This is the sixth of seven articles concerning the History of the Club. 

Joel Johnstone

Newsletter Hardcopy Archives 

The first official news bulletin of the Albuquerque Gem & Mineral club was published in 1953 sometime shortly after the general meeting in January. For current numbering purposes the single page letter is considered Volume 0. The editor, Louis W. Heister expresses a desire to publish monthly. Our archives are spotty in those early years and we don’t find many hardcopies of the bulletin. The only other newsletter we have for 1953, or at least portions of it, is the June issue. Our records are missing 1954 entirely – don’t know if they are missing or just not published. The next issue we have a copy of is March of 1955 and then 6 other issues.

These early issues are typed and photocopied or dittoed (you remember those blue copies from school). From the July 1961 newsletter – “The kind-hearted, thoughtful, and understanding board members, voted to buy a new mimeograph machine for the Club, at the last board meeting. The one we have now is getting old and very undependable. This newsletter is the first mimeographing done on the new machine.” They typically don’t have much except the year on them – no volume, issue, month or even page numbers. Most were just one or two pages in length. We are missing 3 months in 1956, the entire year in 1957, then pick up again in 1958. Some of these years appear to have newsletters sent out about every two weeks, which would match up with the number of meetings each month.

Officially Volume and Issue numbering didn’t start until the January 1970 issue which is labeled Volume XXVI (26) Number 1. They continued this sequence until 1980, when for some reason the volume number reverted back to XXVI (26). This sequence continued until 1987 when the volume number jumped to XXXIV (34) for the last two months of the year. 1988 then started as XXXV (35). This sequence continues through today. 

The mid to late 90’s were evidently difficult for the editors. 1994 is correctly volume XLI (41). For some reason the editor changed the volume number to XL (40) in the August issue and continued the error through November, but corrected it for the special December issue. 1995 is correctly volume XLII (42). For some reason the editor changed the volume number to XLIII (43) in the July issue and continued the error through the end of 1995. 1996 should  have  been  volume  XLIII 

(43). But because Volume 43 was started in July of 1995, the editor labeled 1996 as Volume XLIV (44). 1997 continued this error and was labeled Volume XLV (45) – it should have been XLIV (44). The error was finally corrected the next year by making 1998 Volume XLV (45) which it should have been in the first place which solved the issue from there on out. 

Awards 

As the first newsletter states, the club was slow in the department of establishing a newsletter. Our records indicate we started participating in the RMFMS Bulletin contest as early as 1970. 

In 1971 the News Nuggets gets third place in “Group 2” in the competition. 

In the June 1977 News Nuggets editor Regina Modreski announced that the News Nuggets took first place in the RMFMS Bulletin Competition Small Bulletins Category. Then in September the News Nuggets was awarded third place in the “New Editor” category for the American Federation bulletin contest. According to Regina, “We lost a lot of points for not having more short items relating to the hobby.” 

In January of 1987 the club was informed that the News Nuggets received the fifth place award in the Rocky Mountain Federation Bulletin contest for small bulletins. 

 In 1996 the News Nuggets took third place in the RMFMS competition. As Paul Greenfield, Editor stated in the June 1996 issue; “There was good advice and great encouragement. Two issues of the News Nuggets were submitted to the RMFMS bulletin contest. We obtained a third place award. The contest is an evaluation (similar to the competitive exhibition awards) based on a structured judging format. We were judged fairly on the basis of what we submitted. The bulletins submitted did not have any personal news of members; I might add few of our bulletins did. One of the bulletins had no articles from the AMFS, RMFMS, or exchange bulletins. That bulletin also had no hints, safety information, book reviews or humor. The other bulletin was downgraded because the name and date was not on each page, and not all articles were credited with an author. Other than the lack of personal news the short comings were technical errors and omissions of the editor. I believe a large club has more of the characteristics of a professional organization than it does of a social club.” The News Nuggets received an honorable mention at the AFMS competition. 

In 2001 Editor Orlando Garcia took third place in the RMFMS Bulletin Competition for New Editors. In 2002 the News Nuggets took First Place in the RMFMS Bulletin Competition Large Newsletter Category and 10th in the AFMS National Competition. 

Next: The Newsletter Masthead & Editors Through the Years 

First Published: AGMC News Nuggets Vol 64 #2 February, 2017