The New York Numismatic Club is related to the ANS but it is a private club of many mysteries - a near secret society. Founded in 1908 at Keens Chop House on West 36th as an offshoot of the ANS, perhaps in a fall out over the location of the club (the NYNC wanted to meet in a downtown location while the ANS's headquarters at Audubon Terrace were uptown at West 155th), its members meet once a month for dinner and they haven't missed a meeting since.
http://www.forbes.com/2006/02/11/coin-collectors-numismatics_cx_lh_money06_0214coins.html
125 copies of a book about this club has been published and was review in the E-Sylum blog.
http://www.coinbooks.org/esylum_v13n11a03.html
I got a chance to look at the book in ANS's library. Some interesting tidbits:
Within the world of numismatics, there are many sub-groups, categories and areas of interest. So even though many people might think that the general notion of numismatics is of a highly specialized niche culture, once one learns more about it, they discover that it is not enough to state an interest in numismatics - you need to specify your interest within numismatics. There are of course coin collectors who do it for fun, but there are also investors, historians, archeologists and bibliophiles to name a few.
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