
May 6, 2015 By Coin Update Leave a Comment
Christopher Maisano, a 17-year old New Jersey high school student, has been selected as the winner of the Professional Numismatists Guild (www.PNGdealers.org) 2015 young numismatist scholarship. The PNG will provide tuition, dormitory accommodations, meals and airfare to and from Colorado Springs, Colorado for him to attend one of the week-long sessions of this year’s American Numismatic Association (www.money.org) Summer Seminar.
“I am so happy and grateful for this opportunity! It still hasn’t sunk in yet,” Maisano said.
He began collecting two years ago while on vacation with his parents when he saw coins in the window of an antique shop.
“I was captivated by the old U.S. coins. I entered the store with my parents and spent hours looking at all the coins in their inventory. With my own allowance money I purchased my very first coin, an 1873 With Arrows Seated Liberty half dollar from the Philadelphia Mint,” Maisano recalled.
He said it is in poor condition and the least valuable coin now in his collection, but it “is the most beloved and prized coin in my collection because it was my first.”
Family members and friends soon responded to his interest in numismatics.
“My grandmother gave me her father’s coin collection. It included mostly Morgan dollars. None of the coins were very valuable but I found it so interesting to research them and learn about how my great-grandfather loved collecting coins,” he explained.
He also credits Ridgewood Coin & Stamp in Ridgewood, New Jersey for nurturing his interest in coins and mentoring him about buying and selling. Last October his parents took him to the PNG show in New York City where he met PNG member-dealer Donald Kagin and associate member David McCarthy of Kagin’s, Inc. who showed him gold coins from the Saddle Ridge Hoard. McCarthy and another PNG associate member, John Brush of David Lawrence Rare Coins, told him about the annual ANA Summer Seminars.
https://news.coinupdate.com/new-jersey-teenager-wins-png-yn-scholarship-4819/