Neither Numismatist, Nor Philatelist

Although I have a bunch of cool foreign stamps and coins that I've accumulated over the years, and Evelin and I have been caching away one or two of each of the state quarters as they come out, I would not consider myself a numismatist or a philatelist by any means.

However, I have noticed that Lewis and Clark are getting a lot of attention on stamps and coins for the bicentennial of the start of their expedition.

Not only was the expedition on the Missouri quarter, but the Post Office has an expedition stamp and a "Prestige Booklet" with portraits of Meriwether Lewis and William Clark. And this is on top of the Louisiana Purchase stamp issued last year.

And then there are the 2004 nickels with the Louisiana Purchase/Peace Medal design for the spring and the Keelboat design for the autumn.

<grumpy old man voice>I remember when I was a kid and the only special coins we got were the Bicentennial quarter and any old wheat pennies left in circulation. If you were lucky, you might find an Indian-head cent, a buffalo nickel or maybe a Mercury dime, but usually all the funny looking coins were Canadian -- which was still kind of cool when they showed up in Louisiana.</grumpy old man voice>

[ASIDE: I stopped by the website of Sid Griffin, formerly of the Long Ryders, to see if he had a copy of "Looking for Lewis and Clark" [ MP3 snippet | lyrics ] posted or anything and the hot news section says that an 18-track best of the Long Ryders CD is due for release on 10 June. I am so psyched.]

Oh, and if you are a U.S. citizen, be sure to contact your senators and urge them to support H.R. 2993 as referred to the Senate (especially if they're on the Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs). As D.C. Vote notes in a press release from when H.R. 2993 passed the House, the resolution needs the approval of two-thirds of the Senate to get D.C. and the territories added to the 50 states quarter program. Yes, there are much more pressing issues out there, but it still irks me how easily the non-state status of D.C. is overlooked by most of the rest of the country.