The Professional Numismatists Guild will create an education and mentoring program to recruit and train the next generation of coin dealers.

Entitled “Promoting Numismatic Growth” (PNG), the program will include online instruction about coins and the coin market followed by paid internships at some of the nation’s best known dealerships and grading services.

“The goal of this program is to ensure industry growth through the education and mentoring of future professional numismatists,” explained PNG Executive Director Robert Brueggeman.

“We’ve established a Young Numismatist Education Committee and we’ll be developing a program that will provide a basic education in the fundamentals of numismatics followed by a rotating series of three-month internship programs at four numismatic companies. We anticipate we will begin taking applications this coming fall from candidates 21 to 32 years of age, and the expense-paid internships will begin next year.”

PNG officials will hire an administrator to oversee the day-to-day operations of the program, including development of the education courses and videos, recruitment and placement of interns and fund-raising to pay for the project.

The plan also calls for the PNG to pay the transportation and housing expenses for each intern in addition to the costs of creating the education courses and the expenses of administering the project. Funds will come from the Edwin Milas Memorial Fund.

Companies hosting the interns would provide salaries to them during their internships.

“We envision a combination of courses and hands-on internship experience to give future professional numismatists knowledge about grading, counterfeit detection, coin and paper money photography and auctions as well as an advanced education about numismatics in general,” said PNG President Jeffrey Bernberg.

“This is a huge project of unprecedented scope for the PNG and our member-dealers for the future of numismatics, but the potential positive benefits for the hobby and the profession are enormous.”

The PNG YN committee overseeing the initial launch of the Promoting Numismatic Growth program and creation of the PNG’s Edward Milas School of Numismatics and Internship Program is composed of Brueggeman and PNG Board members Mitch Battino, Paul Montgomery, Barry Stuppler and Fred Weinberg.

A separate Board of Directors for the Promoting Numismatic Growth program is composed of Brueggeman, Montgomery and Donald Kagin, Ph.D.

Ed Milas, for whom the program is named, was a well-known Chicago area coin dealer and former PNG President (1983-1985) who died in 2011.

Specific information about how to apply for the internship program is expected to be announced in September.

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