Get appraisals, see old money at Arkansas show

The 30 or so members at the monthly meeting of the Central Arkansas Coin Club are surrounded by money. Old money.

It's February and the group has gathered, as it does at 6 p.m. on the third Thursday of every month, at Parkway Place Baptist Church in Little Rock to talk currency. And there is no need to offer them a penny for their thoughts, especially when it comes to a special event coming up.

"We're having a big, big, big deal at the end of March and the first of April," says Steve Parker, president of the numismatic society (the word numismatic relates to coins, currency and medals).

He's talking about the 70th Annual Coin Show on March 31-April 2 at the Four Points by Sheraton Little Rock Midtown, 925 S. University Ave., Little Rock.

Free to the public, the show, put on with the Arkansas Numismatic Society, attracts dealers from across the country to appraise coins and currency, show off their own collections and buy, sell or trade U.S. and foreign coins and currency.

Parker, who is also the senior adult pastor at Parkway Place Baptist, collected coins while growing up near DeWitt. He got into collecting seriously around 1991 when he joined the coin club.

On the program for the February meeting is a presentation by Ed Nelson on Arkansas Obsolete Bank Notes from a pair of pre-Civil War banks, the State Bank of Arkansas and the Real Estate Bank of Arkansas, both of which had branches around the state.

It was a bad time for banks, though, as the depression of the 1830s was underway, and both were shuttered in 1842.

Nelson, of North Little Rock, is vice president for programs with the club and has been collecting coins and currency for about 20 years. He is especially intrigued by old Arkansas bank notes.

"It's something I've gotten interested in over the last couple of years," he says. "It's kind of unusual. The banks were chartered at the wrong economic time. They didn't last very long, but you can still find paper currency that was circulated at that time."

Nelson scours auctions, coin shows and dealers like McIntire Rare Collectibles in Jacksonville for his collection.

"Part of it is the history," he says of his fascination with old currency. "I'm a history guy and it's interesting that here you have notes that were issued by institutions in the 1830s and 1840s -- that's 170 years ago -- and it's paper."

Indeed, the notes, some of which had been printed over previous notes, feel as thin and delicate as gossamer.

"It's one thing for coins to be around, but for paper to still be around, that's what's fascinating to me," he says.

Ask him what these notes would be worth and he becomes coy.

"Ummm, whatever someone would be willing to pay for them," he says with a smile.

The coin club has no membership fee and the monthly meetings are a good place for those curious about old currency to learn how to identify not just coins and paper money but also stamps. The meetings also serve as a resource for someone interested in starting his or her own collection.

The coin club prides itself on helping people find the value of that box of coins that has been in the back of the sock drawer for as long as they can remember, or a stash of old currency that was part of an inheritance.

For Parker, free appraisals are among the most important services the group offers: "There are unscrupulous people [who] will take advantage of the elderly or a young person that inherits a bunch of coins and doesn't have any idea what they're worth.''

Helping those people get an honest evaluation of their numismatic stash, he says, "is one of the things I'm most proud of."

Let's Do This is an occasional column of things to do off the beaten path in the Natural State. Have a suggestion? Email:

sclancy@arkansasonline.com

Style on 03/14/2017