You can bet your bottom dollar there will be a good turnout at the Timmins Coin and Stamp Club show.
It’s being put on jointly by the Timmins Coin Club and Timmins Stamp Club. It runs Sunday, May 7, from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. at the Lions Den at the McIntyre Community Centre.
Orest Lawryniw, of the Timmins Coin Club, says he expects hundreds of people to be there; a mix of traders, appraisers and curious members of the public wanting to learn more about collection hobbies.
Lawryniw says, even in an increasingly cashless world, dominated by debit cards and e-transfers, he senses growing interest in coin collection, particularly in the Timmins area; he’s even given talks to high school students about coin collection.
“During the pandemic, a lot of people took collections out of storage,” he says. “We’ve had a few, what I would call former collectors, who decided to get back into it. With COVID, people didn’t have much to do, so they started looking at coins and stamps again.”
And, once people are in, the hunt for rare finds often keeps them hooked, Lawryniw says.
He explains that the value of a coin usually relates to how rare it is. But value can fluctuate, depending on who’s interested in it.
One of the most precious coins in Lawryniw’s collection is a 1949 Canadian silver dollar — yes we had some $1 coins long before the Loonie was introduced in 1987 — with a ship on it. He said he wouldn’t part with it, because it’s from the year of his birth.
He also has a 1957 Canadian silver dollar, with a voyageur canoe on it, which represents his wife’s birth year.
He says it’s common for collectors to look for coins from their birth years, which is why different coins have different values for different people, thus adding to the thrill of the chase.
There’s a certain randomness to coin collection that makes it interesting, Lawryniw explains. It’s like trying to win a game of chance.
“I was once looking for a 1998 quarter for somebody; I went through almost 1,500 quarters and I couldn’t find one. It’s not that it’s rare, I just couldn’t find it; it just happens that way.”
This Timmins Coin and Stamp Club show represents the first large show run by the two separate clubs since the onset of the pandemic.
It’s an all-ages event and admission is free, but a donation to the Timmins Food Bank, upon entry, is encouraged. The event will feature door prizes and a silent auction.
The annual show is a flagship event for the Timmins Coin Club, which has about 20 members. Lawryniw says those members pay a small annual fee. They then meet monthly, usually on a Sunday at the Timmins Museum: National Exhibition Centre. The exact dates are posted on their Facebook page.
Another signature event the club holds yearly takes place in the fall. Lawryniw calls it a “what it’s worth” event. It’s not so much a show, but an opportunity for collectors to meet with an appraiser who can tell them the value of their rare coins.
For Lawryniw, participating in these events allows him to continue with a hobby he started as a child. His early interest in coin collection led his father to transform the smoke shop he owned for many years in Timmins into a business that traded rare coins, too. Lawryniw now runs the evolution of that business, Bob’s Coins, out of his home.
His dad’s support of coin collection also led to the founding of the Timmins Coin Club in the 1960s.
“Between my dad and I, it’s been 60-plus years (of coin collection),” he says.
