GoldFinger1969

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HAVE you bought any coins that met those criteria lately ? If not, what coin would you like to buy that meets them ?

Whip Inflation Now (WIN): Apologies to Gerald Ford and Arthur Burns , but I came across an interesting tidbit while scanning Aker's 1907-33 Gold Book. At the time, the book said that PCGS and NGC had certified only 3 coins from the 1909-D Saint series as MS-67. I then checked the current population census, expecting to see a nice increase in the 15 years since the dated information appeared in the book.....NO increase !! 2 PCGS, 1 NGC. NGC has 6 MS-65's and 1 MS-66; PCGS has 25 in MS-65 and 4 MS-66's and another 3 MS-66+. Nice to see time hasn't led to any gradeflations in this series. Maybe the absolute low number there made it harder to increase the total over time, unlike a larger population.

Obviously, depends on the premium to numismatic value and the total cost I am paying. I bought a common Saint at FUN 2020 after a few minutes of perusing. I think it sold for spot bullion. Was looking at buying an AGE and figured "why not?" in buying a common Saint in MS-63. No downside price-wise. OTOH, I spent YEARS researching the 1923-D while saving up for the coin. At FUN 2020, I probably looked at a dozen or so 1923-D's...and waited 2 days to pull the trigger on the 1923-D. Probably 4-5 trips to the coin dealers who had the coins I narrowed my final choices down to. Probably spent 1-2 hours looking at all the coins before finally taking out the Benjamins.

You would think with all the technology -- laser etching, etc. -- that went into the production of the 2009 UHR that the problem (?) of die polishing lines would not be present on ANY of the coins. I wonder if a few just snuck through out of the 100,000 or so that were made or if a significant number got them. Also, do they stand out or do you have to angle the coin in the light the right way to see 'em ?

When you have finished it, a short summary and your thoughts would be great !! I've done that for some of the gold books I have read, doing it now for Bower's Whitman Red Book on MSDs.

There's an element of truth in what you are saying. But since no 2 coins are EXACTLY alike, you really need to find 2 nearly-idential coins....selling at the same time...on the same platform.....one with CAC the other without....and then see where the coins sell for. Sometimes you can find them at the same auction site at the same time with/without the CAC stickers. But it's rare.

And of course HA and SB. What do YOU think happens given your veteran experience, CB ? I heard that Laura S. is going all-out for CACG holders after basically equating PCGS+CAC as being the Bible for years. Where do you think the Trophy Coins end up and their collectors as well ?

Most people are saying you should see 20-25% premiums to the price guides (~ PCGS/NGC) just like PCGS+CAC.

We don't need more IRS agents. We're still using systems built in the 1980's. They need to upgrade and implement AI. Every other private corporation downsizes and has people to shed because of increased efficiency -- but NOT the Federal, State, or Local governments. I'm sure unions have nothing to do with it !! There are hundreds of billions of lost tax revenues from increased audit efficiency....going after tax cheats....hitting the underground economy. I might be OK with a national consumtion/sales/VAT tax....IF it were limited to a number that was very low and required a supermajority of both Houses to raise. Maybe cut/eliminate other taxes as an offset. Sales and income taxes started low....now they are obscene (i.e., CA and NYS).

Coinage and currency are part of a country's history. You would end this. A digital currency also has NO privacy. Most of the revenues came from tariffs. The other taxes you cite were practically nonexistent. You want us to believe that banks and Wall Street were behind the implentation of the 16th Amendment ? Please....... In fact, the backers of the 16th Amendment were largely agrarian populists, Westerners, and farmers....the William Jennings Bryan crowd...and it was opposed by the East Coast bankers and Wall Street. It's a tiny bank that would rank about 500th or so nationwide. It represents a low-density state...largley farming and mining.....with no major urban areas....a profile that would not work in more than another 10 states, tops, if that. It has only 1 or 2 branches...very limited products for consumers....and pays very low rates of interest historically. No different than Alaska setting up the Permanent Fund with oil revenues. And North Dakota probably has common-sense individuals ACROSS the political spectrum and the dominant party and sentiment there probably skews to common sense and an understanding of banking, finance, and economics. That won't work in New York City or even NY State. Most large cities and states are de facto banks by their huge flotations of bonds and other municipal financing mechanisms. Many are headed for a day of reckoning, too. Imagine the problems they'd get into running a bank.....DSA members ? Socialists ? Redistributionists ? I smell another Teamsters CSPF moment !

Right, a system that works 99.9% well for the majority of Americans is good enough for me. I don't want to walk off a cliff and hope that unlike Wile E. Coyote I stay elevated on pie-in-the-sky promises that might look good on paper but don't work in the real world. Most Americans have their assets and make their living within "the financial and monetary system the way they are now." That includes YOU, Dcarr !!

Oh, I have no illusions based on his economic and political philosophies.....hyperbole tends to be the gold bugs stock-in-trade. I see them on other forums and while they are nice people, they cry about banking cartels and control of the Fed etc. etc. etc. Blumert did write some good post-bubble stuff after the markets imploded in 1980 and 1990. As far as their concerns about government spending or the prohibition against gold ownership -- I'm right there with them. But on implementation of a gold standard or getting rid of banks or the Fed or BitCoin or digital currencies replacing sales and income taxes.....

I think I used my sodium coins with my meatloaf when the salt shaker ran dry !

JP Morgan's Commodities Strategist Natasha Kaneva, in BARRON'S a few issues back, is looking for $2,300 for gold in 2024 and $30 silver.

Like I said, he WAS a gold bug !! Did you ever meet him ? What part(s) of the column are definitively false/misleading, in your opinion ? Some of the experiences he relates seem to be his personal situation so it's tough to doubt him. The rest seems consistent with U.S. gold policy until the law was changed on December 31, 1974.

This economics major remembers something from junior and senior high school about some metals and elements being more reactive than others. Any chemistry or physics major here ? Gold...silver....copper...aluminum....steel....brass....other materials coins are made out of....which react the least and the most ?

Anything like those white soap bar NGC holders from 20-plus years ago that totally encase the coin ?

It's not in the same category, but I see Hail Mary offers for coins that are WAY overpriced on the other auction sites, too. I'm not talking about 10-20% overpiced for lower-priced coins...I'm talking more expensive coins where you are unlikely to find novices or fools (i.e., Saint buyers) and still see markups of 50-100% for even common coins. Over on one of them is an MS-62 1924 Saint...a common coin in a very low-MS grade. It is CAC (even though it's 4 grades away from the Big $$$) and is in an NGC older holder (one of the solid white ones). Still...opening bid of $4,000 ? I would think the final hammer price won't go over $2,200. Not surprisingly, no bids.

From an article by Burton Blumert, a prominent silver/gold bug of the 1960's and 1970'd. He talks a bit about how it was getting pre-1933 gold coins. Hard to believe that collectors and everyday folks who just wanted a gold coin had to go through all this . WTF happened to the 5-coin examption, huh ? Appears it was MUCH tougher to buy the coins before 1963 than later in the decade and the early-1970's. I recall that Paramount Coins (later with David Akers) was importing lots of Saints and gold coins from Europe in the 1960's. But before then all those hoards in the 1940's and 1950's must have had lots of hoops to jump through. I believe Leland Howard, the clown at the center of the 1933 Double Eagle fiasco, was still dictating gold import policies in the 1960's some 30 years later !! "....And by 1971 most Americans had little first-hand memory of gold. The Depression and WW II were indelibly imprinted on their psyches and if they thought about gold at all, it was as a murky link to the hard times of the 1930s. Silver was a different story. The dimes, quarters, and half dollars minted almost continually from 1796 through 1964 were 90% silver. Most folks simply took it for granted that the coinage was silver. Not one in a thousand reflected that one dollar’s face value in silver coins contained 72 parts of a pure ounce and that at $1.29 an ounce, the price fixed by the Treasury Department, the intrinsic value was precisely one dollar. This magnificent reality went unnoticed. That all came to an end several months after JFK’s death in 1963.The new “LBJ” non-silver, 10 and 25-cent sandwich coinage appeared on the scene amidst a barrage of propaganda. The experts said the “sandwiches” would circulate side-by-side with the silver coins for eternity. Speculator-hoarders would find slim profit in pulling the silver coinage from circulation. This obvious deceit provided me with early evidence that public opinion was being manipulated and the manipulators knew the truth. Shortly thereafter the US Treasury announced that August 16, 1968, would be the last day to redeem the $1, $5 and $10 silver certificates. In effect, the government had created an expiring option, and as the days passed, silver’s time as money was passing as well. The silver coinage quickly disappeared, of course. Your local coin shop was the place where you purchased or sold silver coinage, or liquidated your silver certificates. This activity honed the coin industry for the onslaught that was to soon follow in the gold market. In 1962 US Treasury Department policy toward gold ownership was little changed since 1933. Gold for jewelry was legal. Gold coins dated 1932 and older could be legally held, but ONLY if physically in the US and as collectibles, not investments. All gold imports were forbidden, except by special license which was rarely granted. So, a US $20 St. Gaudens gold piece was available in Switzerland for US $50, but, due to a shortage of supply in the US, it was worth $60 plus. Hmmm…US gold coins minted prior to 1933 were legal if already here? You couldn’t legally bring them in. But, if you were able to get them here, there was a nice profit. Interesting. Sounds like an invitation to the bootlegger. My company, Camino Coin, was founded in 1959. Although our primary business was numismatics, we soon were deeply involved in buying and selling precious metals. In Europe, these services were provided by banks. US government policy was harsh, and the gold coin bootleggers reign existed through the early 1960s. The process was simple: the bootlegger purchased the US gold coins in Europe where most of them had resided since 1933, and had them shipped to Canada. So far, everything was legal. Getting the gold safely across the border was the problem. Treasury Department enforcement against the smugglers was sporadic. Most of the gold coins arrived safely, but occasionally the feds would “send a message to the coin community” by making midnight raids and confiscating gold as if they were dealing with dangerous drugs. In one instance, I saw the process close up. A smuggler carried gold coins from Canada to the state of Washington, packaged them, and mailed the parcel from a Seattle post office to a US dealer. (This fellow was selling them to me.) When the dealer’s sister sought to pick them up at her California post office, the Secret Service confiscated the coins. The dealer, desperate to recover his merchandise, argued that since the coins were mailed from Seattle, they were physically in the US, thereby not subject to confiscation. The government held that these coins were never “here,” but rather in transit from Canada, hence, contraband. The case finally went to a US Circuit Court and the government prevailed. Near the end of JFK’s presidency, the Treasury Department modified its restrictions on gold coins minted 1932 and earlier. US and foreign coinage could now be legally imported by Americans. This led to an avalanche of European gold coins like the British Sovereign, the French and Swiss 20 Franc, and all the American gold coins coming into the US. In 1973, with the government in disarray, and a president near impeachment, a small but energetic movement to eliminate all remaining restrictions on gold ownership won a shocking victory and for the first time in over 40 years, Americans could freely own and trade gold without restriction. The late, great coin dealer and conference entrepreneur James U. Blanchard III was the main force behind the struggle. For the first time since 1932 gold coins, bars, and gold certificates could be freely imported. Items that, prior to January 1, 1974, were almost as dangerous to handle as heroin were part of everyday commerce. But it took a while for a dealer to hold a Krugerrand or a Credit Suisse gold kilo bar in his hand without looking over his shoulder to see if a Secret Service agent was lurking in the shadows."

How much did it go for ? What do similar coins 1 or 2 grades higher/lower go for ?

I guess unless we start sealing coins in the vacuum of space or something close to that, any coin is going to be exposed to some kind of molecules via air or environment. Microscopic trace amounts, but I guess some coins (silver?) are susceptible to reacting with even minute levels of contaminants. You have all these trophy coins worth 7 and 8-figures in TPG holders, I guess the experts feel that's still the safest place to put 'em, huh ?

The definition and appearance of rub/wear/friction. Debated on multiple forums over multiple years. The tell-tale sign appears to be discolaration on high points of devices. But some people insist that could be the result of a poor strike (among other possibilities, though the most likely/cited) -- metal not flowing into the high-point areas of the die -- and some very sharp, savvy veterans disagree on whether (for a particular series) it's possible to DEFINITIVELY tell if a coin has circulated (AU) or if it is still uncirculated (MS).

And yet now I am reading that GASSES from the plastic holders can leak over the years or decades and discolor coins ? Am I correct on that ? So what's the solution...re-holder the coins every 10-20 years or invent some inert plastic that is gas-proof ?

I think CB might be slightly overstating JA's intentions...but he's in the ballpark. First reason for starting CAC is to make $$$...2nd reason is to be a check on the TPGs and "give back" to the community by doing this service...and 3rd would be knowing what coins you are comfortable buying sight-unseen. Go back to the JA interview with Maurice Rosen that I recently resurected.