GoldFinger1969

Maybe...but I didn't buy them as investments. I just bought 1 or 2 here-and-there because I liked the design, like the Saint-Gaudens UHR commemoratives. If I was buying 100 ounces of silver, I'd never buy 100 premium or slabbed silver pieces. Maybe 5 or so...the rest would be the closest to spot silver in price.

Are the premiums up or just the overall price ? Gold is up 15% and new buyers are coming in.

Unless they have active buyers, you're probably right. But I would sell at a show or online.

They're better IMO than those portrait-like "True Views" and other images I see. I personally hate those. Default settings on your smartphone set to Maximum Resolution (you can always shrink if necessary)....angle the coins at 30 degrees to you and the phone with the light behind you or to the side....LED light best....then zoom in and shoot. Add your own preferences but IMO based on what I see above you already have a pretty good base to start with.

How much of the 21 tons of gold have been brought up ? I know there probably won't be any more salvage missions -- they got the low-hanging fruit and it wouldn't be financially profitable to go after the remainder left.

Businessmen who owned manufacturing plants and companies in that state with some money ?

How much are they in AU condition ? They might be low-5 figure but I'm not sure.

That's a reasonable assumption. The proofs weren't anything special so if you assume it represents a portion of the serious collectors, figure there were others who were more interested in the regular business strikes. The Proof Saints were never all that popular with collectors and they kept going back-and-forth on finishes to appeal to that crowd. Finally, they said "bleep-it" and got rid of the proofs.

Peak-to-trough a loss of about 85%: https://www.pcgs.com/prices/coin-index/silver-and-gold-commemorative

I'm surprised there weren't more of the Philly, NYC, and Boston gold dealers and antique players (like Switt) on those lists. Even the Midwest had to have some active dealers who dealt with heavy-hitters. They had the $$$ to buy and I thought they had a steady stream of collectors who could easily afford to pay $30 for a fresh-off-the-press scratch-free Double Eagle. I would think -- guesstimate -- that there had to be a few hundred (?) gold coin/Double Eagle collectors, wealthy individuals (stamp and coin collecting was big in the 1920's, right ?) who would either be on the list OR would have their reps (the dealers) on it for them so they got first dibs. I know the masses couldn't afford these coins, but I thought the Top 1% could, and certainly the Top 1% of 1%.

I doubt it, Kurt. I might not get the same PREMIUM as a % OF THE COIN....and maybe not even the DOLLAR AMOUNT of that premium. But I doubt it sells for exactly what spot silver or gold sell for or an ungraded, uncertified coin. Now....my Reverse Proof UHR National Park Saint-Gaudens Commemorative....which I bought when silver was $22/oz. and I paid $110.....I doubt I am getting 5x the price of silver in the future. But I doubt I only get spot silver, either.

Commemoratives are "cheap" relative to other series. Of course, they had 2 bubbles in the last 4 decades and that meant they could fall a long way -- on the order of 85% peak-to-trough -- to the recent lows. Lots of commemoratives now sell for little more than spot value of the underlying metal. Only pay a premium that is rich if you like/love the underlying coin.

If an ASE cost $30 raw ungraded a few years ago....and I bought a special label or signed one for $50.....if the price of silver goes to $75, then I suspect I will be able to more easily recoup some of the premium I paid as my "special" ASE might be worth $95 or more.....or maybe just a bit more than the $75 spot price (though I think it'll be more). Regardless, any time you pay a premium to spot silver or gold, you take a risk that you won't recoup it in the future. That's true of "signatures" or special labels or numismatic premiums.

Canadian Hoards: Does anybody know of any famous or semi-famous Canadian Hoards, maybe involving Saints ? Since we sent alot of gold to the UK and Canada was part of the UK at that time, you'd think alot of American gold would have gone north to Canadian/British banks.

For gold coins, the list couldn't have been too long....not many people could afford $20 Double Eagles (or even smaller denomination coins), especially after 1929. Based on what I saw in RWB's Saints book, maybe 100 collectors/dealers/names, give-or-take ?

Dave, it still goes on to an extent though apparently smaller. While doing some research, I noticed that the late David Akers was used as a consultant/cataloguer on the 2012 Duckor Saint-Gaudens sale by Heritage. They mentioned that the 1927-D owned by Duckor was of a different type (and higher grade, too) than the one he earlier sold. But that coin was sold in the 1998 Thaine B. Price Saint sale. And the only reason Heritage knew that was because David Akers and his firm cataloged and sold those coins. Otherwise, nobody -- not Heritage and certainly not me -- would know that a few coins in the Price sale didn't belong to him. Rather than piggy-back on the Price sale like the small denomination coins piggy-backed on Menjou's name, I think it was just to be able to say that the Price sale would include a trophy coin like a 1927-D (which Price apparently never owned). While today you can sell a trophy coin individually quite easily via the Internet or through the many physical auctions we see taking place, back in 1998 the internet wasn't yet established and I don't believe that all the physical auctions we see today (HA, GC, Stacks, etc) were there in the quantity they are today. So Duckor got to sell his 1927-D at a prestigious Saint sale and Price and Akers got to mention that a 1927-D would be auctioned off. Win-Win for both sides.

Got it, different estimates from using different assumptions. 3.1 MM vs. 3.0 MM (rounded). Thx.

Page 603 Table: Roger, how do you reconcile the estimated survivors figures from the table below vs. what you stated at the end of Page 612 where you said 2,996,565 Saints survive in all states of preservation ? I can't get that figure from the numbers below. Also, re-reading this chapter, I think it's logical to assume that the TPA number below (39 MM) is certainly reduced by Nazi Germany and other country melting down of Saints and other American gold coins from 1907-1950, for which there are no surviving documents to confirm it but certainly we know it took place. Hoards still possible, but almost certainly a small fraction of that 39 million. Page 603: Total Saint-Gaudens Coins Minted..................70,290,930 Known Melted Coins........................................26,951,006 (from 1921 and 1929-33) TOTAL POTENTIALLY AVAILABLE.........43,339,924 Estimated Survivors..............................................591,665 (1907-1933, excludes the next 2 lines) Estimated Survivors...........................................2,028,000 (1908 Type 1 & 1922-1928 Philly Mint) Estimated Survivors...........................................1,088,310 (Europe, South America) TOTAL ESTIMATED SURVIVORS.............3,707,975 MISSING/POTENTIALLY AVAILABLE......39,631,949

Sadly, if it hasn't resurfaced by now, you have to think some dirtbag melted it down and sold it for the gold content.

Strange that The Treasury would deal with retail clients. No wonder we had a banking crisis a few years later !!

You think very valuable coins could be sitting in a drawer somewhere ? I am sure there are SOME hidden coins, but I have to believe that any museum curator or director -- even if not a coin expert -- must know that the large gold coins he has squirreled away are potentially very valuable.

Outside of Roger Burdette's Saints book, for current information on Saints the best thing out there is the auction archived over at HA which basically is a compendium of all the auction catalogs of recent vintage. Still like reading Bower's book on DE's and Akers/Ambio on Gold Coins, but those are both dated.

He just disclosed his identity, right ? His claim to fame is lots of high-end coins I believe. Go for it....I have a small number of Auction Catalogs.

Virgil Brand's collection was sold by Sotheby's, not a coin specialist ? Wow.... https://www.ebay.com/itm/175195942383?hash=item28ca7dedef:g:JUsAAOSwwOJiK59v

I wonder what their collector list looked like in the late-1920's.