GoldFinger1969

On 12/10/2023 at 11:11 AM, BillJones said:

This was a bigger problem in the 1950s and than it is today. 

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. 

On 1/18/2024 at 6:38 PM, gmarguli said:

This is a common fallacy. Nice / high end coins for the grade always brought a premium price. CAC slaps a sticker on a coin and it sell for 120% of generic. CAC supporters point to it as the CAC sticker brings a premium. Fact is, the coin might have sold for 120% generic without the sticker.  Auction archives are littered with examples of nice coins selling for way more than generic prices and there is no sticker anywhere to be found! 

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.

On 1/17/2024 at 5:08 PM, Coinbuf said:

Still early in the game, two years from now will be the time to look at premiums and volume of coins on sites like ebay, GC, FB and others.  

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 ? 

On 1/17/2024 at 4:33 PM, gmarguli said:

I'm looking for these big premiums and can't seem to find them. Most of the stuff for sale in their slabs is garbage coins. Lots of moderns and stuff that didn't need to be slabbed in the first place like common MS63 Morgans and MS64 Mercury dimes. Moderns seem to be selling at a discount. Overpriced common stuff seems to not be selling.  US Coins for sale on eBay right now: NGC: 61,000+ PCGS: 54,000+ ANACS:  0,000+ ICG: 8,700+ CACG - 373  SEGS: 160 ICCS (Canadian TPG): 128 Accugrade: 29

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

On 1/16/2024 at 11:42 AM, dcarr said:

Biden wants to hire 87,000 IRS agents. They would produce nothing useful, they would only take from the economy. If a transaction-fee digital currency was in place, the tax system would be fair, simple, and there would be no cheating. Most of the IRS would no longer be needed. Those 87,000 IRS agents would have to get jobs elsewhere actually producing useful goods and services. And everyone else would benefit from not having to fill out tax forms. That would be a much better system. But you sound scared of such a thing.

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).

On 1/15/2024 at 10:29 PM, dcarr said:

For example a digital currency issued by the US Treasury. Use of this currency would have a small transaction fee (like a credit card) and those fees would replace the income tax system. Imagine never having to file a tax return again.

Coinage and currency are part of a country's history.  You would end this.  A digital currency also has NO privacy.

On 1/15/2024 at 10:29 PM, dcarr said:

Prior to about 1913 there was no income tax. The Federal Government was funded via small fees on bank checks, insurance policies, stocks, bonds, and other financial documents. It worked well, but the banks and Wall Street were successful at taking the tax collection off of themselves and put it onto the general public instead.

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.

On 1/15/2024 at 10:29 PM, dcarr said:

North Dakota has the right idea. They established a state-run bank for the benefit of the people, and proceeds from those bank activities go towards paying the state's bills.

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 ! 

On 1/15/2024 at 6:43 PM, dcarr said:

You make your living with the financial and monetary systems the way they are now. So naturally you would feel threatened by any major change to how these systems work. There are far better (and more equitable) ways for these things to function, but you would have none of it.

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 !! 

On 1/15/2024 at 9:39 AM, zadok said:

...there was nothing misleading in that particular column, it was mostly reflections n comments, but u always need to ask urself what is the underlying reason for any column...just as u need to ask urself why certain individuals always need to take negative swipes at everyone else besides themselves...we all know the answer, but u need to keep reminding urself of the reasons....

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. 

On 1/13/2024 at 2:38 PM, RWB said:

He was also a pernicious liar and fraud. Much of the quoted section is invention and distortion, and the rest is false. He and his ilk sold emotional trauma and insecurity; the same breed of honesty thug proliferate on-line and in phony "news" sites.

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.

On 1/13/2024 at 2:21 PM, Henri Charriere said:

Silver cyanide gas.  Not to worry.  I just made that up.  On the other hand, if anything untoward were to happen to the '33 D.E., someone would have to answer to that. And, of course, that would have to go by extension to any of the other hundreds of trophy coins.

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 ?

On 1/13/2024 at 4:02 PM, VKurtB said:

The ABSOLUTE WORST were the small “soap bar” ANACS slabs. 

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."

On 1/12/2024 at 2:26 PM, Errorists said:

Didn't buy it. But yes.

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

On 1/13/2024 at 12:21 AM, VKurtB said:

If such a thing even exists. I have my doubts. And yes, you are correct about slabs, or their inserts, discoloring coins. The solution is to NOT OBSESS OVER HAVING COINS IN SLABS. Do you have any coins that YOU PERSONALLY SENT more than 30 years ago? I do, and they have changed A GREAT DEAL over the years, far MORE than those in Saflips.  And no, it’s not just one or two TPGS firms. It’s ALL OF THEM. 

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 ?

On 1/12/2024 at 2:21 PM, JT2 said:

saw -plenty of them at the FUN show in Orlando... Andy said they were tough to crack!  they don't stack well with others and don't fit well in a storage box.  i wasnt impressed with them that much.  Kinda look like the generic version of a slab  

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 ?

On 1/12/2024 at 2:35 AM, Henri Charriere said:

I feel like I am being mollycoddled to death here against my will.  Would you, or any other responsible member, care to cite the source of this speculative statement?  Is this a candid admission conceded to a third-party, like Mark Feld who worked with and knew JA as anyone possibly could to comfortably share that insight with others for attribution?  I do not care if I am the only person who feels this way, but this oft-repeated line whose origin is unclear seems to have attained the status of gospel truth. I do not believe it, find it offensive, repulsive and indefensible. Let's pretend I'm from Missouri, the "Show Me" state.  Someone -- anyone, show me and I shall resign my commission and silence my voice on this Forum to time indefinite, even forever, as JHVH of Armies, the God of Israel before whom I do stand, is living...

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. 

On 1/11/2024 at 8:24 PM, zadok said:

...all of this clarification is well n good, but i think it should be pointed out as a matter of additional clarification, that this discussion is directed at mint state coins which r only a part of the cac beaned coins, the cac beaned coins that r in circulated grades were evaluated on metrics that were divorced from au/unc determinations...just saying....

Good points...the key thing is that the downgrade from MS to AU means big loss of registry points AND $$$.....the $$$ losses from AU-50 to EF-45 might not be as bad. 

Or it could, depending on the coin.

Need to hear from our resident Morgan experts.  Tough to grade those variables from pics.

But on HA...and it does look nice...seems about right.  Not sure about 2 grades higher, that's above my pay grade.

This whole "confusion" on my part and those who hold TPG coins with no CAC sticker is that apparently CACG is employing technical grading....but even the CAC-sticker people were employing technical grading.... but self-filtering of "C" coins took a while and those are the ones with the same grade as CAC-stickered coins that are being submitted to CACG....and going down in grade and/or going from MS to AU on the wear/rub issue.

I think. 

On 1/11/2024 at 12:03 PM, Coinbuf said:

That thread was started a couple of weeks ago and I do not recall every comment, but from my memory your statement is incorrect.  

Once again you are right on CACG and I am wrong.      Apparently, with all the posts about submitting TPG-solo and TPG+CAC coins, it is the FORMER which are getting downgraded 1-2 grades and/or going from MS to AU.  TPG+CAC Sticker are crossing with no problems or so I am told and what you are saying.  Thanks, CB !! 

There's a 40-page CACG Grading Thread ATS and I may have been reading at the wee hours of the morning or maybe someone typed confusingly and I jsut got confused.  In any event, you are right, CB.

But...am I correct on this conclusion:  this makes the 80-85% of coins submitted to CAC (at least in the early days) as getting the sticker (A or B coins) even stranger.  Apparently, the CAC people were NOT finding evidence of wear/rub on the high points of most of the submitted coins since most of the coins got a bean.  But what doesn't have a sticker TODAY seems to have a preponderance of high-point wear/rub and these are the coins getting downgraded and/or going from MS to AU.  Is this correct ?

Boy, this gets confusing !!   

On 1/11/2024 at 10:40 AM, Coinbuf said:

No that is incorrect, a coin with a bean will cross at the same grade (or potentially higher) unless the coin has degraded in the holder. 

But you've seen the threads and comments....many CAC-stickered coins are being sent to CACG and are being graded as AU because of the wear/rub issue.

On 1/11/2024 at 10:40 AM, Coinbuf said:

Yes that thread ats and the comments from a former P grader in the thread was very reviling and pulled the curtain back on TPG market grading.   I have no doubt that JA knew CACG's stance on rub would "rub" some dealers and collectors the wrong way.

Revealing...not reviling.  Although some of the folks whose coins went from MS to AU might be reviled. 

Good one on "rub"....