GoldFinger1969

46 minutes ago, MarkFeld said:

Thank you. 

Yes, “just tracking the general weakness in the U.S. coin and/or gold market the last few years”. The coins are not really “rare” and typically, there are more then enough available at most grade levels. They’d probably sell for much less, if they weren’t so beautifully designed and thus, so popular. 

In your experience, have you found many 1907 HR's in the hands of people who don't collect coins and might not have another coin at all in their possession ?  In other words, passed down as a family heirloom ?  Maybe not even knowing how much it is worth ?

Barring that, it's quite possible that when the 1st generation of post-WW II coin collectors got some $$$ in the 1960's and 1970's -- before the price of gold exploded -- they bought the 1907's at what today would be considered very low prices.

I can't find auction or references to sales prices for 1907 HR's in the 1960's and 1970's, but am still looking.  It's actually easier to see the prices in the early-1900's than 40-60 years ago.

Matt, illiquid items like coins and currency notes are not Treasuy bonds.  They don't trade that frequently and if anything, there WILL be weakness in a few months as the effects of the plunge in income and GDP filters through.

The U.S. Coin market has been falling for years and for all we know this could be another one of those boom-and-bust cycles with the emphasis on bust.  I don't expect a collapse, but I don't expect prices to be flat or strengthen, either.

That said, I am a buyer on weakness.

3 hours ago, MarkFeld said:

Weakening in prices has not been confined just to MS63 and lower grade examples.

Really, Mark ?  I thought I saw flat-or-rising prices when you hit the MS65 level.  I didn't write down the numbers or really lock in on then, because quite frankly that level is above my pay grade at this time.  I'll take your word for it.

Any thoughts on why they have been weakening -- just tracking the general weakness in the U.S. coin and/or gold market the last few years ?  Alot of collectors don't understand why the 1907 HR's are as "expensive" as they are....they think with the 1907 HR numbers out there, the price should be lower for some reason....I've always just thought that the coins were in "strong hands" over the years and that lots of people bought one/hold them who might not collect gold in general or DEs in particular.  Hence the greater demand for the coins over the years and maybe that is now reversing.

BTW, you did a good job correcting an auction description...I emailed HA and you were the one who responded a few weeks ago regarding one of those Mercanti Saint Gaudens silver 1 oz. pieces.  Good Job !

Fascinating, thanks....need to hit your book when it arrives next week.  Looking forward to it.  Hopefully Heritage ships it ASAP and 2-day or something.

Roger, to the best of your knowledge, any idea how many people were collecting Saint DE's in the 1920's and 1930's when they were minted (I presume the number declined after 1929) ?  Are we talking a few people, very wealthy, or were there dozens or maybe hundreds who might have wanted to get the DEs hot off the presses when they were struck early in the year from the customer service desk ?

It would be interesting to see how many DEs the customer service desk gave out to individual collectors, proxies who ran them coins back to their wealthy patrons, or others who took a tour of the Philly Mint and got a Saint at the end of the tour.  After a few years, they would know if it was the same 3 or 4 or 5 or 6 people lining up to get the coins early in the year or doing a mail order.  If it was dozens or hundreds, then they wouldn't stand out.  Either way, they'd have an idea.

Granted, the average collector probably worked on less-expensive coins.  But if you wanted just 1 DE a year, it was not something you needed to be living on Park Avenue to afford.  And you could always sell or spend it if times got tough.

Time for a refresh.....Job, $$$, and virus-permitting, I hope to get an AU58 at next year's FUN Convention.

Prices for the 1907 HR's at the medium-grades appear to be weakening (up to MS63) but for Gem or Superb Gem, they're steady or rising from what I see on HA and GC.  Haven't checked Stacks, though.

Wow, a 12-year old thread....wonder if some of the posts have aged well. 

I'll put in a plug for my favorites, the Saint-Gaudens DE's.  Specifically, I think a great value is to buy the common years in MS62-63 grade as a substitute for bullion.  Maybe even the AU58's.

You get exposure to gold...you pay a miniscule premium to gold to get a coin with a great historical and numismatic history....and it's affordable as an investment. 

Hey...who's to say some tech billionaire or social media trendsetter with a few million followers doesn't pull a Kim Kardashian and say he's buying something like generic Saints....gets tens of thousands of his/her follwowers to buy the coins over the next few weeks or months ?  You could see a stampede literally overnight.

Could happen, folks.  Not saying it will or predicting it will, but all you need is one afficionado or gold bug among a guy or gal with an active Twitter or Instagram account and.....POW !!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 

20 hours ago, SilverGigolo said:

Barber coins, Fine or better, look undervalued to me. 

Aren't they down bigtime from a few years ago ?

37 minutes ago, DWLange said:

Roger's Saint-Gaudens Double Eagle book is superb. I read it word by word.

NGC has added many of the Heritage/Burdette varieties to its VarietyPlus roster, as well as a few others that were discovered in-house. Check it out:

https://www.ngccoin.com/variety-plus/united-states/gold-double-eagles/saint-gaudens-20-1907-1933/?page=1

Thanks DWL....I ordered Roger's book, it should be here by next week.  Looks like I'll have plenty of time to read it the next few weeks (months ?), what with no sports or anything except the NFL Draft. 

I haven't considered or looked at any of the varieties or die differences that Roger talks about above.  I will though. 

The one thing is....I'm just getting up to speed on Saints from a historical perspective....THE LAST THING I need is to get overhwlemed by die minutae and variations like those VAM differences which I have never had the time (or quite frankly, the inclindation) to learn about even though I do have some MSD's.  They segment the series so much that unless you are retired (I'm not) and don't have to work (I do) you can't possibly spend the time to become an expert on them except over many years.

Very interesting.....I'd be interested in seeing letters from Mint and Treasury personnel regarding Saint-Gaudens DEs and what they thought about them being used in regular commerce...being collected....and used in international finance (Dawes Plan).

5 hours ago, kvn ksngr said:

How do i look up a NGC coin on this site please.   kvnksngr@gmail.com 

Not only that, I can't find any threads going back on 1907 High Relief Saints. 

Do they exist, NGC ?  Were they "lost" when you went to this new format ? 

I can't believe there aren't any even from 2017.  The Search Engine isn't that user-friendly or I am doing something seriously wrong.

Back To Shows.... I believe the Central States Coin Show was cancelled (the auctions are now only online) and it'll be interesting to see who else gets cancelled.  I didn't know that many of the Big Shows have 2nd shows about 6 months apart with the second one usually smaller and on fewer days (i.e. FUN's July show).  Many (most ?) of the really big shows are October - February so they just missed The Virus.  Long Beach might be the last big one for a while.  I guess ANA's big one is mid-year and still in trouble.

My LCS is still shut down. 

15 hours ago, RWB said:

Hmmmm....maybe he was wearing special underwear?

Apparently filing charges is problematic:  you (the dealer) might have to return to a place not near where you live to testify....the coins might be seized as evidence...perp might only get a slap on the wrist, etc.

Dumb question...what does "ATS" stand for ?

There's a detailed "explanation" of who was really behind the Omega Counterfeits on the CU thread.  Basically, a guy says that the Mafia was behind it.

2 hours ago, RWB said:

As far as I know, the information Mr. Tripp provided about mint coinage records was correct. Nothing was missing from the Philadelphia Mint and all gold and coins were accounted for in 1933.

Later year's information was only selectively presented, but that is what lawyers do.

I get that....it just irks me that this guy is a celebrated as a numismatic expert.  Outside of his 1 book, I don't know that he is a prolific author or researcher like yourself or Bowers.

I remember when a piece of evidence came up during the DE trial and he called it an "orphaned" document or something like that.  He made it seem like the phrase "orphaned" was well-established and had been used before.  Turns out it was a CYA moment where he couldn't refute the contents of what I thought was a "smoking gun" and tried to lie his way past it.

Got an "F" on that Math test in school ?  Eh, the test and score are "orphans" -- only presents 1 side of how you did on that test. 

Got arrested for robbing a bank ?  Hey, the surveillance tape is an "orphan" -- only presents 1 side of your 2 minutes in the bank with a gun. 

Got a video tape of a murderer killing someone ?  Eh, it's an "orphan" video -- only presents 1 side. 

22 minutes ago, thebeav said:

Old thread alert !

I got sucked in.......

I think the Stack's link is new.  I never knew that was there, just found it.

Even if not, the fact that it's there with blatant errors of fact is just astounding.  

Thanks Roger....no rush, take your time.

BTW, I ordered the Saint-Gaudens book from Heritage.  600+ pages.....should last me a good time during this lock-down ! 

Roger, I thought I saw a bibliography of your work somewhere in this forum.  Now I can't find it.  So with that in mind.....

(1)  Do you have LINKS to all your Coin World articles you have written (if too voluminious, then just those on Saint-Gaudens DE's will suffice) ?  I've tried to use the Search function @ Coin World -- useless. 

(2)  Can you post the Cashier's Daily Statement document(cited in Coin World, I think) that talked about $3,180 in Double Eagles leaving the Philadelphia Mint from March-April 1933 ?

Speaking of security, RWB, one of the best small regular shows is the Garden State Show held on the 1st Sunday of each month in Parsippany, NJ.  A while back they caught a guy who stole from one of the dealers...forgot the details, but I believe he would look at a bunch of coins sitting down and then "drop" one in his waist or something.  They set up cameras at the next show and caught him doing it again (not sure if it was the same dealer).

This made me sick....should have a contest for how many factual misstatements Stack's allows on this hit piece:

https://auctions.stacksbowers.com/lots/view/3-6TDFN/1933-saint-gaudens-double-eagle

I'm kind of disappointed that David Bowers appeared on a panel with Tripp, and also that Stack's allows this on their website.  This guy stabbed the entire numismatic community in the back with his half-truths and support for career bureacrats at the Mint and the U.S. Attorney's office.

I used to post here regularly, but that major layout switch years ago made the site much more difficult to use and to look at.

Roger, I echo what Physics said:  other sites seem pretty active, and the layout of CoinTalk (CT) is probably the best of all the sites that I have hit and continue to look at and post on.

As for coin shows....it stands to reason that when you attend a show, there's lots to talk about.  Over at CT, we have a few threads that update on local and/or regional shows.  This past year I attended my 1st FUN Conference and that had a few threads of information, including one by me that talked about my experiences and tracking down my 1923-D Saint that I've wanted for a few years (Mission Accomplished !).  CT also reserved a room at FUN/OCCC and a bunch of us met up and hung out....it was nice to see the faces behind the posts....several of us also met after-hours.....I think next year the goal is to do that even more especially if we can all book at the same hotel so we can hang out easily at the bar, dinner, etc. (this year I was at a different hotel from most of the guys).

Of course, right now, there are NO shows around so it's strictly online blatherings.  Hence this post. 

34 minutes ago, RWB said:

"The above took more than a year of direct research (basically full time) plus materials I'd collected for the previous decade. The date/mint photos are from the Morse and Duckor collections, but detail images and others come from many sources.

The old book, although interesting, was a promotional publication. The one I wrote and Heritage edited is a true research publication. It won both Book of the Year, and Best Specialty Book awards from NLG.

I'm looking forward to it.  As I have spent more and more time researching (and adding to my nascent collection) of Saint-Gaudens coins, I'm getting more proficient in grading and judging the individual coins, but aside from HA high-res pics, most of the books I have (Akers, Bowers) are low-res.  Even the internet, lots of sites the pics aren't high-res or high quality.  So I'm looking forward to getting your book. 

I enjoyed FMTM but I think this book will be easier for me to digest with the pictures and the subject matter. 

Thanks Roger...that clears it up.  Just to be clear.....when you say "Treasurer" you don't mean the Treasury Secretary, you mean the Treasurer of the United States (person who signs on the left side of our currency), right ?

BTW, I'm getting the Red Saint-Gaudens Morse-Duckor book that you apparently edit.  On another site I was asking about the difference between that book and the Blue Morse Coinage book that came out like a decade or more ago.  Figured the Red book probably had more up-to-date information but was afraid maybe they dropped alot of the photos from the Blue Morse book.  They're not cheap so I hate to buy both. I'll get the Red one, I see it on Heritage.

10 hours ago, RWB said:

Simple question with a complicated answer.....Let me know if this is not specific enough.

I think your simple question with a complicated answer would NORMALLY be good enough, Roger.  But with all the downtime I/we have right now, I finally got to finishing/reading Illegal Tender which was the inspiration for my question and I kind of feel like I'm in a tug of war between you and David Tripp. 

I'll use the 1933 DE's not because I want to rehash that whole debate but because it does illustrate what I am referencing on DE's in general.  You had 3 production runs of the 1933 DE:  March, April, and May.  Forget the April Executive Order -- doesn't matter here for my purposes.  Let's also simplify things and say that a total of 450,000 DE's were minted, 150,000 in each month.  Again, just for simplicity purposes (exact numbers don't matter here, this isn't the trial  ).

Now....assuming history was changed and those 1933 DE's hit the public, banks, and European overseas just like their earlier brethren.....would they have been OK'd only when the entire 450,000 run was struck and minted ?

Or when the 1st batch of 150,000 was done in mid-March ?

Or even earlier, when you had a few hundred or a few thousand of the mid-March run ready, assuming you had the public asking the CSR at the cashier windows "Do you have the new 1933 DEs available yet ?"

I remember all the debate about "official release" dates during the trial and that's what I'm trying to pin down.  The 3 runs of minting give us multiple opportunities to release them (at the end of each run, at the end of the final run, or early in the runs for any of the 3 minting periods).  This is what Tripp never gets into, IMO, and what the cashier daily statments and that accountant (Greisser ?) never talked about.

In fairness, I don't know if you did, either.  Neither side in that case said that standard procedure was to release DEs as soon as the entire run was minted....or after each batch (of 150,000 in our example)....or as soon as a few hundred/thousand were minted in the 1st batch.  Whatever.

That's what I am trying to pin down.

And whenever that "OK to release them" order was given...when the bags left to go to Federal Reserve Banks or commercial banks...or when a few dozen/hundred coins went up to the customer service desk for folks who wanted a new 1933 DE or for those who took a Mint tour and wanted a soverneir....was this "OK to release" order in print somewhere.....OR....did the Director or Superintendent of the (Philly) Mint give the OK order or was it the Cashier......the assayer, who made sure that whole batches weren't "defective....or maybe someone higher, like the Treasury Secretary in Washington ?

Sorry to be so long-winded, and maybe there isn't a specific answer to this question which is why you and Tripp's book haven't addressed it.  Maybe this wasn't a formal procedure, maybe they just "winged it."  I don't know.

I'm just trying to ascertain, at least for gold coins in general and Saints specifically, who gave the final order to let them leave the Philly Mint into the hands of the public and banks ?