GoldFinger1969

Roger, you got those invoices from the Newman Portal ?

Some of you historians may know the answer to this, but aside from Bob Simpson and Eliasburg, it seems that many of the famous Saint-Gaudens collections were not compiled by super-wealthy individuals. Wealthy, yes, but not billionaires or the super-rich of their day. Steve Duckor was a doctor, not sure what Price or Morse did to be able to buy their coins. And I know who Joan Steinbrenner was married to. I can Google their bios (probably) but figured I'd give 1st dibs to any of you veteran collectors who may know some of the most famous collectors backgrounds. Wealthy....super-wealthy....or Forbes 400 money ? The famous Saint and gold collectors, most were....what ?

Does this collection have anything to do with the Paramount coin company that was a dealer in the 1960's and 1970's ?

Yeah, I read that in this long book some guy wrote. I can't remember the title, I'll get back to you on that.....

You lost me after MY words in quotes ! Seriously, while these Heritage Saint descriptions are not as detailed and thorough as what is in your book, they can be read on a smartphone anywhere, unlike lugging your magnus opus around. About 2-3 pages per coin, on average (though some got alot more and others < 1 page). As an added plus, I have Dave Akers comments from his book and auction catalogs, which would otherwise be tough to compile (and expensive !) if you tried to buy the relevant catalogs.

Mark, I just bought one of the price catalogs from Max Mehl. Should get it any day now (mail is ridiculous, taking forever).

Good News for Saint lovers !! I am working on a cut-and-paste from the Heritage Archives which would have descriptive information from Heritage's past sales of the coins, as well as commentary from David Akers from his book and/or auction catalogs including some of the more famous Saint-Gaudens sales (i.e., Price, Duckor, etc.). The main sections have comments and observations from many experts -- including our own RWB ! -- but the Akers commentaries are larger, longer, and more detailed (usually at the end of the commentary on that particular year/mintmark). Takes a while to search them out...not every coin had the commentary for the highest-priced sale...so it required alot of searching and scanning. When I have it finished and then re-formatted for easy reading, I'll let everyone here know. I'll post it here and/or send anybody a Word or better yet PDF document of the commentaries.

They're not Bald Eagles but Wedge-Tailed Eagles. Must be cousins. The gold coins are obviously pricey, but you can get the 1 oz. silver coins for under $100 usually. They also have 5 oz. coins that you can get for just under $200 or so.

Hoghead, great story about your father and bald eagles. Look into the Wedge-Tailed Eagle coins from the Perth Mint.

So is it worth anything ?

Agreed....I also think that there is nothing wrong with oral discussions when you speak to someone regarding topics. Some people/authors don't like them but I think direct asking of someone (who is still alive, obviously) provides valuable insight. Imagine being able to interview Max Mehl, Abe Kosoff, Israel Switt, and others about what it was like to be a dealer in the 1930's, 1940's, 1950's, and 1960's. They could tell us who was doing the big and small buying (and selling !) during those Glory Decades.

Roger, as someone who can tell the difference between original research based on original documents and just compiling information from multiple sources and repackaging it, I note the voluminous amount of footnotes and original documents in your books. Not sure how many Breen and the others have but I'll bet it pales by comparision. BTW, funny story....my first few days in college and we're being warned about plagiarizing work for term papers, thesis work, research reports, etc. This was in the days of Cliff Notes and things like that (not sure how they'd enforce these rules today in the Internet). Anyway....one of the upper classmen gives us the normal warnings and BS and then tells a few of us: "Hey, you know what the difference is between plagiarism and research ? Plagiarism is stealing from one source....research is stealing from multiple sources."

Why do you think Breen got so many things wrong ? Do you think he was just a sloppy researcher...did he trust or take the word of people he shouldn't have....was he a victim of a time pre-internet where it was tough to do research unless you were away from the home and literally pounded the pavement....or do you think he DELIBERATELY made things up and/or lied ? I'm not sure it was published but I was reading the Heritage Auction details on Saints and one year and mintmark was allegedly thought to have had a 1,000 coin U.K. hoard which turned out to be nothing but a rumour that became gospel. It never happened. But I believe Breen reported it as fact in a book or a journal or something.

I picked up a beautiful Bald Eagle hot plate at an outdoor show last year. They were out of coasters. The commemoratives I am looking at are mostly sub-1 oz. gold ones, like McKinley. I also own and have interest in some old silver commemoratives, too. As I mentioned here or in another thread, I like the Augustus Saint-Gaudens commemoratives, too, but so far have only purchased the silver ones. Hope to get the gold one for close to melt down the line.

Post some of the medal pics here. Also, approximately how much did you pay for most of them ?

See what these forums can do, Leeg ? You have pre-orders for a commemorative book !

I'd have interest in that. I have a few commemoratives. Even though I only have a few given to me raw by my grandparents, I may also hit Roger's PEACE DOLLAR Red Book. Got really good reviews so who knows, maybe Peace Dollars will be my 3rd passion (after Saints and Morgans). But first.....FMTM.

Yup, I'm going to re-read it as I really didn't understand alot of the stuff when I tried the 1st time. Having re-read Bowers' Double Eagle and Morgan Dollar Red Books, plus Roger's SAINTS DE book, I think I am better prepared. BTW, I heard back from the author on the 1907-33 Gold Coin Handbook (last one 2008), no plans to do a 3rd Edition. No word yet from Whitman on an updated DE Red Book (last one 2004).

Leeg, Roger is very gracious with his time. But nobody forces him to respond or pesters him -- he'll do so at his convenience and if he feels the post is important enough and worthy of a response. We are certainly grateful that he is helpful and generous in responding to our questions. Most of us have bought his books already and we are looking to stimulate discussion based on our interest and enjoyment in reading his books. The discussion also leads to questions and observations -- some good, some bad -- but not everybody is an expert on these topics so things get cleared up that way. Roger is helpful to all, novice and expert. All we can do to reciprocate is spread the good word to buy his books and maybe find a way to support his research down the line. I can tell you that is one thing I am looking into and I bet I find a receptive audience among others whom he has helped here and on other forums. We are discussing some relatively minor items but there's nothing major going on in many of the books and topics and coins which Roger is an expert in. We do have a thread on his SAINTS book and there's lots of valuable Q&A there. Indeed, I've saved most of the pages in PDF format in case anything happens to the thread and this website. I know myself when I've written articles that have gotten published, I've LOVED the Q&A and feedback from the public. I would guess Roger enjoys it, too. Sorry for the length of this post but I wanted to both thank Roger -- as well as the other participants in this thread for their useful observations and questions -- and respond to your concerns, too.

The sister selling the medals and wanting anonymity could be legit. She could be active and tied to some higher-ups in the RCC and doesn't want it known that she sold the medals given to her brother. Could be embarassing or just ask some uncomfortable questions. Lots of politics in the hierarchy.

I don't know how they measured it -- did they look at 20-year old coins or heavily bang-around some coins 24/7 for a few weeks to approximate 20 years of wear-and-tear ? -- but the reduction from the chart is < 1% for all the coins at the top.

Very interesting.....there aren't that many Cardinals in the United States at any given time (<10 usually, I believe) so checking them all shouldn't be that hard. I wonder if it could have been from a deceased Cardinal from a while back, like John Cardinal O'Connor of New York ? What kind of medals are these ? What have similar ones sold for ? Good luck !

How much loss are we talking about from circulation wear and friction anyway ? I think someone on one of the coin sites did a test -- maybe one of your books Roger mentioned a similar government study (was one referenced in FMTM or the Saints book ?) -- and I think the loss over 10 or 20 years of heavy use was maybe 5% or something like that ? It's not like someone would be coming into a bank or the Mint with hundreds of underweight coins looking to pull a fast one. Anybody know for a SLQ or GW quarter...when the features are almost completely erased from wear, and the coin is almost smooth on both sides, how much of the metal was erased ?

They should create a YouTube video on how to navigate around the portal. Even Heritage's search function has glitches. I ask for auction records on a particular year and mintmark and I get others, too.....the 1927-D always seems to show up ....using quotation marks eliminates the search entirely so that doesn't help. Whatever, on HA I get 2x or 3x or 4x or 5x the number of hits but it's manageable. It's alot more over at the NNP.

The secrecy of some collectors, i.e.. "East Coast collector" baffles me a bit. It's not like someone is going to steal the coins. Same thing with the owner of the 1933 Saint who was generous to donate it to public viewing. Nice guy, generous.....now show your face.