GoldFinger1969

No idea on the non-visual, the vets will say more on this.  But I will say that all of the slabs today are good for looking at all sides of the coin.  I think NGC has some good-looking modern slabs and the labels that they use with Eagles and other animals or portraits are kind of nice.

Of course, that means people start paying up for slabs AND labels, not the coin.  But that's a story for another thread....

Excellent points, Conder. 

45 minutes ago, RWB said:

There are several excellent professional companies that offer independent editing, design, proofreading, etc. The good ones have fixed rates based on word count or pages depending on the book  or article. Technical editors charge more. There are also a bunch that are sloppy and useless.

I would think spell-check would catch most of those errors today unless it's a word that is spelled correctly but doesn't belong (i.e., good instead of gold).

I didn't realize that hiring a spell-checker could add so much to the cost of a book (unless it was only going to sell a very small number of books).

On 10/3/2019 at 8:41 PM, RWB said:

I'm very concerned about the typos. The text was reviewed by multiple people, but it is still my responsibility to publish a clean text. In that respect it is clear that I failed to meet expectations. (I did not use my regular copy editor. Her rates have gotten so high that I could not justify the $5 per book price increase necessary. Evidently, I was incorrect.)

 

I'm just curious, how does this work ?  Doesn't the publisher hire a proof reader to make sure typos and stuff like that have been done ?  Are there people you can hire JUST to proof read ?  Do they charge a fixed rate, by the hour, or by book sold ? 

53 minutes ago, Just Bob said:

Posting specific information that will help counterfeiters to improve their product is not something we normally do on an open forum, but, as a general rule, you should check weight, and look for tool marks, raised areas, and depressions that do not look like scratches or contact marks.

I get where  you are coming from, but I don't think counterfeiters are scanning forums like this to try and fool the more informed buyers...they're looking to catch the folks who watch infomercials and pay 30% over FMV.  They're looking to fool the easily fooled, not the hardcore collectors.

That said, there are some pretty well-known "tells" that help differentiate real vs. fake.  Tough to recreate them unless you're using pretty expensive and big equipment.

You have to be VERY CARFUL when dealing with raw gold, especially Saints.  If you're not well-versed in grading Saints or looking for fakes, make sure the dealer is someone you know and/or trust.

Post some pics and we can probably help you.  We'll let you know what we see and why.

57 minutes ago, numisport said:

Roger your gold book does not appear to be available at Collectons or Wizard. Where can I purchase it ? Is the Tripp book factual in your opinion ?

The Mint and U.S. Attorneys slimed Roger in part because he didn't do numismatics 24/7 as his "primary" job at the time but more as a backup job/hobby despite his voluminous research (books, journals, articles, etc.)....meanwhile, Tripp has written 1 book to my knowledge and does not publish articles or research (unless you count Sotheby's catalogs as published material).

37 minutes ago, numisport said:

Yep I see it at Heritage. Thanks !

It's spectacular.  Only thing is it should be in hard cover for the $$$ it costs....and it's a thick book which means being in hardcover would make it easier to hold.  But those are my only quibbles.

Roger's work/data on the Saint-Gaudens DE is spectacular.

I'm up to Page 45.... 

1 hour ago, RWB said:

Operations and detailed tracking/accounting were never the strong point of US Mints. The USSS identified multiple failure points during their investigation of the missing bag of 1928s. These defects were corrected beginning with Drissel's term as Superintendent, but by then gold was long-gone from mint production.

Dressel....

I may be way off, but I honestly think the USSS and Mint officials losing $5,000 in 1928 DE's is why they got such a fixation on the 1933 DE's.  If it's true that the dust on the missing bag space matched the 1933 DE's (from your HA write-up), it just adds more intrigue.

If I only had a DeLorean that could get up to 88 MPH.....

Roger, if you have all this knowledge from PAPERS from 85-120 years ago.....it's mind-boggling that the Mint can't reconstruct who swiped that bag of 1928's DEs.  

It's not like it was the coffee room, it was the gold vault -- how many people had access, huh ?

Anyway, great job.  I enjoy reading these tidbits.  Helps shed light on bigger things like that theft.

Interesting.....makes you understand how they could lose 250 1928 DE's and also claim  that a few 1933 DEs were "stolen" by Switt and Silver doing an early incarnation of Tom Cruise breaking into CIA headquarters in "Mission: Impossible."  

While you mentioned it.....what is a sub-Treasury ?  I see that phrase coming up alot in your book especially as I skimmed the 1920's and 1930's coins.

4 minutes ago, Matt G said:

Hello @GoldFinger1969,

Thank you for the kind words and suggestions. We are always looking to improve our website and user experience. We try to update the pricing for key coins as the market changes but as you know there are too many coins to update. We have a few tools in the pipeline that we hope will assist our price guide team in monitoring and updating pricing as it is a very labor-intensive task. 

I'm not a computer guy at all, but I would think maybe your IT or PC people can create a program or an algorithm that automatically downloads or links to completed sales over at HA, Stacks, even Ebay and maybe averages them.  Or averages the most recent 3 or 5 sales and maybe throws out the high or low outliers.

If you get within 5% of the most recent sales, that should be close enough.  JMHO.

Also while we're talking about gold (or other PM-related coins or non-PM coins).....having an easy link to past articles like your Counterfeit Detection and threads and articles here would be useful.  You could do that with other most popular coins like MSDs, SLQs, Franklins, Barbers, Lincolns, etc.  This relates to the difficulty of using the Search function and I'm still not sure if old threads pre-site re-do are accessible.  If they are, then having them brought up with a single click would be useful.  If they aren't part of the site anymore, then the same thing applies since you did the site redesign albeit with fewer threads and articles available.

Very interesting thread, thanks for creating it.

And yes, RWB's book which I just got goes into these kinds of details.  Will report back in about a month when I have finished the book. 

Very interesting....but you definitely need to know to look for it, without the article and the reference years I doubt I wold have noticed the "triangle."

7 hours ago, RWB said:

Glad you find the book interesting, and were not injured in getting it out of the box ! (I actually sprained my back lifting a case of them - thought it would be light....) 

It's funny you mention that...about a year ago a guy in my club calls me.... his car is in the shop and he needs a ride to the Post Office and even then he can't lift some books he illustrated with a famous actress.  He's mailing them to Seattle for a book signing.  He says he's mailing about 50 and I'm like "how heavy can they be ?  5 or 6 trips from the car, 10 books a pop.....jeez."

Well, they're all hard cover with thick glossy photo paper and the book is cofee table-sized.  Nearly had a heart attack lifting them back-and-forth from the car to the Post Office counter !

I told him next time go paperback and smaller in size !  

At least I got an autographed copy for my mother. 

1 hour ago, RWB said:

PS: You are authorized to skip to any date/mint coin you wish...

You want to get me thrown out of the "Summer of George" club ? 

Wow....I guess the people who took those jobs either had some $$$ in the bank or made alot of $$$ as Mint personnel to offset the risk of theft.

Plus I guess the bond helped.  Not sure who put it up, but I personally find it more than a coinicdence that the Philly Mint led the drive to get Congress to pass the Reimbursement & Liability Bill for Mint employees and at the same time they decide to go after the 1933 DEs.

1 hour ago, RWB said:

Well, Dimmick was convicted of stealing 6 bags full and no one ever found out what happened to those, either. Admittedly, Dimmick was in a good position to dispose of the new coins -- they were common items along the US West coast and Canadian Pacific.

Would the Super or Mint Director be liable if someone under him was found guilty of the actual theft ?  

The letter says Dimmick was in San Quentin (wonder if he knew The Hammer of C-Block; old "Rockford Files" joke ) so I'm surprised he didn't let on where the DEs were in exchange for a reduced sentence.

32 minutes ago, RWB said:

Glad you find the book interesting, and were no injured in getting it out of the box ! It's 550 pages and heavy - not a laptop book. Heritage assigned all the variety numbers and did all the pricing. They use multiple public and private sources with an emphasis on auctions.

Beyond there not being a hard cover edition, the other omission was a table of contents. The book is chronological, but some major sections are longer than others. Be sure to read the essays that precede date and mint descriptions. These will give you a new perspective on the coins and the world in whch they were a part.

I'm reading every damn word of this book, Roger, including the Copyright, Paper Made in....., and ISSN number crappola. 

I'm tempted to skip ahead to the 1907 HR, 1933 controversy, and the years/mints of Saint-Gaudens DE's that I personally own, but I'm gonna stay dilligent and start from Page 1 (like I promised myself) and not finish until I hit Page 648.  I'm putting down my concurrent readings of some paper money and Akers/Bowers books to hit my new bible. 

Like George Costanza in "The Summer Of George", I'm gonna read this book from beginning to end...in that order !! 

Markets are closed tomorrow, I think if I knock off 20-30 pages a day I can finish by early-to-mid May.  That's my target.  Will let ya know !!

Again, congrats on this masterpiece (BTW, how come no Amazon order option ?).

BTW, your writeup for the Heritage Auction on the 1928 Double Eagle bag was outstanding.

I don't know why this isn't discussed more.  Something is wrong when $1 MM (current value) in 1928 DEs is really stolen and yet all the air is sucked out of the room on an exchange of 1933's.

Thanks Matt, we appreciate the information and especially when it is free. 

One important suggestion:  prices for the U.S. Coin Guide need to be updated more frequently and more accurately.  For instance, the prices for a 1907 High Relief look high across the board -- AU58's are listed for $15,000+ and the market value is closer to $10,000 ($11K tops), which is about 30% less.

It's not on that list, but if you have an interest in Saint-Gaudens Double Eagles, Roger's book available from HA is spectacular:

https://coins.ha.com/itm/books/other-collectibles/the-coinage-of-augustus-saint-gaudens-as-illustrated-by-the-phillip-h-morse-collection-by-james-l-halperin-m/i/960001281.s?ic4=GalleryView-ShortDescription-071515 

Tons of detail, probably going to take even me weeks to finish, maybe a month or more. 

Roger, I got your book from Heritage today on Saint-Gaudens DE's....WOW !!!   Spectacular !!

Totally unexepcted was the price guide for each coin/mint going back to 1976....now THAT is really useful and something you can't find anywhere else !  I take it you used Heritage and Red Book archives ?

Only disappointment is that the book is NOT hard cover.  I may have to buy a 2nd one if it ever appears to be going out of print since this one is sure to be beat up from all the reading I will be giving it. 

And they never found out what happened or found the coins ?  Wow.....$5,000 goes missing, not a peep.  A couple of 1933's get exchanged, and all hell breaks loose for 80 years.  

Roger, the Philly Mint was never able to find out who swiped $5,000 worth of 1928 DE's ?  Did the SS or FBI suspect George McGann ?