Is anyone out there tired of COVID-19 and its affect on our daily lives? We at NM certainly are, but thanks to our friends at EPNNES, the Eric P. Newman Numismatic Education Society, we are taking a giant step closer to the return to a coin show. Numismatic enthusiasts rejoice!
For some background, EPNNES was founded for numismatic scholar and mega-collector, Eric Newman, to promote numismatic research and education. To that end, EPNNES is one of the primary driving forces behind the Newman Numismatic Portal (NNP), the largest online archive of numismatic information in the world. The NNP is completely free to the public and is a truly invaluable tool for researchers that has made thousands of historical sources much more widely available than ever before possible. As an extension of NNP’s mission, EPNNES has agreed to shoulder the burden of sponsoring the first fully virtual numismatic convention, the NNP Symposium, and has hired us to market and administer the event—under the new “NM Events” division, but more to come on that later.
The NNP Symposium will feature a line-up of speakers on August 28th and 29th ready to give live presentations via Zoom on everything numismatic. We already have presentations scheduled ranging from the impact of COVID-19 on numismatics to Harvey Maranville coin testers. In line with the EPNNES mission, the entire event will be completely free for both presenters and attendees.
Some of the current headliners include Greg Rohan, president of Heritage Auctions; Charles Morgan, editor for CoinWeek; and Douglas Mudd, curator for the ANA. Applications to present are still open and anyone can apply. We’re looking to have a mixture of seasoned researchers and newcomers to the hobby who might bring a fresh take to the table, so if you have anything you’d like to share, reach out! You can apply directly on the website here.
For attendees, you are welcome to attend as many (or as few) presentations as you would like. Registration is open here, and we would love to know if you plan on attending. Most presentations will be open for Q&A at the end, so you’ll have a chance to interact with some incredibly knowledgeable people in the field. This is an event you won’t want to miss!
The NNP Symposium is a new kind of numismatic event. We’ve had coin shows for decades, but there have been very few events centered solely around numismatic education and even fewer that have been so accessible to the general public. Our mission (yes, this is intentionally ambiguous) is simply to spread the knowledge and joy of numismatics. After all, isn’t that what our hobby is all about?