GoldFinger1969

Off the top of your head -- or anybody's head -- does anyone know if the Bass Collection has lots of Saints or just a few here-and-there ? Do they have multiple examples at a given date ? How about Liberty DE's ? I remember like 30 years ago and it was one of the top collections in the country, especially after the Eliasberg sale. Must be a complete inventory somewhere, right ?

I have to check Roger's book, but I believe -- as with the 1927-D's -- that some of those are AU quality and not really pristine examples. I could be wrong, though, maybe the UHRs as a whole all got treated with TLC as opposed to a few 1927-D's.

I went there many years ago. My cousin went to Transylvania University (!) and we drove out about 2 hours or whatever to Bowling Green, KY.

Bowling Green....home of the Corvette !!

That MIGHT be true, Alex. We don't know with 100% certainty. Ron Gillio might know but he hasn't talked yet. But it's logical to assume it did NOT come from Europe because the quality of the coins would indicate South/Central American origin (if not Mexico) as these DEs tended to not move as much, get bagmarks, etc. I'm not as familiar with the Merkers Mind Hoard as I should be. So I won't interject here. I think Roger has much more knowledge and of course he has a few paragraphs on the MMH in his Saints book.

FYI....a 2012 COINWEEK article by an author/collector who has seen all or virtually all of the known UHRs said that the GBS UHR (also traced to Heine) was the 3rd finest UHR behind the Bloomfield UHR and one known as "The Wall Street UHR" owned by a bond trader (unfortunately, not my friend The Bonddadddy ). I thought I had a more recent ranking in an article but that might be for the 1927-D's. I'll scan my archives.

Alex, just wanted to make sure you re-found this thread. It's got lots of information on The Wells Fargo Hoard. There may be other posts on The WF Hoard in the much longer RWB Saints Book thread.

I have detailed the sub-par returns for Trophy Coins which wealthy buyers will purchase and are price-insensitive like the 1933 Saint-Gaudens, the 1908-S Saint, etc. You can do it for any number of 6 or 7 or 8-figure coins. Almost invariably, the annual return made on the coins, unless you got very lucky/fortunate buying super-low and selling super-high....is 5-7% a year. This is for unique, trophy coins sold to wealthy individuals who don't mind paying up. Now extrapolate that to our price-sensitive low-end coins, graded or not.

I think we are very helpful with the newbies. They'll absorb knowledge and if they have questions -- simple or complex -- most of us are willing to take the time to answer. Bigger problem is newcomers who post here 1 or 2 times and then disappear.

We get these newbies...they post once or twice....then they disappear. Is it our deodorant ?

No argument.....additional facts to steer folks here correctly. Nobody told him NOT to buy silver and/or stack. We just said make sure you are doing it for the RIGHT reason.

Good point, Taz....so maybe slice off 2.5% for some of those prices (assuming people paid cash, which I am sure many/most did but NOT all). The trend -- and relative pricing -- is more important IMO than the actual net price paid. Have not bought fro Stacks but I can say that all the fees and the 20% BP (not negotiable for the most part) from HA can really drive up the final price. Even when you add the BP, the other fees (taxes, S&H, etc.) can really jacks the price up especially for lower-priced stuff.

Kurt nailed it....the stock market has been tanking, rates rising, inflation soaring -- and Bitcoin and cryptos, The Great Saviors, are down 30% in a few weeks. NEVER bet on correlations !!

Is that like George Costanza's "thing" for Marisa Tomei ?

What I didn't know until recently is that for the dealers....retail/public attendance isn't that critical (at least for the bulk of them). They make their $$$ on dealer-to-dealer transactions, often before the official start to these shows.

You should stack because you LIKE IT and/or because you want a little disaster portfolio. You SHOULD NOT stack because you have concerns about the economy or US dollar. Those have nothing to do with silver prices and also are low-probability events.

Recent GC Sales: All totals include bp..... 1923-D MS65+.........................$3,375 1923-D MS66 NGC..................$4,700 1899 Liberty DE MS63.............$2,431 1899 Liberty DE MS61.............$2,143 (bullion coin I guess) 1924 MS66...............................$3,635 1924 MS66..............................$3,488 1924 MS66+CAC....................$7,031 1915-S MS65+.......................$6,250 1911 D/D MS65 FS-501 (?).....$4,247 1910-S MS65..........................$9,030

Yeah, I guess those presses were used for other coins, too and they needed them. Unless you had them/it totally dedicated 100% for HRs only for weeks (months ?) at a time, it just couldn't be done.

The attendance at the Central States and Long Beach coin shows was EXCEPTIONAL according to some reports. I don't know how FUN was relative to the past but that's the show with the strongest underlying fundamentals (long history, January in Florida, kickstarts the year, etc.). There are also more bidders on Ebay, HA, GC, etc....let's see how "sticky" these new buyers are for the long-term.

Now that the Fed is no longer pumping trillions into the financial markets and stuff like crypto and BitCoin is no longer flying high....folks may start pursuing more traditional investing and hobbies.

Did Barber and his staff feel they needed millions of Saint DEs for trade/domestic purposes and there was no way they could strike enough HRs ? Was that the source of their angst or they just wanted low-relief no matter what ? I know the HR needed 3 strikes (vs. 7-9 for the UHR) but as long as they had more time free with the medal press I would think a few hundred thousand or a few million (if not the 8 million we saw with the 1928's) HRs could have been struck even though it would have been slower than with low-relief coins. Didn't the UHRs take 12 minutes each to crank out ? Now that I could see worrying Barber if he needed the coins in volume. But the HRs took less strikes and less time. At least we got 12,375 of them.

Your book and posts here explained how they solved the problem of the fin with some minor adjustments. Very simple solution and easy for even someone not an expert on strikings like me could understand.

Those Flat-Rims caught some nice bids. The lower-end and "Details" coins haven't moved THAT much the last few months as prices rose in general (I wonder if the fall in gold cooled some jets). Those prices for the Flat Rims were very high for the grades, off the top of my head. Even for a 67 and 66's.

Good one !!! You know, I never thought about that. Sometimes it's "ASB" for All-Star Break.

You're right. I forgot about that. Helps when searching only MCMVII HR's but a pain when they are sold as part of a collection. Thanks again, Taz. Great catch !