GoldFinger1969

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.....

On 1/27/2024 at 4:36 PM, Fenntucky Mike said:

First things first, is it a counterfeit? According to NGC this is the 9th most counterfeited coin.!

Wow, it's not a coin I am too familiar with, surprised it is that high in the (global) counterfeit rankings.

Thought it would be good to have a thread covering this where we can discuss the basics and debate their relations to grades.

I'm re-reading a bunch of books so stuff I glossed over then is now something I want to fully comprehend.  It's possible this stuff will be more fully explained in FMTM or another book but as it could be a while before I or someone gets there, this thread should provide a nice shortcut. While they might have details pertaining to specific coin types that I am reading now (i.e., DEs), the concepts should be applicable to any coin type.

On to the 1st die striking issue...

DIE SPACING:  In Bowers DE book, he says that "die spacing" and not worn dies can explain lightly-struck, lightly-defined Liberty Head DEs.  The coronet on Liberty's head is often lightly struck as this is the deepest part of the die (highest point of the coin).

First....what specifically are we talking about with "die spacing" -- the separation between the obverse and reverse dies ?

Second....planchet weight tolerances somehow figures into this, too.  Double Eagles weighed a bit more with a much lower tolerance deviation than MSDs, thus resulting somehow in "sharper" strikes especially if the planchet weighted a bit more and the spacing accommodated the larger size.  I'm not seeing the connection even after re-reading the passage.

Bowers notes that while a heavily-used die might have "flow marks" in the fields (high points of dies, low point of coins) the Coronet on Miss Liberty (low point of die, high point of coin) would still be sharp.  I get the inverse relationship, but is this saying that "high points" don't get worn like low points do ?

Finally, the Type 1 Liberty Head DEs from 1859-66 are lightly struck because the hub was changed in 1859.  Can someone explain why this happened ?

On 2/14/2024 at 5:15 PM, VKurtB said:

Trust me, only you. 

Good....the more for me !!!   I'm like a villain in the old 1960's "Batman" TV series.....I eliminate Penguin, the Joker, Catwoman, and the Riddler.....more Saints for me !!!  

Would anybody here be adding a top-notch pricey Saint or Liberty DE...or a Morgan SD ?

On 2/14/2024 at 7:43 AM, olympicsos said:

 All it takes is a couple people with money to fundamentally reshape coinage, especially coinage that doesn't circulate. 

That's what happened in 1989-90 when a few hundred million dollars (or even less !  or more....) was believed to be hitting the market.  If you assume the initial $50 MM that was raised included about $5-$10 MM for certified Saints...you're talking about a few thousand coins being scooped up which moved the market for Saint-Gaudens DEs 100% in a few months for top-quality MS-65's and 66's.

Imagine if Taylor Swift announced she was into coins and told her followers it's fun and (God Forbid) they can make money too.  Or a social media or software or tech or AI billionaire. 

Bob Simpson was an oilman, a demographic more likely to be into hard PMs and coins.  But there's no law that says others can't follow.

On 2/14/2024 at 9:28 AM, BillJones said:

I would buy an 1802 half dime, a 1794 Dollar, a $50 gold slug, a 1907 rolled edge $10 gold and if it came on the market, the King of Siam Proof set. 

Outside of the 1794 Dollar being the first silver dollar minted, I don't know too much about the others so anybody can feel free to provide more info on what makes them special.  

I take it a $50 gold "slug" is a privately minted $50 gold piece minted by California private minters during the Gold Rush ?

On 2/14/2024 at 7:40 AM, olympicsos said:

Both. The 2009 UHR was minted to demand, there was no mintage limit. You can also have congress push through a program which would allow for a modern day large cent program. Large cents capture collector imagination just like silver dollars do and we have modern silver dollars. 

What makes you think "large cents" would be a big winner ?  Not doubting you, just not my area of expertise.

You think similar to the State Quarter program....big coins...cheap...easy for kids to collect ?

On 2/11/2024 at 8:36 PM, VKurtB said:

AI (not Allen Iverson, but still…) is a dangerous thing in combination with bad data. And bad data and YouTube coin videos are synonymous. 

Again...YouTube and Google have been ubiquitous for decades.....why the surge in the last 2 years ?

On 2/4/2024 at 10:51 PM, powermad5000 said:

No wonder why we get some of the topics posted here in the forum by people thinking they have some insanely valuable coin. This came up in my phone when I went to do a Google search. It is nonsense like this fueling some of this mass hysteria from non collectors who think they just got a multi million dollar coin in their pocket change which we know just isn't true.

But Google and those quarters and other items have been around for years, decades even.  We've seen the flood ever since the end -- not beginning or heights -- of the pandemic.  Strange that we keep getting this tsunami of misinformed treasure hunters.

You would think they would at least be SUSPICIOUS that they can't possibly have a something worth 10,000x face value.  If someone told me my home was the planned site of a new AI-related campus and I could see it for 500% of the current market value, I'd be suspicious by a bit. 

On 2/12/2024 at 7:52 PM, Henri Charriere said:

History is tentative pending new discoveries, declassification of documents, the persistence of one man who insisted Troy actually existed, treachery, even deathbed confessions.  It may not happen during your lifetime but I like to believe truth stamped into the ground shall rise again and be revealed. Not every mystery is solved.

Wouldn't it be interesting to know -- and I am sure it wasn't on Paul Wittlin's Priority List -- to know where all those coins in French and Swiss banks came from ?  

If it came from rural vs. city folks.....wealthy individuals vs. peasants.....low-income vs. middle-income....and maybe which countries (we know which banks but that doesn't necessarily correlate to the depositors).

I agree with Zadok that this isn't critical to our hobby....but as one of my passions is learning and reading about original sources....I wish we had more info on who these people were who made the original SDB deposits.  I found the otherwise "boring" and "common" 1924 Saint fascinating while reading up on it because the American-German Dawes Plan -- which I have read about for 50+ years...was key to the use of that particular DE.  How many times did I read in my grade school textbooks about the Dawes Plan and 1924...never knowing that the 1924 Saint DE was the coin of the realm to facilitate that trade deal?

Come to think of it....I sort of wonder why the European banks wanted bags of Double Eagles and other gold coins....as RWB has said, the bars were easier to move.....but why have unwieldly DEs when it was so much easier to settle a trade with digital credits and debits, right ?  If the Central Bank of your country is accepting gold and wants bonds that you have in your capital account....wouldn't a credit be easier to move around ?

On 2/11/2024 at 11:33 PM, VKurtB said:

CACG is one and ONLY one thing. It is all about “look at me, I’m different”. The implication is that “different” is synonymous with “better”. It’s not true when beginners look at damaged coins, and it’s no more true when a grading firm goes ape-poopy over being different. Different means different, nothing more. 

Different and strict.  Like the substitute teacher that you thought would be a pushover and the first things out of her mouth were "Take out your pen or pencil, this is a suprise quiz." 

What the hell is it with 20 posts only saying "t" ???? 

On 2/10/2024 at 1:41 PM, RWB said:

Why? They just copy what is on the slab label and the promoter's advertising articles.

You would think so many different actors are involved that SOMEONE...at SOME TIME....would talk.  But clearly not the case, as the Fairmont is almost certainly multiple hoards or acculations, unlike maybe the 1908 No Motto Wells hoard which could be all from one source or person.

I guess among the sellers of these hoards all they care about is getting paid.