The date that the original club called the North Shore Coin Club was created has been lost to history and the earliest reference to the club was in the Vancouver Numismatic Society's newsletter of September 1960. The Vancouver Numismatic Society newsletter of February 1961 announced that the North Shore Coin Club was changing its name to the North Shore Numismatic Society (NSNS).
According to the records at the Royal Canadian Numismatic Association the club joined the then-Canadian Numismatic Association on February 13, 1961. After operating for several years, the club became dormant.
In December 1972, a group of people interested in organizing a coin club for the North Shore in Vancouver held a formative meeting at the North Vancouver Recreation Centre. The man responsible for setting up the meeting was Jack Brewer, who contacted all the interested parties. Attending the meeting were Mr. and Mrs. Brewer, Mr. And Mrs. G. Lazeo, Janet Levine, John Loven, Don Mitchell, Al Partington, Jeremy Day and Ray Mah. An action committee was formed to get the club started and Jeremy Day was appointed President, Ray Mah as Vice President and John Loven as Secretary Treasurer.
Soon regular meeting were being held at the Legion Hall on the second Thursday of each month. Club membership and attendance grew rapidly as collectors started to respond to the new club. In the meantime, the executive learned that the previous North Shore Numismatic Society did in fact still exist although it was inactive at this time. The executive was able to obtain the constitution and the membership roster of the former club. The previous members would keep their original membership numbers while the new members would start with the base number of 200.
From this favorable start, the NSNS published a monthly information sheet and held a formal election. The meetings were moved from the legion to the North Shore Neighborhood House, and in order to obtain continuity of meeting nights with other Vancouver area coin clubs, the NSNS moved it’s meetings to the third Thursday of each month. The club continued to meet at the Neighborhood House until September 1974.
During 1974, plans were launched for the club to hold a coin show in the fall of 1975. A great number of club members volunteered their time and effort to present their first group project. On October 25th and 26th, 1975 during a two-day rainstorm, the club held its first coin show in the St. Edmunds Church Hall Annex. The club managed to pull off the first of many successful coin shows.
The facilities of the St. Edmunds Hall proved to be extremely suitable and as a result, the club meetings and the annual coin show remained there until 1983. Later, The meetings were then moved to the North Shore Museum and Archives on Chesterfield & 4th Avenue and the coin shows were held at the Harry Jerome Recreation Centre on Lonsdale & 23rd. In 1988, an expanded membership necessitated a move to a larger hall at the St. Andrews United Church Annex on St. Georges Avenue & 11th.
The momentum of that first show was a steppingstone to furthering the clubs recognition in the collecting community.
In 1976 a design completion was held for a club medallion. The winning design chosen from the many submitted was based on an old Indian legend about the North Shore Lions, submitted by Dennis Vance. Although the design was selected in 1976, the club had to wait until 1986 to produce this piece with a reverse design. This was the beginning of the “Kindred Spirit” series of medallions.
In 1978 the NSNS went on to host the Pacific Northwest Numismatic Association’s 33rd annual show. The first and only time that it was held in Canada. The show was held at the Coach House Inn in North Vancouver. This was definitely the numismatic event of the year. Proving once again the unrestrained boundaries of our hobby, as dealers and collectors from both sided of the border unified in North Vancouver BC for a once in a lifetime coin show.
In 1990 the North Shore Numismatic Society hosted the Canadian Numismatic Association’s national convention at the Hyatt Regency Hotel in Vancouver. The club helped celebrate the C.N.A’s 40th Anniversary with a convention medal, “Hyatt Regency 40 Years C.N.A”.
Entering it’s second millennium the North Shore Numismatic Society and it’s sister club, the Vancouver Numismatic Society co-sponsored the 2002 C.N.A convention at the Renaissance Hotel in Vancouver.
In 2004 because of rising hall rental cost the club decided to move it’s annual coin show from the North Vancouver Recreation Centre to the Oakridge Mall Auditorium. The shows were held at the Auditorium until 2014. Pending renovations forced the club to move our shows to a new location. In 2015, we began holding shows at the Nikkei National Museum and Cultural Centre in Burnaby. Since 2015, we have increased the number of shows at Nikkei to five annual shows. No other club in Canada hosts that many shows. In addition, over time, we have invited more stamps dealers to our shows and the diversification has helped promote both hobbies and increased attendance at our shows. The shows are known called the Coins, Stamps & Collectibles Show.
In 2005, In an ongoing effort to make the club’s meetings most interesting and to offer a wider variety of programs to the members, the club had a cabinet built to contain the clubs library and the recently purchased audio visual equipment. With the advancement in technology, we have replaced the cabinet, the library, the TV and VCR with a projector, a laptop and programs prepared on PowerPoint.
In 2011, due to declining attendance at our monthly meetings, the club moved from St. Andrews United Church in North Vancouver to the Bonsor Recreation Centre in Burnaby. This location is very central to various municipalities and resulted in an increasing attendance since the move. Our meetings now average between 25 to 35 members with a record of 42 attendees at one meeting. At every meeting, we have a Show and Tell, followed by a numismatic PowerPoint, refreshments, and an auction. Attendees can purchase tickets to win door prizes and a 50/50 draw.
In March 2020, the COVID pandemic closed our meeting and show venues and the club resorted to using Zoom as a virtual platform to hold our monthly meetings. It was very successful with a record of 44 attendees attending our 2021 Zoom Christmas meeting. With the re-opening of the venues in 2022, live meetings and a coin show were resumed in September 2022.
The North Shore Numismatic Society continues to be an active force in the coin collecting world, with a goal to promote the interest and enjoyment of the world’s oldest hobby.
2024 update: We are still going strong! Our current president since 2015 is Michael Souza who has been involved with the club since 1987. He is ably assisted by vice-president Gene Simms.
A lifelong friend to numismatics, Ray took great pleasure in sharing his love of the hobby with fellow collectors of all ages. A co-founder of the rebirth of the North Shore Numismatic Society in North Vancouver BC in the 1970’s, an active member in local, national and international clubs and a former regional director of the Canadian Numismatic Association. Ray was tireless in his pursuit of new ideas and a helping hand to enrich the hobby he loved. To first time acquaintances or old friends at a coin show or other numismatic events, Ray’s opening line was always
