GoldFinger1969

On 11/17/2022 at 2:37 PM, VKurtB said:

What I lack in funds, I make up for MOSTLY in study and staying involved. 

Ditto.....it'd be great to buy more stuff regularly, but reading up about it...keeping notes and files (i.e., Hoards, Highest Prices and Coin Descriptions, etc.) is somewhat satisfying.

On 11/17/2022 at 2:29 PM, VKurtB said:

Really? That was the thing, huh? Okay. Not terribly typical though. You are quite the unicorn. 

A few of my investment contacts and circle bought the 2009 UHR direct from the Mint....their posts were on our emails and forum posts....I checked it out....led me to learning about the Original Saint-Gaudens Saints and UHR/HR's.

On 11/17/2022 at 2:29 PM, VKurtB said:

Really? That was the thing, huh? Okay. Not terribly typical though. You are quite the unicorn. 

It's funny...when I had the $$$ to pursue this hobby, I didn't have the time....when I had the time, I didn't have the $$$ !! 

On 11/17/2022 at 2:11 PM, Fenntucky Mike said:

Probably, (me speculating) wasn't there a sizable amount of money injected into the traditional collectibles market in the past few years because of crypto? How much of that is now gone?

That was the reason that the 2 buyers of CU/PCGS (including NY Mets hedge fund owner Steve Cohen) bought it.  Ditto BX and CCG/NGC.

The collectibles market was the reason for the purchases, not NFTs.  That was another cherry on top, I guess.  However....I wonder how many people buying Artekomusias (sp.)The Greek Freak or Michael Jordan Rookie Cards had turned $30,000 into $5 million in BitCoin or crypto.

Let's see what happens to NFT and tangible assets (i.e., sports cards) prices now that crypto and BitCoin are in the toilet.  I don't think the $$$ pumping up those sports cards and NFT prices was coming from stocks (even inflated tech stocks) and certainly not interest from 1-2% bond yields before the rise in yields in 2022 (hope some of you are taking advantage of this; I'd post my thoughts here if I can find the OT section).

I haven't seen an article talking about a record price for NFT or sports cards -- or even trophy real estate homes -- in MONTHS, if not back to 2021.

On 11/17/2022 at 2:03 PM, Fenntucky Mike said:

This could turn out to be a good business decision for BX, short term money maker then flip CCG. 

But I don't think it moves the needle for them.  I think CU/PCGS was bought for about $750 MM and the buyers were much smaller than BX.  

OTOH....it clearly is in the realm of "alternative assets" so in that sense it is up their ally and there aren't many TPGs to purchase.

On 11/17/2022 at 2:03 PM, VKurtB said:

Oh goodie, goodie!!! [sarcasm] More ignoramuses for us to re-educate after their miseducation by NGCX participation. 

They could be up-to-speed pretty soon.  I knew nothing of this hobby for the most part but was drawn in by the 2009 UHR Saint.

Caddyshack is a timeless classic, Back To School is a Rodney-only movie that is very well done.  Ted Knight, gone too soon, could be said to be the star of Caddyshack.  Great backup performances by Bill Murray, Brian Doyle Murray, and the rest of the cast who were pretty much nobodies at that time.

Always like seeing BTS because an old acquaintance had a super-short cameo in the film.

NFTs are directly tied to crypto.  I haven't seen any recent prices extolling the prices paid for NFTs.  The entire NFT, FTX, and crypto blowups are good for our hobby. 

You can HOLD what you own in your hand.  It might be overgraded...it might be overpriced....it might not pay any dividends or interest.  But raw gold, or holdered gold, is a tangible asset that won't collapse like these pie-in-the-sky creations.

You know, I've never seen that SS Republic label from NGC (or one from PCGS, either).  Maybe it was featured in forums in the early-2000's but I wasn't on them or reading them at that time.  Ditto any SSCA labels.

Looks pretty good....I like blue and has a picture of the ship.  Wonder if SSCA had a special one.

On 11/17/2022 at 1:49 PM, gmarguli said:

Yes, CCG was purchased by Blackstone. 

I'm surprised.....BX has hundreds of billions in assets, mostly alternative assets.  CCG/NGC isn't going to move the needle for them.

I wonder if this was a to-be-regretted NFT move.

What's it worth ?

On 11/17/2022 at 1:05 PM, gmarguli said:

This is what happens when your company gets bought out by a Wall Street firm that can crunch numbers, but hasn't a clue about the actual business. 

I thought CU/PCGS got bought out by private equity.  Did NGC change ownership recently ?

On 11/13/2022 at 11:18 AM, VietMedic6869 said:

I'm familiar with the GSA coins as I got an 1883CC and 1884CC back in 1973 or so.  I believe the GSA had a lottery on them and I managed to pick up both in the GSA holders.

You got some great coins -- Carson City is hot and you bought them for a fraction of what they command today.

Interesting....when Bowers and his group got outbid by A-Mark for the coins, they paid just over $7 MM for them back in the late-1970's I believe.

New diagnostic tests can give clues about cancer from blood samples.  They're relatively new, but offer fantastic progress. 

Many cancers that were death sentences 50 years ago are now very manageable.  Non-Hodgkins leukemia and other blood disorders, for instance.  But we still have some virulent ones that we have no defense against. 

OMG......

On 11/16/2022 at 11:54 PM, VKurtB said:

“Ehhh, I don’t think so.” Prescient. 

I'm just confused as to why he couldn't get tuna without celery in 1969. 

On 11/16/2022 at 11:39 PM, VKurtB said:

List of reputations that need to be trashed: Steph Curry  Tom Brady  Giselle Bundschen  Matt Damon  Major League Baseball Umpires  more?

Even Larry David of "SEINFELD" and "CURB" fame is being sued...and he WARNED them not to do it !!!  

On 11/16/2022 at 10:01 PM, Quintus Arrius said:

What a difference [not quite] a month makes..."Implosion of Trusted Exchange Shakes Cryptocurrency Faithful." [New York Times, late last week, page one.] There was an interesting editorial underscoring the fact that while people may not understand crypto, they understand ZE-RO.  Looks like government regulators (and Federal prosecutors) have their work cut out for them. Forensics at its finest.

It's a long-standing rule:  you don't co-mingle or borrow from customer accounts.  If JP Morgan Chase wants to speculate on interest rates using the bank's balance sheet, they do it with their own capital and equity, NOT by borrowing from a few million checking and saving accounts.

Exactly WHY or HOW that money cannot be moved -- either more rigorous checks-and-balances at JPM Chase than at FTX or some built-in protection that can't be overridden by humans -- I don't know.  But clearly Bankman-Fried was able to do something Jamie Dimon @ Chase apparently cannot.

Great analysis of the shenanigans (fraud) behind FTX:

https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2022-11-14/ftx-s-balance-sheet-was-bad?leadSource=uverify wall

Focus on the creation of billions in value/assets of made-up assets like Serum.  The question then is....what happened to the actual cash (customer accounts) that these fake assets replaced ?  Clearly, it was stolen.

Ultimately, this isn't a story so much about crypto...it's about leverage, co-mingling of customer accounts, and theft.

Unlike 2008, people will be going to jail because crimes were committed.

On 11/16/2022 at 4:51 PM, Quintus Arrius said:

$40 billion -- 4 thousand million.  Exploration is interesting, but at what cost.  Here's what my wife said to me on the 50th anniversary of the moon landing (1969/2019) and I quote:  "How did they get there?... What did they find?"  I was unable to answer her second question.

If there's an OT Section here where I can post pics from the James Webb Space Telescope, they will blow your mind.

Google them...and do the same names for Hubble Space Telescope....compare.....the improvement will blow you away. 

On 5/28/2009 at 7:42 PM, DaveG said:

I dunno, but just from the way that Bowers quotes Gillio:  "Of all the different hoard I have bought in Europe, Asia, America, and elsewhere. . .", I get the distinct impression that this hoard was in Europe (Switzerland?).  Or, perhaps Gillio just wants people to think that.

Interesting, and worthy of consideration alongside all other speculation.

What leads me to think it was NOT a European hoard is that hiding/missing this quantity of DEs for decades would have been tough.  Plus, you had representatives of U.S. dealers actively scouring the European banks in the 1950', 1960's, and 1970's.  I would think they wouldn't have missed a 20,000 coin hoard all that time.

That said, clearly there are sensitive issues with disclosing the COMPLETE story with these coins.  I hope Mr. Gillio does release them at some time, even if posthumously for himself or the counterparties.  I suspect that whomever he purchased them from was sensitive about the sale for whatever reasons.