WBCC Newsflash 139, September 14, 2006

WBCC Newsflash 139, September 14, 2006
Composed with help from members of the
Worldwide Bi-metallic Collectors Club (WBCC)
and weekly published by Martin Peeters, Netherlands,
Focal Point of the WBCC,

Today Sepember 14, 2006 the WBCC is celebrating it's 10th Anniversary. Here
are some words of the WBCC Board Members.

1. WBCC 10th Anniversary Encased Coins...by Jack Hepler, WBCC Developement
Centre, Jack Hepler, USA

There are two varieties of the WBCC 10th Anniversary Encased coins. The
"Official" variety encases a 2006 Austrian Euro in an aluminum ring. Only
100 of this variety will be made. Orders for 70 pieces have already been
received. After 14 September 2006, orders may be accepted from non-members.
The cost for this encasement has not been set but is expected to be about
$5 plus postage.
Dies have been prepared for a "souvenir" variety. This encasement is smaller
than the Official variety and the coin may be a US 5 Cents or 5 Eurocent
size coin. No limit has been placed on the production number of these
encasements. Cost for this variety will be about $3 plus postage unless the
official variety is ordered, too. Then the cost will be somewhat less.
If member wishes, the member number may be inscribed on the encasement. The
cost for adding the member number is $0.50. At the time the project was
started, we thought the 2006 Austrian Euro would be available in time to
officially release the encasement on 14 September 2006. The actual release
of the Austrian Euro has been delayed. Encasement of the anniversary issue
will begin as soon as the coins are received. If you have any questions
about this project, please contact me, Jack Hepler,

2. WBCC 10th. Anniversary...by Rod Sell, WBCC Webmaster, Rod Sell, Australia

Our first decade is upon us. What a quick ten years.
Looking back ten years ago the World was a very different place. The
internet was in it's infancy and Bimet-allics were a novelty with only a few
items to collect. It was easy in those days to aim to try to collect ALL the
Bi-metallics issued, there were only a few hundred. The WBCC has stayed very
true to it's aims, which is a club to gather information on bimetallics and
pass the information on to it's members. Today we have a growing core of
members who supply infomation and images. We would like more, so if you have
information on any Bi-metallic, send the information to Martin to share with
the rest of the membership every week. It is also very gratifying to see the
influence the WBCC has had. We are regularly mentioned in the trade papers
and attend the yearly World Money Fair. Martin is to be congratulated in his
efforts at spreading the word. The W in WBCC is also very deserved as this
club does cover the World. There are a few countries in which we do not have
any members, but as soon as they get the internet I am sure that will
change. My biggest regret is not keeping the Image Library up to date. The
last four years of images are still on the new images pages. Some members
have come to my assistance and host the Bi-metallic images from their
region. I wish to thank them, as those pages are up to date. If you can
assist by hosting images of your reqion please let me know and I will link
those countries to your web pages I don't think any of us could imagine how
the WBCC would develop, when we started ten years ago. Not only do we have a
100 page catalogue TWOB that Martin regularly emails to all members, but we
have a world of friends who assist us with getting our bimetallics. We have
a weekly newsmail with the latest information and images, plus a bimonthly
auction for members to buy and sell their Bi-metallics. 526 consecutive
weekly newsmails over the past ten years. That is a mighty effort. What will
the next ten years bring us. That my friends depends a lot on YOU. A club is
only as good as the efforts of it's ACTIVE members. We are fortunate that we
have quite a few active members, but we can use more. So if you have any
ideas or can assist let us know. I wish to thank you all, for your
friendship and assistance over the past ten years. Happy Bi-metallic
collecting.

3. A couple of random thoughts upon WBCC's 10 Years..by Cliff Anderson, WBCC
Public Relations, USA



After 10 years of experience and hindsight, 2 significant characteristics of
the WBCC seem apparent: openness and professionalism.

Membership is free, and members from anywhere and everywhere are welcome.
WBCC's membership is now 411 from 55 countries.

It seems clear that the WBCC enjoys a reputation as an informal but widely
ranging authority on bimetallics. No other numismatic authority offers
WBCC's comprehensive Bi-metallic listings, library and updated news.

WBCC is proud of its standing as the internet's oldest and continuously
operating coin club (526 newsmails issued every single week since September
1996).



4. WBCC 10th. Anniversary...Paul Baker, WBCC Research Centre, UK


Congratulations to the WBCC on the club's 10th anniversary. Only a few
members have been here since the beginning. I am not one of them but looking
at my old messages I see that I first had contact with Martin on the subject
of bi-metallics in May 1997, within about one week of when I first went
online and during the club's first year. I joined with the issue of Newsmail
80 and became "WBCC Research Centre" at Newsmail 127. Since then we have all
been busy keeping up with all the news of more and more bi-metallic coins
from all parts of the world. Perhaps the news I find to be of greatest
interest is when yet another country introduces bi-metallic circulation
coins - such as Azerbaijan, Jamaica, Sierra Leone, South Africa, Yemen
etc... The biggest news of this kind must have been the introduction of the
Euro coinage, that saw seven more countries start to use bi-metallic coins.
Within a few weeks over 50 different bi-metallic coins were introduced and
there number has continued to grow not least with the help of the special
design 2 Euro coins. Through the WBCC I have got to know many good friends
around the world as well as getting to know more and more about coins. The
WBCC Newsmail has given me a great deal of encouragement over the years and
got me more into finding out and writing about coins and tokens. Much of the
subjects a write about are bi-metallics, if not then they are usually
African. Some of my writing appear in the Newsmail, some on my website and
some in print publications. Here's to the next 10 years of the WBCC.


5. Ten years ago.....bby Frans Dubois, WBCC DoCu-Centre, Netherlands

I still remember the Saturday in September 1996 when I was looking in my
coin collection of Europe, that my eye was caught by some special coins,
made from two different metals. I considered these coins so special that I
decided to put these coins separate from my other coins.
These first coins were from Italy, some from France and some from Mexico.
In the next week I read a small anouncement in the Dutch coinmagazine "The
Muntkoerier" that I was not the only that had decided to start such a
collection. A collector in Zevenbergen also had a small collection of these
special coins and he was looking for collectors with the same interest. He
alreay had a collection of 7 coins! I decided to contact him ( he lived in
the same small city as my parents)
and I showed him my small collection. And from that day we started an almost
weekly contact in which we rapported eachother about all new coins we
discovered.....You already understand that that collector I am talking about
is Martin!
From that month I started to contact other collectors that Martin found by
the internet.
I had to contact them by "old-fashioned" ordinary letters with nice
stamps......
Martin told me about all the possibilities that there were by using a
computer (we are talking about 1996!!!) The first months he could not
convince me. A letter is the best way to contact other people.
Ofcourse it takes some time but......
Martin showed me what he did by email and the internet and when I visited
him again one day he said:
"Just try to send an email and you will see how fast you will receive your
answer."
The next week I bought my first computer.....
And now I cann't imagine how I can try to keep my collection updated without
the computer.......
Since September 1996 I "met" a lot of coinfriends from all over the world!!!
And that is at least as much interesting as our bimetallic interest!!
I like to thank Martin for his neverending work he does for our club and
also all other members (coinfriends) that made the WBCC to what it is
today: a welknown club of enthousiastic coincollectors!!! Congratulations
with this 10 Anniversary!!

6. The WBCC 10 Years, 10 Years of my life......by Martin Peeters, WBCC Focal
Point, Netherlands



10 Years of my life I spent now in the Worldwide Bi-metallic Collecttors
Club (WBCC). 10 Years of making friends all over the world and with my
travels I stayed with many WBCC members, I want to thank them for their
hospitality. 10 Years of learning, having fun, composing the WBCC Newsmail
with help of many WBCC members. These past 10 Years of my life were
wonderfull !! Up to the next 10 Years of the Worldwide Bi-metasllic
Collectors Club (WBCC) in 2016. Thank You All.



Greetings,
Martin Peeters, Focal Point of the Worldwide Bi-metallic Collectors Club

--------------------------------------------------------------
The Worldwide Bi-metallic Collectors Club (WBCC)
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 Webmaster: Rod Sell, Australia,
WBCC Auction Provider: Rod Sell,
WBCC DoCu-Cent Frans Dubois, Netherlands,
WBCC Public Relations: Cliff Anderson, USA,
WBCC Research Cent Paul Baker, UK,
WBCC Developement Cent Jack Hepler, USA,
WBCC Focal Point ANA Conventions: Ray Lockwood, USA,
WBCC Focal Point: Martin Peeters, Netherlands,
WBCC Website: http://wbcc-online.com
WBCC Web-Log: http://wbcc.web-log.nl/