>Dan Yoshimoto wrote:
>
>ANY PEOPLE OUT THERE,
>       Do any of you Conch-Lers have a list of the Shell Clubs with
>pins? My wife and several friends from Pacific Shell Club are collecting
>to make a display for a possible upcoming shell show.  Also a contact in
>Belgium is doing the same. . .
>
>Dear Dan and other Conch-L'rs:
>
>Collecting shell club pins is an interesting aside for conchologists,
>and those who come to COA can choose from many clubs who each year bring
>their pins, tee-shirts and other club paraphenalia, including COA
>material.  Don Young, Past President of the COA, did an award winning
>display a few years ago of Clubs and their pins.
>
>When you get a listing please post that on conch-l, as this would be the
>most efficient way to disseminate a combined list.
>
>You find all sorts of intersting things about your club you may not have
>known.  My own first shell club, The Greater St. Louis Shell Club, has a
>pin with our club shell Lambis violacea.  After all the original members
>of the St. Louis Club had passed on, I asked Vi and Charlie Hertweck,
>long time members of the club why that shell was chosen.  The answer was
>as simple as they wanted a distinctive, large and colorful shell, and
>the Lambis was chosen.  During the time when I lived in Louisville and
>was in the (now in hiatus) Louisville Conchological Society (LCS) which
>for anagram(?) folks will recognize those initials are the same as your
>capable and long suffering COA American Conchologist editor, Lynn C.
>Scheu, member of LCS (the club).  Our pin was a very rare volva type
>named for one of the brothers of then LCS club member and Louisville
>resident, Donald Dan.  Letters would come into the Louisville and St.
>Louis clubs, and I am sure all the others, asking for a club pin and a
>donation of the club shell!  In St. Louis we would respond indicating
>the price of the pin and saying the club shell could be found on some
>dealer lists, and at Louisville, I'm sure the answer was the shell was
>just unobtainable.
>
>One of my treasured possessions is a Broward Shell Club pin, given to me
>by the late Ruth Chessler.  Ruth was show chairman for the Ft.
>Lauderdale COA in 1986, the year before LaVern Niere and I were to host
>COA in St. Louis.  Ruth let me tag along during the week's events at Ft.
>Lauderdale, behind the scenes, and she gave invaluable advice and
>assistance.  Her help gave us the confidence that nomatter how well
>planned, occasionally events sometime go astray at a COA, but things
>generally turn out ok, as what happened with the "seeded" shell
>collecting trip at the COA breakfast on the beach event, remember?
>(Other notables: remember last year's dive trip? and for real COA trivia
>buffs, remember the wet,wet,wet boat trip collecting fieldtrip at
>Sanibel 1982?).  She sadly passed away on a shelling trip to the south
>Pacific, but I will always remember, when I see a Broward Shell Club
>pin, her help for novice convention planners.  She will always be
>appreciated and remembered in my heart (and her legacy ontinues with her
>shell collecting family!).
>
>Pins are memories for shell collectors!
>
>Alan Gettleman
>Merritt Island, FL
>Member, The Greater St. Louis Shell Club, among several other fine
>clubs.
 
Alan,
        Can you get me a price for the Greater St. Louis Shell Club pin?
It is one that we can't find.  My wife's collection hasn't found a new
addition in two years and is getting dusty from not working on it.  Thank
you in advance?
Dan Yoshimoto
 
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Dan & Hiromi Yoshimoto
1164 Vista Dr.
Eureka, California
        95503-6018
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