Innholdsfortegnelse for June 2019 i COINage

Coin collecting in the U.S. has been a rough-and-tumble pursuit since it first fired up in the 1850s. Kindred collecting areas such as stamps have never shown a comparable tendency toward the vigorous disputes that have long enlivened the numismatic world. Part of the resiliency of coin collecting can be attributed to the composition of the coins themselves: Coins are made from metal and, unlike stamps, are innately easier to store and preserve. Historians believe that popular coin collecting can be traced back to the decision of the U.S. Mint and Treasury to discontinue the copper large cents and half cents in 1857, replacing them with a new 19mm copper-nickel Flying Eagle cent and simultaneously eliminating well-worn foreign silver coins then in widespread use. Pioneer collectors began trying to assemble…

In the past year, I have reviewed several customers’ coin collections and sadly detected one or more counterfeit coins. In one instance, the majority of one person’s collection consisted of counterfeit proof Buffalo one-ounce gold coins, with all coins appearing in what looked like genuine NGC holders. The holders themselves were fraudulent. Many of these counterfeits seem to have been “Made in China.” Other collectors I helped had counterfeit American Eagle gold coins, as well as counterfeit Morgan, Peace, and Trade dollars. Some counterfeit Trade dollars were easily spotted, in that they used dates when no Trade dollars were minted. In other cases, the counterfeit Morgan and Peace dollars were made of nickel, copper, and zinc and rang with too high a pitch compared to a real silver dollar when…

On April 24th, in the year 1184 B.C., when the city of Troy fell to Greek invaders, the Trojans hauled the “gift” left by the Greeks, the great wooden horse, into the walls of Troy. Another April 24th, this one in the year 2017, is also the anniversary of the last day that the Bitcoin/gold ratio was under one, a great gift to hard money investors that can overcome a decade of indoctrination against Bitcoin. One way to quantify the relationship between gold and Bitcoin is to compare the ratio of Bitcoin to gold. The recent crash in the BTC/XAU (Bitcoin/Gold) index from 14 to just over three may represent a similar buying opportunity; I note bullish technical divergences in this ratio, and the overall hysterically bearish sentiments towards Bitcoin…

David J. Camire is a collector, grader, conservator and authority on mint errors and modern minting technology and production. He has achieved great fame and renown as the president of Numismatic Conservation Services (NCS) and has been at NCS since it was founded in 2001. David, in his role as conservator, has handled many numismatic rarities and has been involved with the conservation of coins recovered from several shipwrecks including the S.S. Republic, S.S. New York, and S.S. Pulaski. An added benefit to working at NCS is his ability to consult and work with museums worldwide. David is an active volunteer at the Smithsonian Institution’s Museum of American History in helping to preserve the National Numismatic Collection. He has also consulted and worked with the Shanghai and Shenyang museums in…

[ATLANTA, GEORGIA] The second edition of Curious Currency: The Story of Money from the Stone Age to the Internet Age by Robert Leonard includes a foreword by Kenneth Bressett. In it, the award-winning author states, “In Curious Currency, with a fresh approach to understanding the nature of money in all its various forms, author and researcher Robert Leonard presents an entertaining overview of what can only be called a most unusual and bizarre assemblage of items that were once used to facilitate trade.” He goes on to say that Leonard’s study of societies’ use of nonstandard items to meet their monetary needs can lead one to the conclusion that most forms of money and wealth are based on faith. Bressett continues, “What many students term as ‘odd and curious,’ ‘primitive,’…

Since the dawn of time, people have tried to keep items of value protected from the elements and, thereby, remaining in pristine condition. This, of course, is a difficult matter, as it is impossible to know if succeeding generations will even care about what was important in an earlier time. Coins were first struck in Lydia, a small country on the Aegean Sea, about 600 B.C., and there is little doubt that collecting arose soon afterwards. How would coins have been kept in those days? The most valuable would have been stored in linen or some other type of cloth, but the majority would simply have been placed in a small leather bag. The bag would have been kept in a safe place or perhaps buried in a jar in…

Protection and preservation are the common allies of collectors and investors alike, and deterioration and damage are the common enemies. So be forewarned: You’ll never achieve your objectives, whether you are a collector or investor, unless you take care of your coins. A collector once came to me with a group of coins that once had been – and still should have been – truly incredible. The group contained a Liberty Seated half dollar with spectacular cameo contrast and beautiful toning, several highly desirable and scarce-date Indian cents, and a high-grade, scarce-date Barber dime. All of the coins were well preserved – or at least the client thought they were, since all had been stored in nice, soft vinyl flips. The trouble was, those flips were made of PVC –…

[CHICAGO, ILLINOIS] The Chicago Coin Club announced Virgil Michael Brand as the fourth person to be inducted into its Hall of Fame (www.chicagocoinclub.org/projects/hof). According to the club, Virgil Brand worked as a bookkeeper for his father’s brewery. In 1899 he took the money he received from his father’s cash-out and established his own brewery, the Brand Brewing Company, with an eventual capital of $1,000,000, which operated until shut down by Prohibition in 1920. Brand began his collection in 1889, buying individually, in groups, and entire collections en bloc. He recorded every acquisition in a series of ledgers. At the time of his death, the collection included more than 350,000 pieces (worth $2,000,000, according to a European dealer with knowledge of the collection), plus a substantial numismatic library. He left no…