Jimmie Stewart Short Snorter
Short Snorter Project founder Tom Sparks, will display a rare and possibly unique short snorter signed by famous actor James (Jimmy) Stewart. The note was signed while Stewart was serving in the 8th Air Force in the U.K., specifically at RAF Old Buckenham as Group Operations Officer of the 453rd Bomb Group. "In my 20-plus years of collecting, I have not seen another short snorter signed by James Stewart," said Sparks.
Sparks will donate the note signed by Stewart to the Jimmy Stewart Museum, located in Indiana, PA. Now on display through November 15, 2026, at the museum is The Making of JIMMY, a special exhibit celebrating the upcoming feature film JIMMY. The exhibit displays costumes, props, memorable quotes, fun facts, and exclusive behind-the-scenes footage that bring the story of Jimmy Stewart to life.
Seminar Session One Closes Two Opens
The ANA Summer Seminar rolls along. Session one closed to Wednesday with a gala closing banquet. This year the event was held at the Antlers Hotel because the facilities traditionally used. on the Campus. of Colorado College were not adequate! From the point of view of the Gram, the highlight of the first week was the MPC Boot Camp. Six students assembled to study MPC in detail for two evenings. In addition to learning about MPC the students broke the Boot Camp push up record.
The full course on World War II numismatics kicks off on Saturday with an opening ceremony followed by classes on Sunday. Additional activities include a literature sale conducted by the ANA library and a fund raising auction conducted by the young numismatists. This auction raised approximately $40,000 in week one!
Show Report
by Fred Schwan
For many years the Colorado Springs Coin club holds a coin show on the weekend between sessions of the Summer Seminar. The show has been held in many different venues over the years (decades). This year it was at the local Elk's Lodge. The hall was much smaller than the one used recently. I actually liked the smaller facility. It made for crowded isles and a distinct buzz.
The dealers present had a nice array of material though I only saw two groups of MPC. The good news is that the one group changed ownership before my eyes. The larger group did not have anything in particular to tempt me so I went back through it (the group) presenting that I was Doug Bell looking for obscure numbers that he might like. Still noting but it was fun.
I almost made it out of get show without making a purchase, but at the last moment I was saved from that inglorious defeat at the last moment. ANA past everything and friend had the primes table location. You nearly had to crawl over his table to get into the show. That meant that you had to do the same thing to escape. That is when I saw what I had missed on the ingress. It wis a very nice WWII trench art bracelet Made from seven Australian coins. True, this is one of the most common trench art items that you can find from the war, but I really liked this one. In particular I like the way that the four supporting coins have been squared.
The bad news is that I cannot (at least for now) show you this time. My normal technique when away from home to get an image into the Gram is to take a picture with my phone then send the image as an attachment to an email sent to myself. Then I open to mai with my pomputer and download the image. Then I only need to upload the image in Mail Chimp and place it into the Gram.
The image has gone to never never land, three times (at least). If it shows up I will share it with you.
Editorial
How long have we been attending the ANA Summer Seminar? I told you a few Grams ago that we started the military classes at the urging of Gail Bakker. I believe that that was is 2021. Joe had taught something a few years before that. Then we sent for something like ten years without missing a year. Then we moved to alternate years. Somewhere along the way we developed a means to offer an advance military class, but that seems to have faded. I will try to revive that for 2028.
This year for the Boot Camp we finished the thirteen issues series the first (of two) evenings. Then we spent the second evening with MPC coupons, checks, errors, fancy numbers and the like. I think that we would as Introduction to MPC to our catalog of classes for people who are curious, but do not want to sepend two evenings to satisfy their curiosity.
As always I invite your thoughts on this any any other topic.
Mail Call
The MPCGram welcomes letters from readers. Letters should be relevant to military numismatics. Letters may be edited. Senders must be known to the Gram and names (actual or "Internet") will be used.
Dear Editor,
I think number 2659 is the longest MPC Gram I can never remember reading.
— MPC Wizzard
Dear Gram,
I was looking through a notebook with tokens and came across these two OPA tokens. There is nothing exciting about them, but what caught my eye was the writing on the upper left of the 2X2 which is "Great Depression". I found it interesting that they were wrongly attributed to the Depression. The numismatic adage of "buy the token, not the holder" applies here. I know no one in our group and many other numismatists would see the attribution error and find this amusing, but a novice may be fooled. I have taken the tokens off the market.
— Myers
Hi everyone,
I have had requests to see what I presented at CSNS this last spring - American Red Cross in World War II. What I have sent is the entire listing from the Newman Portal. You will need to click on View the Recordings below and then find mine and click on it. It's about 40 minutes long or so.
— Kathy
Training Schedule (calendar)
2026
In this section, the MPGram lists events that are likely to be of special interest to collectors who are interested in MPC and other type of military numismatic items. We do not list "routine" coin shows where a collector might find a few items by chance. However, if we know that some Festers or Gramsters will be there we will list that same show in the hope of promoting fellowship. Send us your reports.
ANA Summer Seminar (Boling counterfeit paper course): 20-25 Jun ANA Summer Seminar (WWII course): 27 Jun-2 July ANA World's Fair of Money® - 25-29 Aug, Pittsburgh
Please help us fill in the dates for events listed and give us any additional events that might conflict. Thank you very much.
MPCFest sponsors
Joe and Louise Boling, Mike Buckley, Steve Fahrlander, Ray Feller family, Dave Frank, Kathy Freeland, Loretta Freyser, Al Glaser, Dave Hunsicker, Brett Irick, Jennifer and Eric Kibbey (dba Camelot Coins), Harold Kroll, Bill Myers.
MPCFest is possible because of the generous support of its sponsors.
Gram Exchange
Do you have something for sale (or trade)? Are you looking for something for your collection? You can offer items here in the Gram or list specific items that you need.
FOR SALE
Send your text and images (!) to the editor for inclusion in the Gram Exchange. Please send the images in jpeg format with each image in a separate file.
List your items for sale here for FREE
WANTED
Wanted to Buy [WTB] / In Search of [ISO] $10 Series 1934A North Africa silver certificate with the altered blue seal discussed in October 2022 MPCGram by Larry Smulczenski (Saturski #13) and covered in May/June 2008 SPMC article written by Peter Huntoon and Jim Downey. Please contact Andy Conroy (andyqconroy@gmail.com)