GoldFinger1969

Impressive collection, congrats !

You think the number of dealers is UP from pre-Covid or 10 or 15 years ago ?

In their defense, they serve a niche that is part of our greater community. Sort of like how baseball Fantasy players are part of the fandom of baseball....but fans like myself detest fantasy baseball.

I'm probably wrong but I would guess around 1990 and the Coin Bubble of 1989-90 ?

You have multiple hoards for both Morgans and Peace Dollars ? I'd be interested in knowing which ones, besides the obvious GSA 1970's release. A few recent Morgan hoards got their own labels. I track hoards for Saint-Gaudens Double Eagles.

Folks.....WAY WORSE than an off-topic post...or politics....or soliciting....we've gone into direct personal attacks and risk threads or the entire site being shut down. Let's just stick to COINS and COIN-RELATED stuff, OK ? Otherwise, none of us will be here. Disagree about coins or stuff related to coins. Fight about grades or value or proof status. Not the personal. If we can't do it for ourselves, let's do it for our friend, DaveLange, OK ? Peace........

What do you want done ? What is the problem as you see it ?

I would think that if the number of dealers is down it is because of demographics....most dealers skew OLDER and started their businesses in the 1970's or 1980's.

I'm surprised....unless she is well-off and doesn't need the $$$, I would think she'd be looking to get rid of the coins ASAP....unless she wants to keep working in the store because it keeps her occupied. Guess it would depend on her age.

Are you a collector or did somebody just give you a few random Morgan Dollars and you want to know if they are worth much more than $25 each ?

How active are you in collecting GSA Morgans ? Are you active online -- HA, Ebay, GC -- or do you go to shows or look in obscure places like Etsy and Craigslist ?

Curious if they have any thoughts on the state of the hobby....are new coin dealerships being formed...are existing ones reporting business is way up....are coin shows (local/regional/national) still seeing a post-pandemic surge.....etc.

If you want something that will grab people....raw gold nuggets juxtaposed with a brilliant gold proof coin definitely hits the "mine" and "mint" parts of the title. Good luck with the book, Roger. I'm curious how much work it will take to revise it compared to the original.

How about "From Mine To Mint 2: The Search For More Money" Spaceballs.....

Didn't you state in a back-and-forth on Saint proofs that the mirror-like proofs most of us who started collecting in the 1960's or 1970's associate with a "proof coin"....didn't commence until the 1930's ? Maybe it was somebody else.

From Wikipedia: "Part of the bank's required reserves were held in silver dollars, which provided the opportunity to profit from a rise in silver prices. The holdings, estimated to be 1.5 million silver dollars, was sold to a coin dealer to raise money in the early 1980s."

Thanks Jack...nice pics. Conder's question remains....if CI went under in 1984....then I presume that some of the assets including bags of coins took a few years to reach NGC when they commenced operations (in 1987). The label from above, as per Conder's classic NGC slab thread here at NGC (where else ! ) shows that this coin was holdered in or after July 2003. So almost 20 years after CI went under and many years after they would have been sold. Interested in how they determined chain-of-custody for the bags to make certain they were part of the CI Hoard. Maybe down the line DLange or another NGC person here can chime in.

How can you tell it was cleaned/polished ?

The MCMVII UHRs were called patterns -- not coins -- so in theory they would have been exempt from the EO. Charles Barber and his estate at one time had 8 of the patterns/coins; if still in one place in 1933, you could make a case they were exempt like gold pottery or other gold artifacts. This pattern/coin clearly would have been deemed "unique" and qualified as exempt under the EO's coin exemption, I would think. I think there are still lots of Saints in SDBs and probably even a few MCMVII HR's. But even in 1992 I was surprised to learn that 1 (maybe 2) of the UHRs had been "lost" for decades, since gold had risen hugely in price and the MCMVII UHR had sold for $200,000 in the mid-1970's. All of the MCMVII UHRs originally went to VIPs or Mint personnel....you would think their heirs or estates all knew about the original provenance of the coin/patterns....but I guess somewhere along the line a few were given to or inherited by folks who had no idea what they had.

MCMVII UHR: The PR58 Sans Serif pattern that was struck during the 1st batch of UHR's back in February 1907....was "found" in 1992 by the current coin head at Bonham's auction house. It was found at an estate sale and the subsequent sale was the first one recorded in the lineage of this coin. Apparently, he found another UHR in 1995, too. Hard to believe that a coin like this could be "missing" for over 80 years and wind up in something like an estate sale with no notice or publicity whatsoever.

I agree with these points. I know I would not trust a computer scan, even a sophisticated one, to judge a Saint. My own eyes + TPG + CAC (maybe). Good questions....I guess that is where AI could come in. But it may be an issue that appears simple on paper but in reality is much more complicated -- like self-driving autos.

For modern coins, and probably for the bulk of classic coins, I think Hi-Def scanners could do a reasonable job with MOST coins. Certainly moderns, where 99.9% of the coins are 70, 69, or 68's.

Interesting....that's about the equivalent of a $2.50 quarter Eagle.....I guess European mints struck smaller coins because they were more likely to be used by their citizenry. The bulk of our mintages were for the larger denomination coins, Eagles and Double Eagles. I would guess that the European countries used gold bars in their trade settlements, since it would be unecommical and a waste to have to use the small denomination coins they struck most.

Beautiful coins, BTW.

Am I correct that cameo/mirror proofs came into existence at this time for American coinage ? I don't believe that before the 1930's that U.S. coinage had that feature (at least not Saints). Today, all proofs whatever the denomination have that shiny mirror surface.