Award medal recipient.
Collector Jack Young of Dayton, OH, and coin dealer Matt Dinger of Indianapolis, IN, were honored by the Anti-Counterfeiting Educational Foundation at a special awards ceremony Sept. 26 during the Great American Coin and Collectibles Show in Rosemont, IL.
Don Ketterling, a member of the ACEF Board of Directors, presented Dinger with the Alan Kreuzer Memorial Award 3-inch bronze medal. Young, who was unable to attend the ceremony due to a family medical emergency, will receive his medal award in Dayton.
The award is named for the late Alan “Al” Kreuzer, a Castro Valley, CA, coin dealer who was instrumental in alerting the hobby about counterfeit third-party certification holders and fake insert labels. After his death in 2016, his daughter, Chandra, donated $50,000 to establish the award and to help launch the Anti-Counterfeiting Task Force, now integrated into the work of ACEF.
Young, an engineer by training, collects low-grade large cents. He began collecting as a youth and encountered his first large cent when his grandmother took him to a coin shop in the Dayton Arcade. He joined Early American Coppers in 2002 and became interested in deceptively struck counterfeits in the fall of 2015 by a friend and an EAC dealer’s discovery of a fake 1798 “S-158” Draped Bust Cent.
Young’s counterfeit research during the ensuing years has led to more than 100 published articles about counterfeits in state and national numismatic organizational journals and commercial numismatic publications as well as to contributions published in books on various series. He is founder of two Facebook groups with the primary mission of educating the collecting public about counterfeits: “The Dark Side” group, which now has more than 800 members, and the “Fun with Fakes” group that has grown to 250 members in the past year.
He has also assisted ACEF with presentations about counterfeits and their effects on the hobby and marketplace in meetings with staff of the U.S. Senate Finance Committee, Secret Service agents, and Customs and Border Protection staff.
He received the Professional Numismatic Guild’s Sol Kaplan Award in 2021 in recognition of his work to remove counterfeit coins from ecommerce platforms and the ACEF’s Alan Kreuzer Award in 2019 for service rendered as an expert in identifying counterfeit coins.
Dinger began collecting coins at age 7, sold his first coin by age 15, and became co-owner of Lost Dutchman Rare Coins in Indianapolis at age 22. As senior numismatist at Lost Dutchman Rare Coins for the past 20 years he has led the shop’s research, sales, and preservation efforts. He has served as president of the Indianapolis Coin Club and is an active member of the Professional Numismatists Guild, Central States Numismatic Society, and the American Numismatic Association.
In 2010 Dinger launched The Coin Show Podcast, aiming to fill a media gap for engaging, hobbyist-focused coin content. He co-hosts the podcast with fellow creator Mike Nottelmann. The podcast delves into news of both U.S. and world coins, providing context and observations from a broad spectrum of numismatic experts, including those who are on the frontlines of educating the public about counterfeits in the marketplace. To date they have produced 249 episodes, all archived at their website.
Dinger has also served as a consultant to the U.S. Secret Service, the FBI, and the U.S. Postal Inspection Service for investigations dealing with crimes related to coin counterfeiting, thefts, and numismatic scams.
Immediately following the award presentation Dinger, Ketterling, and ACEF Executive Director Beth Deisher were featured in a special taping of the Coin Show Podcast.
The Anti-Counterfeiting Educational Foundation is funded entirely by donations. Tax-deductible donations may be made to the 501(c)(3) non-profit Anti-Counterfeiting Educational Foundation by submitting the online donation form at www.acefonline.org.
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Thanks as always Charles!