2/26/2008 Professional tire service technicians know that lifting large tire and wheel assemblies can put a lot of extra stress on their backs, with the potential to cause serious injuries.

As World War II got underway, it quickly became obvious that massive quantities of copper and nickel were needed for the war effort. As a major industrial user of both metals at that time, the U.S. Mint began to look for alternative compositions for the cent and nickel coinage. In 1941, the three operating mints coined 1.1 billion cents and 300 million nickels. Eliminating copper from the cent coinage, reducing copper from the nickel coinage, and eliminating nickel from the nickel coinage would result in a savings of more than 4,000 tons of copper and 400 tons of nickel, based on the 1941 coinage.

Several companies were involved in development and testing of experimental compositions as replacement for copper in the cent. Much of the experimentation involved various plastic materials, hard rubber, and even tempered glass. At the same time, the Mint was looking into various metallic alternatives, including this white metal piece and zinc coated steel patterns, the latter currently unknown.

The Cast of Characters President Theodore Roosevelt, artist-sculptor Augustus Saint- Gaudens, Henry Hering and the chief engraver of the United States Mint, Charles Barber, played pivotal roles in the creation of one of our most beautiful coins in the history of the coinage of the United States.

Roosevelt was elected Governor of New York in 1899 and ascended to the office of Vice President of the United States in 1901. With the tragic shooting of President William McKinley on September 6, 1901, Theodore Roosevelt became President and was inaugurated on September 14, 1901. He ran for the office and was elected President in 1904.

France's biggest trove of Gaulish coins has been unearthed in Brittany. Archeologists found them while searching along the route of a bypass under construction in the Côtes d'Armor. The coins are in the hands of specialist restorers and will go on display in the département.

The trove consists of 545 gold-silver-copper coins: 58 staters and 487 quarterstaters. 'Stater' is the generic term for antique coins. They lay a foot beneath the earth's surface near Laniscat, 64km south of Saint-Brieuc, at a known Iron Age manor house or farm site, and date to 75- 50BC. They are very well preserved.

Rich Uhrich has been collecting coins since he was four years old. A large part of his collection will be auctioned by Stack's in Baltimore on Feb. 26 & 27. He has owned some of the coins that will be sold since he was fifteen, especially including large cents. Many others have been obtained in recent years. Uhrich's collection consists of about 4000 coins. He consigned nearly 1600 of them, which will be auctioned in around 540 lots.

He determined that more than 2000 of his coins are better suited for private sales than public auctions. Some of his 20th century coins are not valuable enough to warrant the costs of an auction process. Also, Uhrich is retaining a small number of coins, many of these are coins that he "fell in love with" and just cannot bring himself to sell.

Heritage Auction Galleries is awarding a complimentary second year of membership with the American Numismatic Association to young collectors who become junior members at 2008 ANA conventions.

1. A $4 gold piece is given what name?

2. What country uses the denomination ringgit?

3. What medals were given to native Americans by U.S. presidents as symbols of goodwill?

4. From 1950 to 1985, what three years were Proof sets not issued by the United States?

5. What are words and abbreviations surrounding the fields on coins and medals called?

Neale Kuperman, president and CEO of Rockland Toyota in Rockland, N.Y., was the winner of the 2008 Segway X2, given away by @utoRevenue, a division of Dominion Enterprises, at the recent NADA 2008 show in San Francisco.

On Monday, the District of Columbia forwarded three coin design proposals to the United States Mint. While each were unique, all three had at least one thing in common - the words "Taxation Without Representation." ...

TradingMarkets announces the launch of Up or Down, a free online game where contestants can win more than $14,000 in cash prizes by predicting the direction of stocks. (PRWeb Feb 26, 2008) Read the full story at http://www.prweb.com/releases/2008/02/prweb718483.htm