GoldFinger1969

On 9/25/2022 at 10:10 PM, GoldFinger1969 said:

Outside of that 30-year quest with the missing maps that we talked about earlier in this thread (name of ship escapes me)....

RMS Republic.....different than the SS Republic. 

On 9/26/2022 at 5:52 AM, RWB said:

Multiple small quantities add up to large quantities. Almost all DE that landed were melted, made into local coin and sent back to USA.

I was thinking more about ships travelling from one part of the USA to the other.

Heavy Hitters Corner:  Real big moves UP in trophy Saints the last few months. 

The MS-69 deemed "The Best One" from the 1908 No Motto Wells Hoard went for just under $287,000 (w/bp); the same coin sold for $95,000 back in 2005.

A 1927-D was sold for $4.4 MM.  This was the Dallas Bank-Simpson 1927-D (Simpson has another rated 67) which is believed to be the 3rd best.  Our friend EC has an MS-66+CAC.

A 1924-S sold for $930,000...remember, at one point decades ago this was believed to be the rarest of the Saint series.

EC, Half Dome, and a few others are dragging up all the trophy Saints.

On 9/25/2022 at 4:28 PM, RWB said:

For 1877 to 1907 Liberty DE.  Prior to 1877 there are too many wrecked ships to get meaningful numbers.

Since we knew about the SSCA, wouldn't it stand to reason there were no other big quantities on any of the other shipwrecks ? 

It would have been known at the time, like the SSCA was known in 1857 (and probably helped give the economic downturn of that year more bite).

On 9/25/2022 at 5:51 PM, Quintus Arrius said:

Hmmm... some 30-odd years of wrecked ships.  

Outside of that 30-year quest with the missing maps that we talked about earlier in this thread (name of ship escapes me)....I don't think there are any sizeable Liberty or Saint DE hoards or supplies in known ships that sunk.

On 9/25/2022 at 11:18 AM, RWB said:

0.46 percent.

You use 0.46% of total mintage to guestimate non-certified survivors in the present ?

On 9/25/2022 at 10:54 AM, zadok said:

...plus the 3.9 million thats uncertified....

Yup, forgot that amount....but where'd you get that estimate ?

On 9/25/2022 at 9:07 AM, zadok said:

...id say u r off by a factor of 10 prob more....

Actually....I wasn't. 

I get the total population count from NGC at 768,890 and for PCGS at 749,105.  Clearly, there are cross-overs (double-counts) and while this is above my pay grade I believe a ball park figure is to haircut the total by about 40% from what I have read (correct me if I am way off).

So eliminating about 40% of the PCGS count and summing up gives me just over 1.2 MM coins.

On 9/24/2022 at 10:36 PM, Quintus Arrius said:

This is a tall order. One would have to speculate on intangibles: unknown meltings, overseas internment in safe-deposit boxes, shipwrecked manifests, thefts, losses, etc.

Nah, must be a listing somewhere....I can get 2004 estimates from Bower's Red Book and just sum them up.  Off the top of my head I'm going to say 500,000.

As I understand it, they were mass marketed to EVERYBODY including folks with no interest in coins.  In the 1960's and 1970's they were regularly given to me and my brother as birthday and Christmas presents.

Very few have appreciated because of the quantity produced. 

Saints vs. Liberty DEs:  There are about 3.9 million surviving Saints known today; does anybody have a corresponding total for Liberty DEs ? 

NOT mintages....survivors estimate.

On 9/22/2022 at 11:59 AM, World Colonial said:

But as with anything else, there is a limit to how long the US will be able to consume above its means at the rest of the world's expense.

You may be right....but what if it takes 75 or 125 years for that scenario to happen ?  As Keynes said, in the LONG RUN we are all dead. 

You can't make investment decisions based on some of your assertsions is all I am saying.  They're all VALID observations.....good CONCLUSIONS....just not INVESTABLE in any reasonable time-frame.

Look at how long the Euro has survived ! 

On 9/23/2022 at 10:19 PM, Quintus Arrius said:

I am sorry to confirm it will, with ease!

I think I'll save the Roosters...and insert those plastic protective tops on the old Johnson Wax products that were the same size as a quarter.  

On 9/22/2022 at 7:03 PM, Quintus Arrius said:

Not at all. I am concerned that my wife will use them in the laundromat--and I hate admitting this--but I did take one with me earlier this week to see if it would fit into the slots of the washers and dryers. Well, of course it did!  (It's bigger than a dime and smaller than nickel.) The man who owns/manages the place is my unlikely, inadvertent heir. Curses!

More important to me....can it fit in the slot to activate a game of SPACE INVADERS or PAC-MAN ? 

Known QUANTITIES can not decline over time, only increase. 

But what can happen is that the DEMAND for a particular coin type and/or year or mintmark increase.  That will lead to a rise in price and the notion that what was once plentiful is now scarce.

Beats driving around for weeks or months trying to find a coin I want.....

On 9/19/2022 at 9:25 AM, Quintus Arrius said:

For reasons not entirely clear to me, every comment I post appears with an identical twin. I always "hide" them, but some slip through. Tks! 

Leakage from a parallel universe ? 

On 9/17/2022 at 8:52 PM, VKurtB said:

Those who operate on the theory “all the good stuff is already in slabs”, even when it’s Jeff Garrett saying it, are simply wrong. 

Funny you should mention a prominent dealer.  On the other end of the mini-hoard debate, Doug Winter has been saying he's been seeing a steady drip out of Europe for years.  Liberty's, Saints, High Reliefs -- a few here, a few there and it has impacted pricing here in the States. 

On 9/19/2022 at 12:22 PM, World Colonial said:

 Look at the Swiss National Bank.  In 2011, they pegged the CHF to the Euro at 1.20.  Considering they were attempting to suppress the value of their national currency where they control the supply, if any price manipulation should have worked "forever", this should have been it.

Why would you think that price manipulation would work if at all beyond the short-run ?  It NEVER does.  See, Soros vs. Bank of England, 1992.  

And no where is it more fleeting than in the currency markets, where $7 trillion trades daily.  You think you can hold back that tide ?  Good luck with that.

I think, WC, you continue to have a single-minded focus on debt and assume that more debt in the aggegate is bad without looking at the underlining debt fundamentals and more importantly THE DYNAMICS of multiple countries with large debt levels.  It doesn't mean they ALL collapse, if any.

As an example, the United States -- as the global reserve currency -- is required to run a trade deficit in goods and services (the flip side of a capital account surplus in financial assets)....trade deficits for many countries are lethal but for the U.S. it not only is NOT lethal it is an economic necessity for the U.S. in the global economy.  

On 9/19/2022 at 11:58 AM, zadok said:

...dont agree...theres a reason there is still so much pre-'33 gold in safety deposit boxes n selling it or grading it or making it public is not on the owners list of to-do items, most of these holdings r second n third generations, some as i made u aware of earlier r from as early as 1907, one of these reasons is people to this day simply do not trust the federal gov't...any of the actions u see happening makes these assets accountable...a big no-no....

But do you think that the amount of gold coins here is a big % relative to what is already known ?  

We know there's still "lots" (however you define it) of valuable coins including gold coins including pre-1933 U.S. gold in SDB's and other hidden locations.  But is it significant relative to what is already known ?

That's the $64,000 question. 

Let's use THIS thread since there's a dupe unless the Mods delete the other one.....

On 9/17/2022 at 7:31 PM, zadok said:

...in what time frame?....

That's the key.  Greece's goose was cooked when they went Socialist in 1981.  Took 30 years to implode...a small, tourist-driven, 3rd-rate economy and financial center.

Top 10 countries with global central banks and other levers have much much stronger defenses against financial contagion.

On 9/17/2022 at 5:00 PM, World Colonial said:

The ECB recently agreed to a modified form of QE where it will no longer expand its balance sheet but instead only buy the debts of weaker member states to keep spreads from "blowing out".  That's the plan anyway. The reality? 

It won't work for very long, as it creates the perverse incentive for states like Italy to expand their budgets infinitely.

This is another form of "can kicking".  My prediction continues to be that many (and maybe most) of the 19 member states will leave the common currency with the remainder creating a United States of Europe.

Not likely but we'll see.

If you want to track the BEST global financial columnist and a guy with his pulse on the EU and Euro like nobody else I have read, get a subscription to the UK Telegraph and read Ambrose Evans-Pritchard's columns.  He's brilliant talking about the EU, the Fed, Green energy, OPEC and oil, politics, etc.

Only reason I subscribe to the UKT although their coverage of the Queen was also outstanding and good reading. 

On 9/17/2022 at 11:59 AM, zadok said:

...wont the EU go to bat for italy like the bailout that greece received or was that the imf that supported them?....

It was the EU but it won't matter.....ever give a little kid a piggy-back ride when they got tired walking at an amusement park or botanical garden or shopping excursion ?

Now....ever give another adult who was tired a piggy-back ride ? 

Italy is 8X the size of Greece by GDP and is the LARGEST debt issuer in the EU.  Last time, 7% was the red line for the 10-year Italian bond.  Italy is just above 4%...a big rise from a few months ago, and a year ago, but still way below that 7% implosion level.

https://www.bloomberg.com/markets/rates-bonds

On 9/13/2022 at 4:43 PM, World Colonial said:

Why was the US downgrade bogus?  Because the US can print?

Because the U.S. got downgraded....financial markets went into a panic......and folks MOVED MONEY GLOBALLY into the U.S. Treasury market !!!

On 9/13/2022 at 4:43 PM, World Colonial said:

If that's your reason, I don't know why the rating agencies even rate any sovereign debt denominated in the local currency, since they can always "pay it back", even if it's steeply devalued. 

The U.S. is different as a global reserve financial currency.  It's not a question of being willing to "pay it back" but pay it back in a value close to what lenders gave initially.

On 9/13/2022 at 4:43 PM, World Colonial said:

The entire credit rating system is bogus.  Look at the history of bond rating upgrades and downgrades.  It's practically worthless as a decision making tool.  Bond raters invariably downgrade after prices have crashed.  That's completely useless.

Mistakes are made, but by and large credit analysts have a much better track record relative to economists, strategists, or equity folks.  That's why the bond market is referred to as the "smart money." 

Historically, the bond market has gotten it right most of the time on corporate, municipal, and sovereign dowrngrades.  Asset-backed is tougher and a much spottier record (notably non-agency MBS in 2008-09).