GoldFinger1969

Yes, I remember that from your SAINTS book. I never knew it was microscopic facets and ridges etc. that caused luster and shinyness....always thought it just meant the coin was smoother and more polished. Fascinating....

It's all guestimates. I actually bought a 1970 RED BOOK to see where alot of the Saint prices were right before we went off the gold standard and the hyper-inflation of the 1970's. I wasn't old enough to know the prices back then. If you focus on 1 or 2 specific coin types, it's easy to come across decent prices and charts that you can use to see if current prices are historically expensive, cheap, whatever. I have a bunch I've come across over the years for the Saints. But as you get into a rarer and rarer coin which trades less frequently (esp. in higher grades), you have to realize that 1 or 2 sales can skew results.

The great thing about RWB's new SAINT-GAUDENS book is that it has a yearly price going back to the mid-1970's. I think the best thing to do, is if you are looking into historical returns, is to actually punch up recent and past prices on a website like HA and use that. Don't be as fixated so much on the specific numbers but rather the overall trend since price rises/spikes tend to happen quickly and bubbles deflate over many many years. At least this is the case for the series I usually track like Saints and Morgans. I'm not familiar with the SLQ but he either uses his own personal standards/biases or he focused strictly on higher-priced coins. As I noticed with the Saints, he didn't have links for common/generic Saints (which trade more like bullion) but higher-priced coins that sell for a big premium to the underlying gold content. But sometimes more common, bullion-type coins outperform pure numismatic coins. For non-PM coins (small denomination stuff), more common stuff might be better at certain times. For a rough guestimate, like I said, it's not bad. You can get some quick-and-easy numbers. It can also tell you where the current price is relative to past periods especially pre- and post-bubbles like 1979 and 1990. You can see if the coin came all the way back or only a fraction of the way. My understanding is that non-Morgan and non-Saint coins (small denomination coins) which went up 5-20x in the bubbles are still down a ton from their all-time peaks. I didn't check out the downloadable stuff since I figured you have to pay for that. Best way to figure out investment returns is to go back and look at specific auction prices or use RED BOOK prices and then compute it to the current price. I am curious about his downloadable prices (where they came from, how extensive) especially for Saints...maybe I'll do a bit more exploring.

I don't even remember the 1928's being mentioned in FMTM, another reason to start re-reading the book. Yes, the dust thing was how they recognized something was amiss and as I recall it was alongside a bunch of bags of 1933 Saints, too ! Which sorta ties into the whole issue of Izzy Switt's 1933's.

I can't recall if this is in FMTM...but how the heck did blowing sand at high-speed not mar the finish on the Saints or even the dies for the other coins ? I could see it maybe working today with all our technology, but back in the early-1900's ? They had problems not busting dies, aligning the press with the planchets, keeping things aligned on the press, etc..etc.......and NOW they're gonna improve the finish of a coin by high-speed sand blasting ? How fine was this sand anyway ? Sort of amazing for the times, when you think about it.

Maybe....but with illiquid pricing given that we don't have a liquid, multiple-sales traded item (like stocks) it's tough to compare. But at times common PM coins like Morgans or Saints can track bullion and outpace more numismatic coins. For very rare or semi-rare dates in high-grade....a few dedicated price-insensitive buyers can clearly keep the price up over time and skew the results for that particular coin and grade. Go a few grades lower and it's a different price environment over time. Key dates for silver/gold might also be different than small denomination, non-PM coins.

I am a finance guy too so we share that in common. I checked out that site -- it's not bad, better than nothing -- but I believe that some of the prices for specific grades are somewhat limited (i.e., Saint-Gaudens DEs). For smaller denomination coins, you may find it adequate. I also am not sold on the actual prices for the grades listed. They tend to be focusing on very long time frames so that their more recent prices won't skew the CAGR results. But if you are a finance guy, you know that using a starting point of 1950 is ridiculous. The period for PM's and gold/silver before 1973 (floating exchange rates) is fundamentally different since then. You had the demise of the gold standard, floating exchange rates, and a couple of PM and numismatic bubbles. This makes using ROLLING PERIODS much more important than arbitrarily using certain starting points. As you know, rolling periods show that stocks almost always generate positive risk-adjusted rewards over 10-20 year time periods, and ALL 30-year periods. That is NOT the case with coins, whether small denomination, silver, or gold coins. I believe that the site is more of a marketing vehicle to steer people into buying coins, and specific ones at that. Lots of ads. And the focus on more expensive "key dates" for the Saint series rather than cheaper commons is very telling. Best source of data today is actual auction sales at HA, then GC, SB, and maybe Ebay.

Actually, considering the proximity to easy money (gold), it appears that rank theft from the mint was pretty low. I have to re-read any relevant sections in FMTM but they seem to have had pretty good controls. That bag of stolen 1928 Saints from the Philly Mint is one of the biggest I know of, though I believe the SanFran and Denver Mints had their own famous heists (since rumoured to have been found in various hoards). Even with proper screening, you can't get 100% honest people working in a mint anymore than you can in a bank or a drug store of the times. The modern methods to screen workers daily for even minute traces of gold or PMs were not available back then. Employee theft was and is part of the cost of doing business, sadly.

The label on the slab...where it says PCGS or NGC. Sometimes the pedigree is listed, who owned it in the past. Steve Duckor's name is on a bunch of Saints labels/slabs.

Right, but I wonder if the label says it was owned by members of the ASG family. I've never seen such a label but then again I've only seen pics of 3 or 4 of the UHRs.

1907 High Relief Saint: Interesting, even the most famous of the Saints turns out to be a lousy investment alongside other Saints when gold rises. If you look at rolling time periods or randomly choose a year (instead of data pick), the 1907 HR lags bullion just like most Saints. In 2004 gold was about $400/oz. and an AU58 or MS60 High Relief was about $10,000 (give or take). Fast-forward to today, and those same HR's sell for about $10,000 (maybe a bit more) but gold has quadrupled and then some. In the 1970's and 1980's, numismatic coins gave leverage to the underlying rise in the price of gold. But since then, its like investors have chased those performances even though the pattern no longer works.

Roger, do you know if the 1907 UHR (among other coins) that were owned by the family of ASG has that on the label ?

I don't believe you can get the death penalty for a non-capital crime. Theft doesn't bring the death penalty. Probably 20 years prison, even for the lucky guy who swiped the bag of 250 1928 Saint-Gaudens DE's.

I've never heard of any death penalty for employees guilty of theft, but I'll defer to Roger. I know a few people were convicted over the years for stealing, embezzlment, maybe even just because of discrepancies in the books when they were innocent. One unsolved case involves the theft of an entire bag -- 250 coins, $5,000 at the time -- of 1928 Saint-Gaudens Double Eagles in the mid-1930's. Roger and I have posted on that in the book thread. Nobody ever caught, no suspects. The Mint Superintendent was personally liable even though innocent until Congress passed legislation taking him off the hook in the early-1940's.

Here's some of my current and recent reading:

I don't see it...I either lost it or I never got it when I bought the book. I'm not gonna worry.....I need to re-read the book and plan to shortly. Finishing up some RED BOOKS and gonna re-hit some chapters in your DE magnus opus.

I have a gold coin that I think is like 1/5th of an ounce or something like that with Czar Nick II....have to check. Never noticed or looked for edge lettering.

I don't think I got that CD.....what's it do ?

Don't forget David Bowers book on Double Eagles....a great reference book and also good to read. Covers both Liberty Head and Saint-Gaudens DEs....but with much less depth than Roger does in his book. It's a Red Book from Whitman.

Really ? Where did you see proof that he paid for the patterns and pieces ? I assumed they just helped themselves as a perk of the job.

I liked the phrasing in the book about Charles Barber's collection: "...during his long career, he was able to assemble an excellent collection of pattern and experimental coins produced at the Mint." Assemble ? He helped himself !! Just took the coins !! Maybe he was allowed...maybe it was a gray area....I wonder what happens today if somebody like John Mercanti were to help himself to some of the patterns and designs and 1st-coins off the mint press for a design he drew up ? I wonder if the Treasury and Mint consider those coins and lots of others to have left under "authorized channels" that doesn't necessitate taking them back like the 1933 Saints.

You'd need to reach out to the auction houses and/or the TPGs who know and work with the Heavy Hitters. A $10 MM endowment....$400,000 a year for disbursement....subsidize research, have awards for HS kids and college kids for essays or contributions to coin collecting....maybe subsizide an exhibit at the Big 3 coin conventions. 1 wealthy person could take care of the whole thing.....if needed, just a few although the value of the naming rights then has to be apportioned.

I'll bet NOBODY has been approached. Or thought of it. That's the opening, Roger..............

We have plenty of super-wealthy collectors who do nothing but give away large sums of money that mostly benefit fellow rich people. What we need is a foundation that supports research like Roger's. You wouldn't need a Harvard-sized endowment. $10 MM would throw off about $400,000 a year which would be plenty (I think) to subsidize research articles and maybe small-print quantity books. That's NOTHING to many of these people. I'd assist in this endeavor. We have some veterans with contacts....we reach out to the TPGs, auction houses, etc ..... it's WIN-WIN as it helps expand knowledge of our sector. And anybody who donates or jump-starts this will have his or her name immortalized going forward in a more permanent and important manner than having their last name engraved on the label of a slab for a particular coin or collection.

We all do.......when I look back when I had plenty of $$$ and could have bought MS65 Saints for $1,000 and under........and better yet, modern gold coins and proofs for under $400 !! Oh well, if BitCoin is going to $150,000 then maybe it drags gold up to $5,000 and today's prices are a bargain.