2019:Meetups/Numismatic corner

From Wikimania
Hopefully the numismatic corner will have more coins :)

The numismatic corner is a place where people interested in collecting different currencies (coins and notes) can take advantage of the huge number of countries represented at Wikimania to extend their collections. This has been done in previous WIkimedia conferences. We now want to have a central place where you can find other people interested in this hobby.

The meeting date is Friday 16 August 20:00-21:00, in Room Situation.

I suggest meeting 15 minutes early at 19:45 (7:45 pm) so that everyone who plans to attend other meetings can come and donate coins of notes to a common pool from which anyone can take whatever they are interested in.

The first meeting failed, only five people came. The second meeting is to take place on Sunday 13:00-14:00 (lunch) in the lobby of Aula Magna, by the registration desk.

I would not say, the first meeting failed, 5 people have come! @Gereon K., Visem, Soul Train, Nataev, Nataev, Indrajitdas, Tofeiku, Lkjidm, Einsamer Schütze, NickK, Ibrahim Husain Meraj, and ANKAN: and all interested, welcome to the second meeting! We could meet on Sunday 13:00 in Aula Magna somewhere near the Registration desk --Perohanych (talk) 12:34, 17 August 2019 (UTC) .[reply]

The Numismatic corner aims to be:

  • Community run
  • Donations-based
  • Fun

Community run[edit | edit source]

The Numismatic corner aims to be a truly decentralized place. While we have assigned a timeslot and a place, the corner will be available throughout the conference. There will be no formal organizer, nobody at the "booth" - you just come by, leave whatever you can and take whatever you want. While we do have some guidelines, we're counting on the participants' common sense to ensure the success of the corner.

Donations-based[edit | edit source]

Due to the high number of participants at the conference, finding someone for a 1:1 change might become difficult, so we suggest a donation-based approach: people donate money to a common pool from which anyone can take whatever they are interested in. As weird as it sounds that's a system that has worked before, the key being to keep in mind the fact that this is for fun, not profit.

Pool guidelines[edit | edit source]

  1. These are only guidelines. There is no-one enforcing them and we depend on the community to ensure a good experience for everybody. If they get in the way of fun, feel free to ignore them.
  2. Keep the amounts low. We suggest limiting your donations to the equivalent of 2€ maximum for each coin and 5€ total. Out of circulation coins can be brought within the same value guidelines as current currency.
  3. Both coins and banknotes are welcomed, but keep #2 in mind. Whenever we say "coin" in the page, we mean coin or banknote.
  4. This is not a currency exchange or coin exchange, so don't think in terms of monetary value. If you have spare change, feel free to just donate it. If you don't, but want some cool coin from the pool, help yourself.
  5. Try to share some coins that you can easily access, but are hard for others to find. For instance, Bulgarian levs are easy to obtain if you live in Eastern Europe, but much harder to come by in South America.

This is by far the most important part of the project. We want to welcome both hardcore and casual collectors, so you shouldn't think of it as a specialized fair or an occasion to significantly improve your collection, but more of an occasion to get acquainted to money you haven't seen before.

Fun also means that you shouldn't feel obligated to participate to the pool (see the section above on the process). You can come by even if you just want to glance at currency from countries far-away from you or if you have some pocket change you want to get rid of. If you do decide to participate, you should not give away more money that you can afford (if in doubt, ask yourself this: if I loose that sum on the street, would I miss it?).

Participants[edit | edit source]

Sign-up below to gauge interest:

See also[edit | edit source]