GoldFinger1969

On 12/9/2022 at 10:45 PM, VKurtB said:

They HAD TO get into the vault in 1937, to commence the melting into the big bars. That’s when some other DE’s got swapped for 25 or so 1933’s - every one of which passed through Izzy Switt’s grubby little hands, EVEN the Farouk/Fenton example. 

You're just speculating.

If someone at the Philly Mint sold them to Switt, what crime did he commit ?  They could have been the personal property of the seller....could have been coins of numismatic value.  Someone in the Philly Mint might have come into the coins properly and or done a harmless exchange and then sold them to Switt or someone else.

Yeah, once the order to melt all coins was known, you'd probably want to get a few of whatever you could for every year.  I don't think that's a crime for all non-1933's or the 1933's, either.

By your own admission, you don't like U.S. gold coins, so I don't expect you to see things through the eyes of a collector of that age.

On 12/9/2022 at 10:27 PM, VKurtB said:

I’m saying that nobody had a 1933 until 1937. And then relatively all hell broke loose very rapidly. That tells me they were all in the Mint vault until melting began in 1937. 

All at the Mint...maybe.  Not necessarily the vault.  You couldn't get into the vault.

Except to steal 1928's......

On 12/9/2022 at 4:34 PM, VKurtB said:

I don’t care if the “right amount” of gold from bags marked 1933 was melted. They are not all equivalent. In 1937, when melting happened, all 1933 DE’s were unambiguously illegal to hold in private hands.

Define "illegal."  

Are you saying that the Mint higher-ups couldn't have exchanged a few (paid for in other gold coin) if they wanted them for numismatic reasons ?  There was NO OFFICIAL prohibition on the release of 1933 DEs -- they just never were because of what was happening in March and April 1933.  

If you wanted some 1933's once you realized they'd all be melted, who's to say that a Mint higher-up didn't let a mid-level Mint worker have that privilege ?  And if they had wanted to do it in 1933 or 1934 or 1935...but didn't have the $$$....maybe they were told they could do it up to the day of melting.  Or something like that.

Charles Barber and other Mint officials took advantage of their status, as long as everything was an arms-length transaction...ho harm, no foul. 

Also, the Coiner had 1933's at his cage.  Both from the assay commission plus the undercount of 1932's.

On 12/9/2022 at 4:29 PM, VKurtB said:

Yeah, and the 1913 Liberty nickels were sought by a guy running an ad offering to buy them, when he already had all 5. There is plenty of “disinformation by advertisement” in this field. 

Smart move...he created free publicity, driving up the price !! 

On 12/9/2022 at 3:50 PM, VKurtB said:

But you already know that about me. I am 100% utterly convinced that each and every step, from Mint to Switt’s possession, was a crime. 

Maybe, althought I disagree.  And it's been established that many of the facts that the government & Tripp relied on were false.

On 12/9/2022 at 3:50 PM, VKurtB said:

Yup. I never even CONSIDERED the possibility that the 1933 was seen as anything other than a world apart. Only those bent on criminal or tortious behavior would have PRETENDED that the 1933 was just another tough date. 

You obviously haven't read the advertisements and correpsondences among dealers, collectors, etc. from that time.  The 1933 was considered in a group of "tough" coins to obtain not some unique stand-alone.

It's really no different than the belief that the 1927-D was plentiful because many people who said they saw one or knew of a sale in fact were referencing 1927's or 1927-S's.  Confusion and lack of a central TPG-like counting mechanism made knowledge of how many coins were out there very difficult.

On 12/9/2022 at 3:24 PM, VKurtB said:

Totally unsupported speculation with no basis in fact. 

What is ?  The rarity of the 1931s and 1932s alongside the 1933's as opposed to a separate category ?

On 12/9/2022 at 3:08 PM, World Colonial said:

Yes. FMV is at a specific point in time.  (More) Common coins sell more regularly, usually very regularly.  FMV for all other coins is a (wide) range. There is no method to pre-determine FMV in advance.  When one of the most prominent coins comes up for sale, contributors here and on the PCGS Forum provide wide ranging estimates.

And imagine this in the 1930's where most of the information is dealer-to-dealer talk, rumours, hearsay, whatever. 

On 12/9/2022 at 2:24 PM, Quintus Arrius said:

Is it fair to say no one ever knows what the FMV of this coin is until it is sold?

I think there may have been a game of chicken going on.  If you wanted a coin...cheap...you'd say you recently sold or heard of some sales at a nicely discounted price.  Maybe you panic the other guy into selling.  Certainly this was alot more true in the 1930's when information was scarce than today when prices are a few clicks away. 

On 12/7/2022 at 3:49 PM, Geyer Coin Auctions said:

I think one of the reasons why so many 70 coins are graded now, is also because of the Mint's advancement over the years. Their also always trying to improve quality control. As time goes by, maybe 70 grade will be the norm and 69 and lower grades will be the scarcer coins. 

Definitely the case.....and with some coins like the 2009 UHR, it's almost impossible to tell the difference between a 70 and a 69....sometimes even a 68 (unless you're a super-sharp grader/collector).

Registry & Type Collectors:  We've talked here and in other threads about how many people collect Saint coinage.  

I looked at the total number of grading events at PCGS and NGC for the 1908 No Motto.  Interestingly, the premium in high grades really collapses right at the MS-65 level.  If you include that grade, you have a maximum of 65,000 coins available in that grade or higher (it's less, accounting for double-counts/re-submissions). 

Exclude the MS-65 level, and you have about 18,000 coins in MS-66 and higher, which does NOT totally cover the estimated 25,000 Type/Partial-Registry player estimate I saw a few years ago.  The premium here accelerates in a way that the jump from MS-64 to MS-65 does not.  It appears that demand for the Registry and Type collectors is satiated by that 65 grade which helps zero-in on the number of collectors.

So those guestimates I had for registry, type, and investor participants in Saint coinage look like they are in the ballpark.

On 12/9/2022 at 9:46 AM, World Colonial said:

I know you disagree with me, but the history to which you refer is nothing more than marketing.  This is true for practically any coin. 

The history I am talking about is in the books and research that I have read or done.  It's certainly NOT on the label so it's not being used to market.  But I am admittedly unique in that regard. 

On 12/9/2022 at 9:46 AM, World Colonial said:

Practically any coin is too generic where the supposed history has any actual connection.  The coin exists, sat in a cabinet for decades or longer until it might have made it into a TPG holder, and that's it.  Had nothing to do with anything that happened then or since, whether it circulated or not.  It's probably compelling as a marketing selling point to those who are already inclined to become collectors, but not anybody else.  If someone is interested in a (supposed) historical connection for a specific time and place, there are far cheaper options than some "investment" coin.  This is especially true for the most expensive US coinage generically.  With Saints, I have posted a couple of times that on one occasion, I discovered that most or all of St. Gaudens artwork is a lot cheaper than the most expensive Saints.  It's on either the Christie's or Sotheby's websites.  This tells anyone everything they need to know, if they will actually look at the subject impartially, which most coin collectors probably won't because it is contrary to their personal preference.

That's one perspective.  But art and coins are not interchangeable so I don't think someone like me, hoping to eventually get my "artwork" in the form of an MCMVII HR, wants some painting for my wall.  I don't. 

On 12/9/2022 at 9:28 AM, World Colonial said:

The only time this seems to have happened was in the 70's.  More recently, gold has trended with other asset classes.

I don't think they'll track those asset classes. 

On 11/22/2022 at 11:51 PM, Cat Bath said:

I'd say as few as a dozen new set collectors with money could really screw things up.

Could be as few as 2 bidders if they both want "the best" and there's only 1 coin with that pedigree. 

On 12/8/2022 at 10:10 PM, Quintus Arrius said:

In cannot be stated with any degree of certainty exactly what happened to the 100+ million Roosters minted, i.e., how many were melted down, how many left the country, or how many ultimately survived.

OK...so that figure above is MINTAGE not SURVIVORS.  Got it !! 

It seems like record-keeping over in Europe/France isn't as detailed as here in the U.S....and the books on the coins don't seem to focus on this information either. 

Saint-like books like those by RWB, Akers/Ambio, and Bowers seem rare or non-existent for Roosters and other European coins.  I'll look around for some primers.

On 12/8/2022 at 9:53 PM, zadok said:

...120-140 million plus or minus....not rare coins only one collectible date....

Wow, that's alot of survivors...I guess mintage was even higher.

Any idea how many 100 Franc Roosters, which would be close to our 1 ounce coins ?

It wasn't just the 1933 that was highly sought in the 1930's.  The 1931 and 1932 were also wanted. 

I have actual price transactions and some auction catalog ask/realized prices -- might take me a bit to find and compile but I will post it here when found -- for part of the Fab Five and 1933 Saint.  This would be the 1931, 1932, and the 1933 (I guess the 1931-D they didn't care about since it was a mint mark).

Year & Mintages:

Saints from 1931 and 1932 started showing up in 1936.  Before that, they were hard to find.  Like the 1933 Indian Head, because they were officially offered for release by the Coiner, none could be claimed to be an "illegal" coin to own.

In May 1936, 102 1931's and 175 1932's started to show up in New York City and Philadelphia.  They were considered super-scare before then with coin catalogs from 1936 showing $75/coin.

According to collector James Macallister none of these coins were in circulation among collectors for several years prior to May 1936, when Israel Switt began to distribute them.

It's very possible that Switt and all the collectors/dealers from the 1930's did NOT know that in fact the 1933 was NOT circulating outside of the coins that escaped the Philly Mint.  Those who said it was super-scarce or tought to find or expensive to own...may have been going from hearsay, rumour, and chit-chat with other dealers and collectors.  The 1931 and 1932 were believed just as rare but those WERE seen and owned and held by actual people so nobody had any reason to doubt they were out there.  The 1933 was in the same class -- nobody had actually seen one/them until 1936 but everyone just assumed others had seen them and/or had a few.

So....the 1931, 1932, and 1933 were in a group all together instead of the 1931 & 1932 with the 1933 off in its own rarified air.  To collectors and dealers, the 1933 wasn't considered THE coin to own or the rarest by itself, just one of a bunch of tough ones to get with infrequent sales.

QA, did you post here how many TOTAL survivors of all Roosters are out there to compare to the Saints 3.7 MM ?

Even if your figure includes different size coins, it would be of use.

The progression strike examples for the UHR were:  15 to 55 metric tons, 5 pics in increments of 10 tons.  The obverse looked really bad at 15 and 25 tons; at 35 it was much tougher to see.  For the reverse, you saw a really fat rim even at 45 tons and needed 55 to clear-it-up.

Since we are talking about 1908 Wells Fargo No-Motto Saints...does anybody have one in a high grade ?  

It seems the lack of return address caused the problem, but putting it out there could be an indication of what is inside.

You need a phony return address name if you are into gold or jewelry....like.....JOE'S DISCOUNT GROCERY COUPONS 

On 12/7/2022 at 6:21 PM, Quintus Arrius said:

Hoards of gold are waltzed thru Customs and welcomed with open arms but ol' Q.A. places an order with an internationally recognized coin emporium and his three gold Roosters are seized at Newark and he is ordered to submit to an interrogation over the phone, or else the Roosters go back in five days.  I don't get it; I guess I never will.  (Oh, and I had to pay some type of tariff for $33.  I still wonder what that was all about.) 

Is that true ?   Why were they seized ?  How did they know what was in the package ?

How long ago ?

BTW, for those of you who have the coin or the booklet:  the booklet that came with the 2009 UHR has a very good sequence of how the coin looks under different tonnage strikes.  The coin looks deformed when the pressure is too low and then everything is clear and raised and sharp when it meets the minimum threshold. 

If this is true -- and I have no reason to doubt David Bowers, his passion and integrity seem unparalleled -- for a while, even up to the early-1960's, the trade bags of Double Eagles and other U.S. gold coins were still there in bulk.  You could apparently buy thousands, even tens of thousands, no problem.

I wonder if there wasn't interest because most of them were commons/generic years/worn....they may have only wanted the more scarce and rare.

Q. David Bowers, COINWORLD November 2015: 

“In 1961, Europe was a fertile hunting ground for American coin dealers. In London there were many American Colonial and early federal coins to be had from the three leading dealers — Spink, Seaby and Baldwin. In Switzerland, banks had gold coins, mainly double eagles, that had been in storage for decades.

There was no difference in price between an EF coin and one that was lustrous Mint State, all were the Swiss equivalent of, say, $40.25.  I asked how many I could buy at the ask price, and the officer said that right now he could confirm an order for 100,000 coins, but for a larger quantity he would have to leave the room to check!”