GoldFinger1969

Heard that some Spanish ship from 1709 might be raised soon and has $17 BILLION in treasure !!!

How many of the originals (non-restrikes) were minted and how many survived ? Both numbers are probably much less than for Liberty's or Saints....but this was a SMALLER gold coin used for commerce and the French seemed to use their gold much more than Americans, given their domestic upheavals from 1870-1936.

Why do I feel I am re-living the M*A*S*H sitcom, with me caught between Hawkeye Pierce and Trapper John/BJ Hunnicutt vs. Frank Burns or Winchester ?

May he R.I.P....along with his 8 MCMVII UHRs !!!!

Report back....

Reading and LEARNING about the history of the coins can be as much fun as simply opening your wallet and buying. I love collecting/buying Saint Double Eagles, but they aren't cheap and I can't buy one every few weeks...or months....and sometimes years. So I spend lots of time doing lots of researching and reading on threads, forums, books, journals, etc. Not as much fun as buying, for sure, but it makes getting the next one that much more enjoyable. For sure, spend time reading forum threads here and elswhere that talk about Roman/foreign coins...and get a book or two that matches your experience level so you can learn the basics (or more advanced stuff, if you already have the basics down pat).

You came to the right place. Don't be embarassed...we see lots of people with coins they THINK are valuable and turn out to be legit but worth alot less OR are counterfeit. If you do have an interest in starting a collection or adding to an existing one, we're here to help !

Didn't Franklin Halves take a big price drop from about 2010 to 2020 ? Have they bounced back since ?

Are you looking to build a sizeable collection...or just get a few Roman coins ? If you decide you want to look at Saints or MSDs, I'll pipe in then. Until that time, I'll leave you with the foreign/Roman coin experts. Good Luck, Kinlar !

Late-2023 Numismatic News article on French Roosters. Good for most of us, probably 2nd-hand to Henri: https://www.numismaticnews.net/collecting-101/bargain-collector-french-rooster-popular-gold-coin

We're all here to learn...it's all a journey.

Sandon didn't say if they had any sizeable quantity of gold coins, just a few that he inherited plus the fact that they dealt in coins from time-to-time. His grandparents would have been allowed to hold/possess $200 in gold coins between them.

I would say that immigrants from Eastern Europe -- esp. Jews -- were more likely to bring over gold coins and then continue to utilize them in their trades or business, if customary like Sandon's ancestors food market. I would expect Irish immigrants to not have much in the way of gold savings and not to be business ownes in a position to utilize or accept gold coins. JMHO.

I wanna throw up......

They could probably sell some Saints or Liberty's or common Indians if they had a display case explaining their history. Again, I'd bet that most gold buyers don't know about them. I didn't !

Bill.......$2-$3 increase ?

BTW....the 1930-S Saint went for a total of just under $60,000 INCLUDING bp !! So the initial listing asking for $60,000 wasn't that far off the mark, it was the commission that pushed it too high for bidders. 8 bidders were willing to pay $20K or more.

Is it just me or do these kind of "True Views" look like they don't show any luster ? The new GC pics look pretty good. BuffaloHead's pic above also shows shine and luster.

Bill Gross, the former "Bond King" who founded PIMCO, had a complete set of U.S. stamps as far as I know including the "impossible" ones like the Inverted Jenny's. So he'd be famous collector, IMO, at least if you watched "Wall Street Week" in the 1980's and 1990's.

Gretzky may just be a collector via his part-ownership with 2 other gents of a T-206 Honus Wagner card. JEJ strikes me as scholarly and not surprised if he is into coins. A few of our astronomy club members visited him like 20 years ago and he was into space and stuff. The others...who knows ? If Taylor Swift wore a Saint-Gaudens or other classic gold/silver coin as a pendant or something....you'd have hundreds of thousands of people buying in no time. It would be BIGGER than the Wall Street stampede of 1989.

Great find, Zebo. I have a bunch of posts/graphs detailing how gold is peaking in production/supply growth while demand like you cite is increasing. I'm travelling so they'll have to wait but I will post them here or in a similar thread @ NGC. Hundreds of millions of Asians will want gold, not Bitcoin. Ditto Africans and others. South Africa is producing 2/3rds less than she did in 1970. CAPX is 1/2 what it was a decade ago. The metal continues to move into STRONG hands, people who won't sell on a $250 rise but maybe a $1,000 rise.

But "market grading" is influenced by rapid and rising prices which leads to (one form of) gradeflation. Read JA's comments in the 2022 CoinWeek article about 1985 Type Sets.

I thought both of the major TPGs used 3 people around a table.

Good discussion....curious....are any of you familiar with the (in)famous Franklin Gradeflation Thread ATS ?

This was unreal. Everybody thought it would be a bubble but forgot the mintage was too high. I could be wrong, but it appears that when mintages get above 50,000....demand is satiated.