Will it be business as usual for the coin market in the wake of the stock market losses of yesterday?

For the Mint it certainly was. It announced it is raising its premium on one-ounce American silver Eagles Oct. 14 by 15 cents to $1.40 per coin from $1.25.

That actions seems small potatoes compared to the action on the New York Stock Exchange. The losses were large.

There is no way of knowing if numismatists as a group are less subject to making bad investments and receiving margin calls as the population as a whole.

We have no way of knowing that coin dealers as a group fund their operations with borrowed money to any greater extent than businesses of other kinds.

What we do know is they are all human and are subject to the same anxieties and fears as everybody else. They are asking themselves how the coin market is holding up.

Does the coin collector who saw his IRA or 401(k) retirement account fall seven percent or so yesterday go the next coin show or auction he was planning to go to? Will he bid as often or as aggressively online on eBay?

The odds are we collectors are as intertwined in the current financial crisis as anybody else. While collectors are probably less likely to have their mortgage interest rates reset to levels beyond their ability to pay, they may own small businesses that cannot get a credit line extended in the same amount or even at all. Here is hoping that coin dealers have bullet-proof financial arrangements. If they are forced to liquidate inventory to pay back these credit lines, prices will fall.

Numismatists will face things one day at a time just like everybody else. We always have. When I was just starting out as  a collector in 1963, there were no numismatic firms selling hundreds of millions of dollars’ worth of coins in a single year. There was no firm that was publicly traded on the stock exchange. It was just me and my Whitman album doing what hundreds of thousands of others were doing.

Financial crisis I later learned meant that proof set orders for the 1958 set fell because of the recession during the order period. And that in the typical numismatic scarcity judgment made that set a better one compared to the year before or after. In short, the hobby always seems to make lemonade out of lemons. Silver dollars continued to rise after the stock market crash of 1987 right into 1989.

For good or ill, I was part of that 1963 collecting herd. I am part of that herd now. What happens today I don’t know, but the hobby will always be here for me. It will stay interesting, it will have its ups and downs and I will continue to go with it and perhaps complain a little about the Mint increasing the cost of the silver Eagle.

See? The collector in me never leaves.

Chet Krause sells his Wisconsin National Bank Note collection in a Lyn Knight auction Oct. 16-17 in St. Charles, Mo., during the Professional Currency Dealers Association show.

Unfortunately, I will not be there to see it. I have watched from my chair here at Krause Publications as he built the collection. It was a labor of love.

Collecting home state National Bank Notes is a popular way of collecting paper. In fact, it helped build the paper money hobby as we know it today.

National Bank Notes offer the organizing principal that Whitman folders did for coin collectors. You  have a list of banks. You have a list of what they issued and off you go.

Collectors usually get this information when they purchase a copy of National Bank Notes by Don C. Kelly and that helps give them an idea of what challenges they face.

Paper money is still smaller and more friendly than coin collecting, but that doesn't mean there aren't rivalries. While Chet was the big fish in the Wisconsin pond, there were those before him and others are coming after him. Part of the job of collecting is keeping track of who these people are and what they own, so if there is a gap in your collection, you can be ready with cash when their notes hit the market.

But there are surprises that help keep the hobby interesting. When Dave Kranz came to work here 14 years ago, he fell in love with Wisconsin Nationals from his home county. He bought notes as he could find and afford them.

One note, I am sorry to say I cannot remember, was particularly rare and a true find by Kranz. I urged him to show Chet. Chet’s comments to him confirmed it was rare. For emphasis, he added, “I thought I owned the only one.”

Nothing feels better for a paper money collector than a comment like that from a knowledgeable veteran.

Chet is now stepping aside to give other Wisconsin collectors their turn. I hope they are ready.

Watching gold yesterday was almost as explosive as the annual 4th of July fireworks display I watched in Bonduel this year. No one, of course, got hurt in the fireworks display.

I am not so sure about the volatile gold market.

Gold went up like a skyrocket and it lit up the bullion investment sky. By the close of regular trading in New York yesterday, the metal had set a record as the largest one-day price gain in terms of dollars, up $70.10. In percentage terms a day like this has not been seen since 1999, which you may remember was the lead-up to the Y2K problem that was going to happen to our computers when their internal clocks were to be thrown off when the year 2000 arrived.

Silver had a good day, too, rising by $1.178 to close at $11.64. This was the biggest one-day gain since 1979.

It is these references to the 1979-1980 boom that make me nervous. I remember what happened when the euphoria faded.

Gold went up from $742 on Jan. 16, 1980, to $803 on Jan. 17, 1980, up $61. This was on its way to its closing high of $825 on Jan. 21. On Jan. 22, it dropped by $155 to close at $670.

Manic upward movement was followed by manic downward movement in less than a week.

I cannot claim to know the future, but volatility works both ways. Even if the long-term uptrend in gold has further to run as many experts expect, short-term corrections can be wild.

That is the time when there is a big difference between being a long-term gold owner and a newcomer chasing headlines. Be careful.

The Kansas Numismatic Association has come up with a good idea to spur attendance at its annual show June 12-14, 2009, at the Cessna Activity Center in Wichita.

It will offer a gasoline rebate to members of its member clubs who drive to the event with at least two other fellow club members.

The rebate amount is $50, which even with $4 gas can still cover the cost of bringing people into the show from quite a distance.

Anyone receiving the rebate will also be expected to volunteer for two hours at the show, helping out with setting up, cleaning up, greeting visitors, or whatever else needs to be done.

This is a clever way of keeping attendance up in uncertain times to make bourse dealers happy and for finding the necessary help to keep the show running smoothly.

Cliff Mishler brought this to my attention yesterday at lunch at the Crystal Cafe. The Kansas Numismatic Association Newsletter had just arrived and he had photocopied the relevant pages out of the current issue beforehand.

Other clubs might have other ideas to tackle the same problem. Let’s share them.