Thursday, June 24, 2010
Coin collecting is a male-dominated hobby. Yet in the field of numismatics (the study and collecting of money and other related items), a gradual trend toward female involvement took root in the United States over the past 30 years. An organization called Women In Numismatics (WIN), founded in 1991, fosters female familiarity with the hobby.
For years, the culture at Southgate Coins in Reno, Nevada has been female oriented. The owners, Rusty and Marie Goe, decided early on they could give back to the communities in which they conducted business by hiring college students for part-time work in their stores. The Goes saw an opportunity to provide jobs for college students while at the same time only hiring female students. They saw this as a way to get girls interested in numismatics. Plus, the female angle fits well with the Goes' goal of providing pleasant phone voices and courteous service at their store.
Southgate Coins employs a staff of four to six female frontline assistants, depending on the season. The employees learn many skills necessary to run a business, which the Goes hope will serve their girls well in whatever fields they pursue after graduation from college. All girls learn the importance of teamwork and how to provide good customer service. They also learn basic bookkeeping skills, inventory management, packing, shipping, and shipment tracking, Web site management, simple banking procedures, and a host of other administrative duties. Girls who show promise and who stay for longer terms learn management techniques. Because of Southgate Coins' focus on writing, all girls on staff gain at least a rudimentary grasp of literary composition. Signs displayed on office walls proclaim the credo "We are literary giants at Southgate Coins."
In addition to the abovementioned skills, all girls also acquire a working knowledge of the fundamentals of coin collecting. Every employee learns how to explain to walk-ins how to determine values of their coins or currency. In time, the employees at Southgate Coins can recite from memory where different mints were located in the United States. They learn that half cents, two-cent pieces, three-cent pieces, half dimes, and twenty-cent pieces once circulated in the U.S. These, and a host of other collecting-related terms, become part of the girls' vocabularies. Nothing is as impressive as a Southgate girl holding her own in a conversation about numismatics with an advanced coin collector; usually a male who is sometimes twice or three times the girl's age.
The owners at Southgate Coins take pride in the girls who successfully complete their training and who then service effectively the company's large client base. It also gladdens the owners' hearts to know they are doing their best to provide financial aid to local college students. In the process, some of these students might be set on paths to become women in numismatics.
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