GoldFinger1969

Nice..how much is this coin worth approximately ?

You stick it inside your sweater or put it in your HAPPY DAYS lunch box.

So about 170 ounces or 10.6 pounds.

Well, I checked another HA FUN catalog and again it matched up word-for-word with what is on the HA website for the actual coin auction (at least it's up now, who knows in the future ). If I want new information or commentary on certain coins, I'm going to either have to pre-date the auction companies presence on the internet (c. 2000 for most) or go back to the 1970's and 1980's for specialty catalogs from firms that don't have online auctions or don't re-use the catalog info on the internet word-for-word. Oh well, lesson learned at minimal cost. Catalogs from firms no longer around -- Paramount, Superior, etc. -- may still be worth buying.

WC, check out COLLECTORS CALL with Lisa Welchel ("The Facts Of Life") on Sunday evenings on MeTV (it's on hiatus now, I think). Mancow The Shockjock and Barry "Greg Brady" Williams: You'll see what people are collecting and paying big $$$ for...from the helicopter James Bond/Sean Connery used in YOU ONLY LIVE TWICE to Batmobiles, 1960's Christmas Special setups, comics, action figures, etc.

How much gold did this guy take/steal ?

I think all employees at the Mints who come into contact with gold or silver -- including West Point -- go through sophisticated metal detectors that would pick up if you had a piece of gold the size of one of those pastina minis you eat in soup.

Yes, Taubman owned Sotheby's....and when it was bought it was for about $2-$3 billion or 3-4x the purchase price for CU. Excellent point. But the smaller purchase price for CU must mean there is growth SOMEWHERE in the company. I think it's in collectibles and sports memorabilia where stuff is pricey and it's easier to grow the top line by getting fat rates on a smaller number of expensive items rather than grow baseball card grading and/or coin certification. You buy something from a Marvel movie and it is $50,000 that's $500 - $2,000 probably right there.

Both are private. Sotheby's was public at one time I believe, but you can't have a business like that -- with lumpy quarterly and annual results -- at the whims of the public market. Plus, there is confidential information that is key to securing future sales and revenue streams...you can't give that information out and not put yourself at a competitive disadvantage or tee off your own clients.

We still don't know WHY they want CU and at such a big premium to the stock price the last few quarters. It doesn't appear to be based on a big volume increase for grading coins or sports cards. I wonder if it the Authentication Division or whatever it is called that authenticates alot of memorabilia and collectibles stuff. Providing a Certificate of Authenticity for a costume used in an AVENGERS movie is alot more lucrative than grading some cards or coins. Alot of people are ditching their personal possessions...movie studios and other companies, too....ex-atheletes....it sells faster and for more $$$ if it's legit and authenticated. Of course, it does appear this trimming/overgrading problem left a big stink but the folks at CU/PSA must not believe it's a killer reputation-wise or liability-wise. Well, Heritage has a pretty good data base...it's a bit unwieldly at times and sometimes coins other than what I want come up. The problem is that no 2 coins are exactly alike to it's a guestimate at best for any grade. I think that GC also has a database (I'm sure they're saving the data)....I haven't been able to find/use it yet, but I've saved all my 1907 Saint High Relief auctions over the last few quarters and have a few dozen sales prices that went off on the site. RED BOOKS and GUIDE BOOKS also have pricing information and Roger Burdette's SAINTS book has a 40-year price table for each year and mintmark, if you are into Saints (which I am ).

WC, just to be clear, I wasn't saying I thought Saints should be bought ahead of financial speculation, I'm just saying hypothetically that could happen just like in art, collectibles, current sports/baseball cards, or the false-start with the Wall Street coin funds in 1988-89: too much money coming into a small sector. I've seen this with small-cap and micro-cap stocks where you get 1 or 2 hedge funds or mutual funds looking to buy and they move the stock up a ton. I do think that the Internet can be useful in spreading the joy of coin collecting (and bullion collecting/investing !) to people who otherwise might be buying gold ETFs or other gold telemarketer scams. And you wouldn't need millions to become coin collectors to invigorate the hobby and also strengthen pricing across the bullion and non-bullion coins. A few thousand people a year going to their LCS....buying via HA or GC or SB.....attending the regional or national coin shows from time-to-time. It's a question of time and learning about what is out there. I know for myself, just like people have learned about collecting and stocks and home repair during the Covid-19 shut-down, I have been at my most active in this hobby when I have been working PT or been between jobs.

TSLA is being valued as an energy company not a car company. The market has decided that TSLA was like AMZN and would do to autos/energy what AMZN did in retail. That's why the stock is up 10-fold from the March lows. Private equity has so much $$$ that they need to do SOMETHING soon with it. They don't earn fees until they invest. And if they are earning fees, they are supposed to be invested. Saying "prices are too high, we want to wait a few months...quarters...years" for the next bear market won't cut it.

I had forgotten that PSA is either complicit or tied to the "trimming" and overgrading scandal that could lead to huge liability in refunds: https://www.actionnetwork.com/general/darren-rovell-card-memorabilia-fraud-national-sports-collector-convention https://www.blowoutforums.com/showthread.php?t=1298835 This would have me running in the opposite direction from any person or firm who believes this: "...Trading cards are easily the most liquid of all tangible assets, and this factor is continuing to drive attention towards them, especially new wealth”

Looks like some Middle Eastern Christian medallion but not sure what country or region.

Remember....all it takes is a small % of 20ish or 30ish tech billionaires to move a small % into what they liked as kids 15 or 20 or 30 years ago and it can move the market. We see it in art all the time. Imaginge if just 1 or 2 more billionaires said they wanted to emulate Bob Simpson and accumulate Saints. You'd have panic buying at the rare and ultra-rare high end it would filter down to semi-scarce coins, too.

Steve Cohen bought my Mets and in a good year he MIGHT make $125 million from the team. That's when he gets the broadcast rights back, CitiFIELD is packed, and the team goes deep into the playoffs. Last year, Cohen made $1.4 billion on his personal fortune. 10x what the Mets might make in a good/great year.

And yet RSN values are in the toilet. I don't get it. Broadcast rights for the teams per se are still going up so I don't know why the RSN values are dropping. Have to get a sell-side report from one of my old contacts.

That's been the gameplan in the past, but they paid an all-time high price. They didn't buy this on a decline or buy a busted company. And the non-core asset may be the PCGS coin division. We'll have to see. Maybe they see growth in all their areas including coins, who knows. But the HOT areas seem to be cards and collectibles (non-coin).

WC, it appears to be a baseball/collectibles play, not a coin play per se. Heck, even MeTV has a "Collector's Corner" show that airs with famous entertainment and comic book and other collections. Alot of this stuff (costumes, etc.) has to be authenticated to realize value.

That collapse in the PCGS 3000 Index the last 10 years is mostly (1) decline in PM prices after the 2011-12 spike. Gold and silver fell and prices had been bid up expecting a RISE.....(2) huge declines (if what I am reading in these and other coin forums is correct) in purely numismatic coins with very little metallic value (SLQ's, Franklins, Barbers, Morgans, etc.). Select areas can do well. Liberty Head DE's got hit, but lower-graded Carson City Liberty's have doubled as people who can't afford rare or mint state CC's gravitated down and bought there.

The whole baseball card revival seems to be in new and fad cards....holographic cards, special signed cards, premium cards given away in boxes or raffles....etc. It does NOT seem to have lifted prices for all the stuff me and my cousins were buying in the 1980's and 1990's: the old stars (Brett, Gibson, Seaver, Ryan, Mays, Mantle, etc.)...or the then-current ones (Griffey, etc.). But maybe I'm wrong and those have been lifted in price, too. Also seems to have moved into the sports that have not suffered baseball's general decline (hockey, basketball, e-Sports). Football seems to have its fans play the gaming apps. The Covid-19 crisis does seem to have gotten more people into collecting in general and also coins. HA and GC say they've seen nice increases. Not as big as the daytrading apps that have people buying speculative stocks and options (that will end well when the Fed decides to start hiking rates). What is "HGBL" ??

What coins do you collect, what coin books did you hit ?

I did. Probably not, but I'm hoping as a loyal client and buyer of the book they might be able to send me a PDF copy.

Aspet ? You mean Aspen ? What do you mean by "muted definition and detail" ? They look pretty sharp to me...not sure who did the striking for the NPF but modern technology you figure would do a much better job than equipment from 100 years ago.

On a serious subject, since we're talking about book printing.....is the SAINTS book available in a PDF format (or Kindle-type online form) from Heritage ? I may ask them. Would love to have it on my smartphone where I can read the year and mint mark chapters. Or on the couch at night.