GoldFinger1969

The cleaning marks are clearly visible on Liberty's cheeks and in the fields.

As for the Fed being bailed out.....the Treasury got the gold, not the Fed; it was the predecessor of the Exchange Stabilization Fund.  I don't know why you are fixated on the Fed unless you are just restating those anti-Fed websites.

You keep focusing on the amount of gold reserves vs. printed currency and whether ALL gold obligations could be honored with the given gold stock.  Nobody disputed that it could NOT. 

But it doesn't matter about being able to meet all gold obligations in gold any more than banks can't meet every deposit liability when the money is in mortgages of your neighbors, as George Bailey once opined.   The Gold Clauses plaintiffs didn't want gold, but they wanted the change in the dollar value of gold to be reflected in the amount they received (in U.S dollars).  It was the fixed ratio that mattered, not actual gold.

Dcarr, thanks for posting the info from your website.  Yes, you have an expired certificate.... whatever that means. 

I'm not sure what listing all the currency in circulation amounts to.  It's not really relevant to explain what happened in the 1920's and The Great Depression.  "Cover ratios" were low in some of the countries and relative to years earlier but not significantly so.  And the gold exchange standard means nothing for the solvency of the Federal Reserve System.

As for the French Franc.....

On 11/27/2023 at 2:15 AM, dcarr said:

The last 20-Francs gold coins were minted in 1914, and they contained about the same gold content as the rare 100-Francs gold coins of 1929-1936. So at some point between 1914 and 1929 the French Franc was devalued in terms of gold to 1/5th of what it was.

WW I and the aftermath up to 1926 you had the devaluation.  France bled gold....but then, as I noted above, they tightened a ton and more so than the U.S. they overtightened and helped wreck the gold exchange standard.

Welcome....do alot of reading of the threads here. 

Decide WHAT you want to collect....and also decide if it matters to you if you put $$$ into coins that don't have much investment appeal.  This is not a hobby to "invest" in -- you are speculating, if anything -- as your love for coins and the hobby itself are the reason to buy coins.  But if you buy coins that appeal to you or are of interest to you...you should know how much future volatility you could see in their future price.

However, if you put $500 or $10,000 into certain coins, if their going down in value 25% or 50% or 65% would cause you agita, then look before you leap and ASK QUESTIONS from the vets here.   

Probably a few hundred dollars for a non-PM coin or a silver coin....for a more expensive coin, it would have to be bullion (gold) value.

Would love to get an MCMVII Hight Relief at some point but unless I am light-years better as a grader with tons more familiarity with all the ins-and-outs of the HR's....and can trace the provenance of the coin and/or know the seller/dealer/collector....I'd rather pay MORE via a certified/TPG coin to make sure I am buying legit.

If I were to buy a common or semi-scarce RAW Saint and pay 25-50% over gold bullion for it...and I guess wrong on the grade or it's been altered/cleaned....bullion is my floor value (BTW, I've never bought one raw).  But on a condition rarity or MCMVII Hight Relief coin where I am paying MULTIPLES of the gold price.....my downside could be thousands or even high-4 or low-5 figures.  Unless I have recently won MegaMillions, something I would probably not want to risk. 

For silver coins (moderns or Morgan SDs) I have less downside in absolute dollars unless I buy a very valuable MSD.  I've paid a huge multiple of silver's price for MSDs but all were TPG graded/certified.  Silver was $20-$30 and I paid $400-$750 for a few of my pricier MSDs.  For modern's, mostly $125-$250 for 1, 2, or 5-ounce silver coins.  

So with silver, unless you buy a really pricey MSD, your absolute $$$ at risk (if not the % downside) is more limited than I am likely to see with gold coins (Saints or Liberty's).

Of course, small denomination coins with minimal or no PM value can sell for a huge premium to their FV and could present a huge risk if you buy raw.... unless you really know the series.  I could be wrong, but I see fewer people saying they bought a pricey small denomination post-1932 coin raw than classic gold or silver coins.

Good topic, lengthy subject title. 

On 11/26/2023 at 7:44 PM, Coin Awed said:

Would you say all gold coins should be authenticated through grading?  With the price of gold the way it is…seems like the cost might be worth it…

Welcome !! 

A personal choice on common coins like Double Eagles that are worth spot gold at worst, but with any coins that have some date scarcity or condition scarcity value....it could be worth it. 

A holder also is a good way to protect the coin, make it easy to handle, and ease in the ability to facilitate a future transaction.

FYI, there are a number of Double Eagle and Gold Coin threads here if that is something you'll be pursuing either collection-wise or interest-wise.  

The Rooster Crows:  Interesting fact I came across while reading about gold and foreign/domestic policies in the 1920's and 1930's:

"...On June 25, 1928, when the franc was legally stabilized, the gold reserve of the Bank of France was 29 billions of francs. On October 28, 1932, the gold reserve of the Bank was 83 billion." 

Seems like it wasn't the French citizenry hoarding gold, but the BoF !!! 

On 11/25/2023 at 11:05 PM, VKurtB said:

I bought a coin at Chard’s of Blackpool, England in December of 2019 that was marked “XF”. NGC graded it MS65. I was surprised it made it to 65, but I could see it was MS something. I’ve now been to the U.K. twice on coin hunts, and it is EASY to cherry pick on condition/grade there. 

But MARKED XF by someone who could be very knowledgeable or a novice or anything in between, especially overseas, is one thing.  I presume we're talking about TPG graded from EF to TPG high-AU or low-MS.

I'm sure it happens -- probably on more obscure or rare coins -- but it certainly isn't the norm.

Older and inactive threads here should definitely be saved by anybody interested in the content and saved in Word or PDF format. 

I save the RWB Saint-Gaudens Book thread every 5 pages.  You never know if a thread gets some cyberattack...the entire site.....etc.  The more obscure and rare your personal interest -- Roosters, anybody ?  -- the more particular threads may have useful information even if you are an expert on the subject. Forget the "GTG" and "What do you think of this coin" threads -- interesting but nothing irreplaceable.  

Look at the back-and-forth on the Mafia and the MCMVII High Relief Omegas....lost apparently for all time. 

All the more reason to save 'em.

That's a pretty big jump in grades -- EF to AU or MS -- to have a coin that looks worse or has lesser eye appeal even though it is in a higher-graded slab.  Unless the EF was graded during The Golden Age of Tight Grading and in a valuable OGH or equivalent, I'd take another look at the coins in question.   

AU-58 vs. MS-62 is one thing....but AU-53 or lower ? 

Where's the mistaken location ?

There was lots of good stuff written about the failure of the gold standard about 30 years ago for anybody who wants to read up on it (be prepared to pay up, most of the academic articles and/or books aren't free ).  Barry Eichengreen did lots of good work as did Robert Mundell from a more theoretical perspective.  For numerous reasons -- including some political (i.e., the situation in Germany) -- the gold standard NEVER worked as well in the interwar period as it did in the period before WW I:

"...(there was a) decline in its (the gold standard's) credibility and in international cooperation over it, in comparison with the prewar era. Britain joined the USA on the gold standard in April 1925, and by the end of that year, nearly three dozen countries had effectively restored convertibility; the French franc was stabilized de facto in 1926, the Italian lira in 1927, and by the beginning of 1928, the reconstruction of the gold standard system was essentially complete.

However, from the outset, it was apparent that the new gold standard was not having the beneficial effects so widely envisaged; the most glaring problem was its failure to maintain price stability, and the adjustment mechanism did not succeed in swiftly eliminating balance‐of‐payments surpluses and deficits. The obvious solution was international cooperation, but the requisite level was not forthcoming...."

On 11/24/2023 at 8:18 AM, J P M said:

If you leave it in the slab, it is a 70 .  No one will guarantee against milk spots that I know of. 

Is there any conjecture as to why they would happen so long after being holdered ?  I could understand developing milk spots 1 or 2 years after being holdered as it might be a slow chemical process....but what about coins holdered for 20 years staying pristine and then suddenly turning ?

Dcarr, that website link for the Fed "bailout" is inaccessible....full of spyware and other no-nos, do you have a safer link ?

On 11/23/2023 at 2:08 AM, dcarr said:

From about 1900 to 1933, the gold standard was massively cheated upon. Most of that cheating occurred during the "Roaring Twenties" when a lot of paper money creation and expanding credit lead to a lot of economic activity.

I haven't seen evidence of that, if anything, new scholarship shows that countries were "too tight" monetarily.  

Can you really "cheat" on something which is not a signed, written contract ?  I'm not sure.   The "rules of the game" require everyone to observe the game the same way and buy or sell gold as needed.  Mercantalistic needs -- the desire to have large gold reserves or hoard it -- would therefore be at cross roads to easier monetary policy and economic growth.  The old "Bankers vs. Farmers" debate except played out internationally.

On 11/23/2023 at 2:08 AM, dcarr said:

It got to the point that there was not nearly enough gold to sufficiently back all the gold-clause currency and bonds.

Again, I'm not sure that really matters and I asked Robert Mundell, the father of the modern gold standards and Euro, about that once at a symposium. 

What matters is that everyone plays the game and agrees to the rules....you don't need every gold contract or Gold Certificate backed by gold anymore than a bank needs to be able to redeem every deposit at any given time.

It DOES pose a POTENTIAL problem but only in theory.  Most gold standard advocates would say that it's not the STOCK of gold and past monetary printing that matters, but the current FLOW and future monetary policy.  Flow....not stock.

On 11/23/2023 at 2:08 AM, dcarr said:

In 1933 When Roosevelt confiscated gold, the United States Treasury held about 6,000 metric tons of gold and the Federal Reserve had none of its own gold (other than some coins on deposit). From 1913-1933 the US Treasury issued Gold Certificates amounting to 16,000 metric tons of gold. And during the same time, the Federal Reserve bank issued gold-clause Federal Reserve Notes amounting to 54,000 metric tons of gold. And this does not even include the outstanding US Treasury Bonds that were payable in gold. Add to that all the gold-clause corporate bonds, and it is apparent that the Gold Standard had already been abandoned years earlier. It appears that entities in Europe were aware of the developing situation, and that is one reason why a lot of US gold coins were accumulated by European entities.  Here is some more details: FDR’s 1933 Gold Confiscation was a Bailout of the Federal Reserve Bank 

We've discussed this elsewhere, but there was no "bailout" of the Fed which could in theory print its way out of any constraints (subject to the political arena pre-1951's Treasury-Fed Accord).

Treasury Bonds could be paid back in gold but often were paid back in new bonds because the price index hadn't moved.  The option was the key; this was the central feature of The Gold Clause Cases.

Europeans wanted American coins because they trusted our coins for content and quality and also many times their own countries would not supply them (i.e., France in the late-1920's).  It had nothing to do with abandoning the gold standard which was also run by the UK.  If anything, they feared currency debasement by their own countries not the U.S., inflation, or war.

Remember....a gold standard, like a global reserve currency, requires the dominant economic power (the U.S in each case) to print MORE MONEY than would normally be the case...to run TRADE DEFICITS and also CAPITAL ACCOUNT SURPLUSES.  That means surrendering monetary policy to follow "the rules" of the game.  With everyone else going off the gold standard, FDR decided he wanted out, too, in 1933 (see chart above on this page).

In the late-1960's, with the Great Society and Vietnam both wanting $$$, the pressure for the U.S. was to either lose gold by printing too much money OR keep the gold here with higher interest rates and endure slower GDP growth and/or a recession.  Mercantilistic thinking -- or good old fashioned hoarding instincts -- made it such that countries hated to bleed gold out of the country even if it meant faster GDP growth.  What they really wanted of course was to keep their gold and have a 100% fiat currency unshackled from precious metals restraints.

Nixon of course "quit the game" in August 1971. He wasn't going to bleed Fort Knox to win re-election in 1972.  

You should read here, DC, it will clear up many misconceptions you have about The Fed:

https://www.federalreservehistory.org/essays/treasury-fed-accord

On 11/23/2023 at 7:42 PM, dav51 said:

48 Megapixels. The first 3 here were taken with the 28MM lens. The last picture was taken from a video shot in "cinematic" mode, although I'm not sure which lens is used for that. 

What's the pixel size.....8,000 x 6000 or something close to that ?  I have a Galaxy S9 from 2019.....I think mine is 4K... 4098 x 2300 or something like that.

This crack type would be valuable, because it is NOT post-mint damage ?

NIce pics....what's the max resolution of the camera ?  

Coinage Act Of 1965:  Anybody an expert on this law ?  It seems to have been passed to legalize demonetized Trade Dollars.  Why was it needed ?

Also has some impact or relevance to the 1933 Saints. 

On 11/21/2023 at 9:22 PM, VKurtB said:

Gold is a PURELY speculative play. There are no fundamentals for gold. I realize some, including some on this site, regard gold as the counter-play for inflation or a play against excess money supply, but the facts and history do NOT BEAR THAT OUT. Gold ALWAYS overcorrects, in BOTH directions.

For me, since I like collectiing gold coins (why couldn't I choose a LESS expensive hobby ?  ) it all boils down to SUPPLY and DEMAND.

Supply is pretty constant and small on a CAGR basis....but demand grows at a nice pace especially in burgeoning countries like China, India, and other countries that have huge numbers of newly-created middle-class consumers. 

Do NOT handle the coin with your naked fingers.  If you don't have latex gloves (clean), then hold the coin on the sides. 

Did you take the photo with a smartphone ?  If so, might pay to use a mini-tripod or brace your hand against something so shaking is reduced (I presume you have anti-shake on) and the picture is clearer and shows more details.

Bill, do they have separate dies that they apply the polish or what ?  I ask because:

I think I'm a bit confused again:  this whole thread was on die polishing lines.....I presume we're talking about the striking dies above...when does POLISH get applied, if at all ?  And on any coins, or just Proofs ? 

I got Mint and Proof sets as gifts in the 1970's.  But never really pursued it on my own.

Bought some gold coins and silver once I entered the work force.  Found out about the Saint-Gaudens series (after having it go in 1 ear and out the other over the years) with the 2009 UHR recreation.  Got hooked on Saints ever since and been reading about them (lots) and buying (much less) ever since.