - so Bi-metallic "version" of these
must be lurking in some corner of Britain (or Europe even) I suppose. This
literature also included brief details of "GDC" and "Casino Token Inc."
which are both in the USA and belong to The Birmingham Mint.
Unfortunately further questions I have sent to Eurocoin Ltd. and The
Birmingham Mint seem to remain unanswered - but many thanks to them for the
answers they did give to me. This left me with one main option - letters to
casinos. There are just a limited number of these in Britain and many are
part of large chains - I found the website with their mail addresses on
(British casinos are not allowed to directly advertise so cannot have their
own websites). I carefully picked a handful of casinos to write to - some
said they had no Bi-metallics and couldn't have sent them anyhow (security
reasons), some said they just didn't have any Bi-metallics and some of
course didn't answer. Just one firm sent me tokens, they sent me two normal,
large metal casino pieces (one of which turned out to be special for other
collecting reasons of mine). Of course one of those casinos that did not
answer was "London Clubs" - perhaps I'll just have to find someone who's
been !

8. Bi-metallic So Called Dollars..by Cliff Anderson, USA

When you take a look in the WBCC Homepage a token is shown and it is a So
Called Dollar, and is cataloged as HK 685, supposedly limited to 20 (more
likely 50-100).

The So Called Dollar catalog describes this token as follows:
"Medal struck for dedication of Breakwater, issuer and designer unknown but
struck by Los Angeles Rubber Stamp Co. (now L. A. Stamp and Stationery Co.)
[see the letters L.A.R.S.Co.6 under the "Ocean Park" words]. Actually, two
dedicatory ceremonies held, marking both beginning and completion of
project, March 25, 1933, and Aug. 5, 1934, respectively.
Breakwater financed by $690,000 municipal bond issue.  First crib
[construction or concrete framework], sunk March 25, 1933 'amid dedication
ceremonies . . . promptly broke in two.' City 'panicked'; abandoned plans
for concrete-crib breakwater; finally, rock-mound type constructed of
lightweight Catalina stone; completed July 6, 1934. Final dedication
program included Pacific Coast and Southern California regatta (major
yachting events) and nine days of boat races. Some label Breakwater 'a
fiasco from start to finish'; say it 'is completely insufficient and
unsightly . . . has reshaped the beaches badly by causing uneven deposit of
sand . . . it is now a crumbling wreck."
The catalog says that reverse "shows an aerial view of the breakwater, pier
and yacht basin; single small star each side." It also describes the
bathing beauty as a "full female figure on beach."
Those of us WBCC members from California might have heard of this amusement
park. I know that Larry Friemel has been looking for this item; I only
found it by accident.

9. Bi-metallic Germany 2 Euro 2002...by Martin Peeters, Netherlands

Like the Netherlands, Germany's future 2002, Bi-metallic 2 Euro, will also
have an inscription in the edge. Germany will have in the reeded edge the
word "Europa".

10. New Bi-metallic images......by Rod Sell, WBCC Homepage Provider

New Bi-metallic images this week.
(http://www.geocities.com/RodeoDrive/7513/wbcc/wbcc.html)

* Great Britain Model Penny varieties with V in Victoria close to and far
from neck
* Andorra 1999 5 Diners
* Jack Hepler. Photo from Martin Peeters taken in Frans Dubois's Garden
* Netherlands Skelpy from St Annaparochie in Driebergen
* Saudi Arabia 100 Halala 100th Anniversary Commemorative
* US Santa Monica, Calif. Souvenir
* Edward VIII Fantasy Coins for GB and Palestine

11. Bi-metallic pictures and copyright...by Martin Peeters, WBCC Focal Point

This week I received a message from Michel Prieur of France. He had
discovered that the five french Bi-metallic Essais shown in the WBCC
Homepage came from his catalog. Because I delivered the scans which I did
receive from a friend without knowing they came from Michel's catalog. So I
would like to ask WBCC members how delivered a scan of a Bi-metallics for
the WBCC Homepage and they are copyrighted, please ask first the publisher,
thanks. Michel also wrote me:
--Quote:
These coins are on the net at:
http://www.cgb.fr/monnaies/vso/v04/v040213.html
and the pictures will be back as soon as our provider gets his job done.
All our MBS catalog have an index which includes "bimetallic".
Website should be better in a week.
--Unquote

12. Meeting WBCC member......by Martin Peeters, WBCC Focal Point

Last wednsday, July 7, WBCC member Jack Hepler of the USA, visited the
Netherlands. Frans Dubois and myself did meet him.
We visited the Rotterdam "Euromast" and made a boatrip in the Rotterdam
Habour (bigest in the world). With a guided tour through the Dutch City
Gouda and a nice diner at Frans's home, Jack was very excited about the
"threatment" he has got. Frans and I have to thank Jack for his
enthousiastic talkings about Bi-metallics, the WBCC and other stuff. So, if
you ever visiting the Nertherlands, just let us know and you will get the
same "treatment". If you want to see a picture of Jack, please take a look
in the WBCC Homepage:
http://www.geocities.com/RodeoDrive/7513/wbcc/wbcc.html

Till now I have met in person the following WBCC members:
* Frans Dubois, Netherlands
* Jean Verleg, Netherlands
* Larry Friemel, USA (met in the USA)
* Joel Anderson, USA (met in the USA)
* Art Wells, USA (met in the USA)
* Kyle Mutcher, Canada (met in the USA)
* Ivan Florine, Belgium
* Jim Kindrake, Canada
* Patrick Glassford, Canada
* Cliff Anderson, USA
* Hans Verbaan, Netherlands
* Jack Hepler, USA

13. Bi-metallics from Arabia........by Hartmut Schoenawa, Germany

I just got the two new Bi-metallic coins from Saudi Arabia:
* 1 Riyal  "ordinary" issue, unc, DM 2,45
* 1 Riyal  "commemorative" issue, unc, DM 3,90
* 1 Riyal  "commemorative" issue, proof capsuled, DM 6,35
Are you or some of your WBCC-members or non-members interested to purchase
any of these coins from me? I have them in stock ready for shipping to
everyone. E-mail me at: Hartmut.Schoenawa@t-online.de

--Remark WBCC Focal Point: Scans of the first and second mentioned
Bi-metallic can be seen in the WBCC Homepage. Jack Hepler and Paul Baker did
scan them.

14. Bi-metallics from a UK coindealer...by Martin Peeters, Netherlands

This week I received the new Airedale Coins list with several Bi-metallics
tey offer. If you send Lauwrence Andrews an E-mail and he will send you a
list of Bi-metallics he has available. You can also look into the
Bi-metallic section

Airedale Coins
P.O. Box 7
Oakwood Park
Lady Lane, Bingley
West Yorkshire BD16 4ST
England
Phone: + 01274-770414
Fax: + 01274-563869
Lauri Andrews, UK, E-mail: aireco@globalnet.co.uk
Web page: http://www.users.globalnet.co.uk/~aireco
Bi-metallics: http://www.users.globalnet.co.uk/~aireco/NewIssue.htm

15. WBCC CD ROM...by Joe Kocian, USA

I have the WBCC CD ROM completed. I will be adding a few current items but
for all major purposes it is finished. Thanks to the assistance of Martin,
and Larry and their contributions to the CD. I plan to have CD's for
purchase in Chicago (ANA convention August 14th) but also through the mail
for those who desire one that will not make the convention. Ok, the CD what
is it?
a. It is a compilation of the WBCC documentation of Bi-metallics coins with
Graphics.
b. The early Introduction and Use of Bi-metallics from Larry Friemel's "All
That Is Bi-Metallic" webpage with graphics.
c. It has the complete set of all WBCC Newsmails from beginning to current
date.
d. It has the catalog "The World Of Bi-metallics" on it.
e. It has a super demo software program specifically designed for
collectors.
And it is all on one CD.
Cost: This the best part, I made this for the WBCC members so cost is just
to cover the expenses.
By Mail: US$14.00 including shipping.
At the Chicaco ANA show: US$12.00

I have received quite a number of requests for the CD. I am still going to
send a personal note (application) to those that have notified me and
requested a CD. However, I have been waiting to do it all at once. You may
if you wish to get a jump on me here is a copy of what I
(jkocian@cvi-usa.com) will eMail to each of you:

Please send payment to:
Joseph V. Kocian, 4178 Sherman Road, Kent, Ohio, 44240, USA.
Include the following information:
1. Full Name
2. Company (If applicable)
3. Mail Address
4. City
5. State
6. Country
7. eMail Address
Payment: Must be in US$, A check drawn upon any US Bank, International MO,
or Cash US$
Note: I will try to send the CD's to arrive to you on the same dates of the
ANA show.

"See" you next week,
Martin Peeters, Focal Point of the
Worldwide Bi-metallic Collectors Club
martinp@westbrabant.net
--------------------------------------------------------------
The Worldwide Bi-metallic Collectors Club
was established September 14, 1996 and is the very first Worldwide
Collectors Club using the Internet. Goal of the WBCC is exchange
Bi-metallics and exchange knowledge about Bi-metallics
WBCC Organisation:
WBCC Homepage Provider: Rod Sell, Australia, Rod.Sell@hlos.com.au
WBCC DoCu-Centre: Frans Dubois, Netherlands, dubois.f@wxs.nl
WBCC Public Relations: Cliff Anderson, USA, chander@mciworld.com
WBCC Research Centre: Paul Baker, UK, 113076.167@compuserve.com
WBCC Focal Point: Martin Peeters, Netherlands, martinp@westbrabant.net