GoldFinger1969

On 2/25/2024 at 5:01 PM, VKurtB said:

That “Ship of Gold”stuff provides a TEMPORARY bump in prices that fairly quickly evaporates. Here is the rub. You can’t get one during the hype without paying up. You can’t buck the system. If you want to pay a normal price, you have to wait for somebody who has one (or their heir) to sell. Then you can do business. 

I know.....premiums on the $50 re-strikes were about 700% to spot gold when they first came out.  I got one about 10 years later for about 10% premium. 

On 2/25/2024 at 3:33 PM, USAuPzlBxBob said:

As I have an 1857 US gold quarter eagle minted in San Francisco — an important piece of my Puzzle Box Gold type set — my Owner Comments for the coin includes the mention that it pays homage to the SS Central America and that the ship had "its Stars and Stripes flag flown upside-down to signal the steamer’s dire distress." That info was garnered from Wikipedia, but there is no reference cited there.  Literary License?  Could be. One of my current research projects is determining the truthfulness of the flying of the flag upside-down.  The famous painting depicting the ship's sinking does not help. Gary Kinder's Ship of Gold in the Deep Blue Sea may be a future purchase of mine.

Bowers Whitman Red Book on DE's has a good accounting of the SSCA.  There were also some documentaries about 23-24 years ago.

On 2/25/2024 at 4:39 PM, Henri Charriere said:

Nyet! Nyet! Learned colleague!  Toning, per se, is not one of the five (5) variables which may lawfully be considered by any TPGS in assigning a grade.  1. STRIKE, 2. PRESERVATION, 3. LUSTER, 4. COLOR, and 5. ATTRACTIVENESS (Eye Appeal).  Full stop!   🐓 

But they all, even CAC/CACG, do take it into account via either market or net grading.  Maybe not on all coins, but on some.

Not sure if toned is worth as much in the Barber series as it is with MSDs.....I'll go with MS-66.

I know that the coins sold at huge premiums to gold bullion because of all the hype...but is anybody aware at that time the coins were GRADED if the coins were overgraded, undergraded, or pretty much spot-on ?

It appears that the bulk of the coins would have been certified BEFORE standards started to loosen about 2003 or 2004 or so.

Most of the commentaries I've read seem to imply the coins are properly graded, just a question of how much to pay up for the SSCA hype.

On 2/23/2024 at 8:28 PM, dragon said:

<<<  In my opinion (others will disagree) almost all of the coins are overgraded. Here's an example that is supposed top be "MS-65." You can decide if a common date Eagle of that grade should have deep cuts and bumps in prominent visual areas -- or, in fact, anywhere.  >>>  I agree with RWB 110%.   From the small sampling of coins from this collection I've seen online and 1 or 2 in person, I felt they were pretty much all extremely liberally graded by at least 1 full point if not more.   

No pics showed up.  Would like to see a Double Eagle -- or Eagle -- you say is overgraded.

On 2/24/2024 at 3:58 AM, Teddy R said:

My area of interest would stay the same but the grades would dramatically improve and I would add gold to my 20th Century Type Set. 

I would consider becoming a Coin Dealer. Shows only, no brick and mortar. The focus would be on meeting and talking to collectors rather than profit.

I can see the value in that, Teddy.  Do what you CAN do and enjoy it rather than the drudgery of work.

All kinds of shows...small ones, big national ones ?

Maybe Mark or someone who has worked as a grader or knows their operations can answer this question:  am I correct that these "grading sets" I am reading about are actual high-quality (and expensive !) actual coins that the graders and the companies use as guides to help in grading ? 

I read that JA intends to spend "millions" on sets and have his graders look at them weekly.  

Why would TPGs do this when ultra-high resolution photos can do the same thing at a fraction of the cost ?  Why spend millions accumulating all kinds of different coin series, years, and mints.... and also presumably on ultra-rare coins ?

Is CACG really going to go out and get a lower-graded -- but still super-expensive -- 1927-D Saint or 1930-S ?   Has this been done in the past ?

On 2/22/2024 at 7:44 PM, Henri Charriere said:

Interesting thought.  Makes me wonder, when was the last time a recognized celebrity promoted a coin or coin collecting, in general?  

RWB and others here said that the actual coins owned by celebrity coin collectors like Buddy Epsen and Adolphe Menjou were much smaller than what was sold under their auction name.  In other words, their names were used to sell other coins they didn't really own.  The power of celebrity.  

Question:  how much is a common year MS-65 MSD or Saint worth ?  Now....how much is that same coin worth if it was part of a "collection" owned by Taylor Swift ?   

On 2/22/2024 at 7:44 PM, Henri Charriere said:

Interesting thought.  Makes me wonder, when was the last time a recognized celebrity promoted a coin or coin collecting, in general?  Then again, that could be a double-edged sword with a lot of people jumping into the hobby resulting in a robust hobby, but higher prices. Ah, well.

These "influencers" get tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands or even millions to follow them.  We saw it with baseball cards...NFTs.....meme stocks like GME....now you see it with NVDA. 

We're gonna see something happen in our sector somewhere down the line.....someone is going to extrapolate a silver or gold move to the move in MSDs or Saints during a previous bubble and say that prices can rise 5-10x based on a doubling or tripling of the underlying metal price.

If it happens, someone here ring the bell to SELL......

Do any of you recall threads discussing lost/stolen shipments 10 years ago ?  20 years ago ?  

On 2/18/2024 at 10:53 AM, RWB said:

A very large proportion of material generated by current semi-AI products are wrong. The products are useful in making quick summaries, or simple calculations. I've tried some numismatic things with Chat GPT and it has failed all but the most basic. Someone on PCGS message board tried it for coin grading, and the results he posted were uniformly incorrect and misleading....no value at all.

It could be that the nuances of our hobby and coins are so detailed and based on "eye appeal" that no computer will be able to recreate useful coin stuff until we get to Star Trek-level neural net processors. 

Seriously, I think for me right now this AI thing would mostly be good for translating voice commands into work applications (if it can do that).  For instance, I am very slow in the Office365 stuff like Excel (and Word) and if you had an AI voice command where I could TELL it what I want the pages or sheets to look like instead of having to manually do it, that would be something I would pay extra for because I am a beginner/intermediate with those programs and I would expect AI to be at Expert-plus level.

OTOH...if AI could somehow crunch hundreds of auction results from books...websites....catalogs...etc...that would be of use to our hobby.

On 2/18/2024 at 8:13 PM, RWB said:

AI is (and will be) only as usable as the data on which it is trained. I suspect that if one took a huge data set of TPG graded/authenticated coins, the AI output would be mush. That is what would be going in. Coin "grading" has devolved from somewhat objective into entirely subjective and money driven, not a good situation for any system based on 1's and 0's, only. A "quantum" computer might have a chance as would an entirely analog device.

At a minimum....AI can scan hundreds of sources...create a few paragraphs.....have that checked/scanned by an auction house worker for any obvious/gross errors...and now all auctions have a few paragraphs of information that used to take hours or longer to compile. 

Roger, how long did it take you to come up with that 2-page HA commentary for the 1928 Double Eagle bag and the story of the 500 stolen DEs ?  A few hours ?  A few days ?

Now imagine something getting 90% of that same story and information in a few seconds or minutes !!! 

On 2/18/2024 at 11:13 AM, Henri Charriere said:

I would have thought Dubai would have been a contender.  Definitely an eye-opening compilation!

Dubai doesn't have checks-and-balances for private property rights, independent judiciary, transparency, etc.

1 person says no outgoing wires from a Dubai bank, and your $$$ are stuck.  Look at what happened with Mark Mobius -- the Indiana Jones of overseas investing -- when he tried to get a few million dollars of his own money out of Mainland China and/or Hong Kong.  It took WEEKS if not longer, whereas it would have been 1-2 days here.

https://www.cnn.com/2023/03/06/business/mark-mobius-china-capital-controls/index.html

Switzerland's corporate base is largely financial and pharmaceutical, which are usually 2 industries used as cannon fodder by political and economic demagogues.  My father worked for a few of the firms, they are falling behind American and European rivals.

Spain I would have qualms about.  EU and Euro tied down.....Socialist/Communist/Green dominance in domestic policies.

Some of those countries have tight immigration policies (legal and illegal ).

On 2/16/2024 at 12:06 PM, RWB said:

Honestly, very few knew much of this until publications over the past 20 years. (Mostly mine.) That is why you see only superficial descriptions in older books, and Bowers' sole reliance on "die spacing" in discussing reduced design details.

Wow, didn't know that. 

Yes, I think FMTM is probably The Bible on coin operations.  Like I said, I'm looking forward to re-reading it from start to finish.

Ditto reading the SG DE book.  Some of the sections for each coin year/mintmark were of great interest, others less so.  The latter tended to be on the die varieties because the information went over my head. 

On 2/15/2024 at 10:38 PM, VKurtB said:

Yet another reason why NGC using FedEx as a default shipper is irresponsible bordering on criminal. Typical of private equity “suits”. Screw the customer in all ways possible.

For many years (decades), FedX was the Gold Standard for fast shipping.

This is theft from the inside.

On 2/16/2024 at 2:25 PM, zadok said:

...dont hold ur breath, im betting not...plus operative words "he said"....

Note I said..."plausible"....not proved or even probable. 

Right now, South/Central America is most likely and the countries most likely are Mexico (oil), Venezuela (oil), Brazil (oil), and Chile (Pinochet) which had the cash and economic prowess to accumulate gold in any quantity. 

PDVSA is a cash cow which has been decimated by Marxists and Socialists...totally plundered, worse than if John D. Rockefeller had controlled it and tried to screw ordinary Venezuelans.

PDVSA produces about 1 MM bl/day of oil.  Should be closer to 6 MM/bl. day.  They have lost $1 trillion the last decade because of Chavez and Maduro.  Unreal.....

On 2/12/2024 at 9:07 AM, VKurtB said:

What I did find in Berlin was no shortage of world collectors who were eager to discuss their views on TPG. There is sufficient “blame” to go around. I noticed that past German collectors tended to be very fond of polishing their coins. It was uncommon to find anything more than a few decades old that had NOT BEEN harshly cleaned. Toning was nearly completely absent. There simply are VAAAAAAST differences in collecting cultures. What we regard as “normal”, or even virtuous, is regarded with disdain over there. So called “great” collections headed for the international (including U.S.) auction block, and therefore headed for NGC or ₽¢G$, frequently come back with a clear majority of coins in Details holders. A typical German collector with a coin with peripheral rainbow toning will want to polish that “junk” off the coin and return it to blast white status. I spent a good amount of time at the hotel bar discussing these things with a VERY august international group, including the owner of MA-SHOPS. (I bought the first round of 0,5 liter beers.)

Seems like these practices and their disdain for TPGs being neutral arbiters of grade/condition...means they are DECADES behind us in being serious collectors, no ?

On 2/2/2024 at 9:26 AM, Epic Waffle said:

I would like to thank you all for the information and advice you have given. I really do appreciate it. Things like this give me confidence in becoming a more serious collector! In the past it has always felt so daunting, but with people like you around to help I feel like I can keep moving forward. Little things like learning to say "submit for grading" instead of "get it graded", and "loupe" instead of "loop" I notice and remember from your feedback. I hope to one day be proficient enough to be the one giving advice and feedback instead. 

Do you have any particular coin series or type that you are interested in ?

Interesting post ATS that caught my attention by someone who said they had family members from Venezuela and employed in their national oil company, PDVSA.  He says that the Fairmont Collection/Hoard is from Venezuela...from high-ranking PDVSA and government elites cashing out after Hugo Chavez died.

No hard proof offered -- but I see Venezuela as a very plausible source for the Fairmont Hoard:

• It's a huge hoard, not likely one accumulated by an individual (even a wealthy one).  Over 9 tons potentially.  More likely to be the kind of stash a small country acquires
• Venezuela has been an autocratic, kleptocratic country ever since WW II.  I could see siphoning off of government funds for personal use by the #1 man and a few of his loyal underlings.
• PDVSA, the Venezuelan national oil company, has (until recently) been a prodigious cash generator, the kind that could be easily looted by a dictator and his henchman over the decades.  Forget about the 1940's and 1950's and later....in Brazil, we had Petrobras looted only 20 years ago and used brazenly by political elites.  And Brazil has a somewhat healthy 2-party system; Venezuela hasn't had that in ages, if ever.
• Central Bank and other banks (if solvent) easily controlled by the government/dictator without any laws on private property rights, an independent judiciary, etc....to protect them.

Other hoards -- from a few dozen coins to the 1983 MTB El Salvador Hoard -- trace their origins to countries in South and Central America with similar stories to Venezuela.  But except for Mexico, none have a company like PDVSA that generates lots of $$$ and could be easily looted by corrupt government or oil executive higher-ups.

Let's see if more develops on this story. 

In the past, these things went in one ear and out the other...I would read the passages and understand nothing.

Now, having read literally THOUSANDS of posts on forums like this, parts of it become clearer.  So re-reading Bowers DE book, Roger's SG DE book, and FMTM in the next few months should hopefully really expand my knowledge.

I notice that the experts here and on other forums understand the mechanics of striking coins very well -- and it helps them analyze potential purchases of coins, too. 

Hence, my reason for creating this thread. 

The Doug Winters website has a fascinating analysis of the Fairmont Hoard/Collection which I think might have some relevance to The Wells Fargo Hoard.

Specifically, Roger mentioned that grading submissions or something along those lines (I'll have to find the relevant post here or in his book, which I don't have access to now) indicated that the Wells Fargo Hoard might be as large as 150,000 coins.  I'm not sure what specifically provides that basis, but the methodology employed by the Guest Blogger at Winter's site might be somewhat applicable to analyzing other hoards.

Or maybe not.   But interested in hearing if any of you quants out there can see if maybe the TOTAL WF Hoard (as opposed to the coins CERTIFIED) might in fact be much larger. 

I never thought of the possibility of there being lots of smaller denomination gold coins and/or many raw lower-quality coins in the Hoard.  It already appears that while the 1908 No Motto Double Eagle Saint hoard was 19,900 coins...not all were certifiable-worthy so there could be other coins that comprised a much larger hoard that also didn't merit being graded.  Or maybe they were sneakily "snuck in" to the TPGs gradually over time so as not to disrupt the market.

The Winters Blogger looks for "bumps" in the PCGS population data to guestimate the impact from the Fairmont Hoard/Collection.  Really fascinating and brilliant analysis.....time-consuming too I would think....you would think in today's digital age you could have Excel or other tools just grab, crunch, and interpolate the data.

But maybe not. 

JA's interview with Maurice Rosen is an even more fascinating read when you read this late-2022 piece from CoinWeek about the starting up of CACG:

https://coinweek.com/a-cac-grading-service-coinweek-interview-with-john-albanese/

Don't they track the item at all handoffs and locations ?  I mean, the packages for USPS, FedX, and maybe even UPS now seem as secure as an inter-office manila envelope.   If you track the package at all locations (their delivery guys now have hand-held location computer things) and also have cameras on all truck loadings/unloadings, I would think no hanky-panky could take place.  Do we need RFID chips embedded in each package to determine where and when it was lost/stolen ?

Too many items are being lost.  And I wonder if someone is wise to cash and/or currency/coins going to certain locations and realizing they can "intercept" the package.

And FedX and these other delivery sites don't help themselves with websites that are useless.  My uncle overnighted a package over Memorial Day 2021 (never good to send over a long weekend, FYI) and it got lost in or near Newark on its way to another part of NJ.  Nothing irreplaceable but we were on a schedule and had to re-submit papers. 

Meanwhile.... I was checking the FedX website with the tracking number and for 2 weeks it was telling me "YOUR PACKAGE ARRIVED IN NEWARK ON FRIDAY MAY 28, 2021 and is scheduled for delivery on Tuesday June 1, 2021"

It said that on Friday May 28th...and it said the same thing days and WEEKS later !!  The dates were in the past, but the stupid website wasn't aware...and no, the CSRs weren't able to track it down so we just re-sent.

Clueless.....