Happy New Years to all of our members and I want to take the time to wish everyone nothing but the best for the upcoming new year.
2012 was a quiet year. Europe and U.S. economies slowly recover and are on the mend. Natural disasters still plagued us but nowhere near as severe as 2011. And through it all each one of our members has made it through the year. With hard work, hope, and a little faith, 2013 has the potential for more promising fortunes for all of our members going forward.
In 2012 the U.S. ceased issuing circulating Presidential & Native American dollar coins forcing collectors to deal directly with the U.S. mint if they wanted to continue their existing collections. The “America The Beautiful Quarter” program continued with the release of 5 new designs but with a glut in past quarter mintages very few are found in circulation.
On the global front the U.S. is not the only country with special coins programs. A multitude of countries are continuing special coin programs for circulating coinage providing us with more opportunities to expand our collecting horizons with unique and affordable international coins.
On the bullion front, silver and gold saw modest single digit percentage gains which have helped in providing some stability to coin prices. If economic fears continue into 2013 we may continue to see gains in gold but whether or not it can sustain the gains for the whole year is anyone’s guess.
Here at Typesets.Wikidot.com, 2012 was our sixth year and the content keeps growing and growing. Here are just of few highlights of what was accomplished in 2012:
- Coin page descriptions went from 359 to 417. These page descriptions represent 663 types of coins with 938 supporting photos.
- Two new coin libraries were started; Mexico and France with latter being supported by our own member lutecium94
- A new 2x2 Template Library for those that wish to create their own collecting albums
- More than 489,000 visitors (I expect us to eclipse half a million visitors around February)
- Site visitors originating from the U.S. dramatically dropped from 70.6% down to 57% (making our site truly international).
Of all the new growth on our site, the one that I am most excited about is the new 2x2 Template Library. It provides a great resource for new and experienced collectors and I cannot wait to see the content grow.
And to wrap things up, we added 26 new members this year bringing the site membership up to a total of 85 members. So here is a special welcome to the 26 new members of 2012; rodneyjdavies, newmasmatik, chollyB, turboxx12, Edward Baken, Max Angeling, Ultrasilver, connors16, sarah Lu, SilverCoinJess, lutecium94, Dom Terrone, droccu, kalpoon, Briany, ansore, john radomski, Terri Renee Joiner, Papoumike, Dsquared, ken45, detectore, nflstore2012, Kathleen Agcaoili, Tim Treichelt, and finally Stephen970.
Regards & Best Wishes for the Upcoming Year!
Ken