GoldFinger1969

NFTs are directly tied to crypto. I haven't seen any recent prices extolling the prices paid for NFTs. The entire NFT, FTX, and crypto blowups are good for our hobby. You can HOLD what you own in your hand. It might be overgraded...it might be overpriced....it might not pay any dividends or interest. But raw gold, or holdered gold, is a tangible asset that won't collapse like these pie-in-the-sky creations.

You know, I've never seen that SS Republic label from NGC (or one from PCGS, either). Maybe it was featured in forums in the early-2000's but I wasn't on them or reading them at that time. Ditto any SSCA labels. Looks pretty good....I like blue and has a picture of the ship. Wonder if SSCA had a special one.

I like this !! Now I can get that 1933 Saint, UHR, and High Relief I always wanted. Can add it to that Decoder Ring I finally got in 1973 after buying 300 boxes of Cap'N Crunch (w/ Crunch Berries ).

I'm surprised.....BX has hundreds of billions in assets, mostly alternative assets. CCG/NGC isn't going to move the needle for them. I wonder if this was a to-be-regretted NFT move.

What's it worth ?

I thought CU/PCGS got bought out by private equity. Did NGC change ownership recently ?

It's a marketing thing. If it grabs some people into our neck of the woods, good !! If 300,000 people buy these NGCX lottery tickets....and 10,000 become full-time collectors....and 3-5 become regular posters here at the NGC Forums....not bad, IMO.

You got some great coins -- Carson City is hot and you bought them for a fraction of what they command today. Interesting....when Bowers and his group got outbid by A-Mark for the coins, they paid just over $7 MM for them back in the late-1970's I believe.

If they couldn't spend 15 minutes getting up to speed on our grading system, they're probably not long for this hobby in the first place.

New diagnostic tests can give clues about cancer from blood samples. They're relatively new, but offer fantastic progress. Many cancers that were death sentences 50 years ago are now very manageable. Non-Hodgkins leukemia and other blood disorders, for instance. But we still have some virulent ones that we have no defense against.

OMG......

I'm just confused as to why he couldn't get tuna without celery in 1969.

Even Larry David of "SEINFELD" and "CURB" fame is being sued...and he WARNED them not to do it !!!

It's a long-standing rule: you don't co-mingle or borrow from customer accounts. If JP Morgan Chase wants to speculate on interest rates using the bank's balance sheet, they do it with their own capital and equity, NOT by borrowing from a few million checking and saving accounts. Exactly WHY or HOW that money cannot be moved -- either more rigorous checks-and-balances at JPM Chase than at FTX or some built-in protection that can't be overridden by humans -- I don't know. But clearly Bankman-Fried was able to do something Jamie Dimon @ Chase apparently cannot.

Great analysis of the shenanigans (fraud) behind FTX: https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2022-11-14/ftx-s-balance-sheet-was-bad?leadSource=uverify wall Focus on the creation of billions in value/assets of made-up assets like Serum. The question then is....what happened to the actual cash (customer accounts) that these fake assets replaced ? Clearly, it was stolen. Ultimately, this isn't a story so much about crypto...it's about leverage, co-mingling of customer accounts, and theft. Unlike 2008, people will be going to jail because crimes were committed.

If there's an OT Section here where I can post pics from the James Webb Space Telescope, they will blow your mind. Google them...and do the same names for Hubble Space Telescope....compare.....the improvement will blow you away.

It's like you were a Star Trek transporter accident consisting of me and Quintus being merged together !!

Interesting, and worthy of consideration alongside all other speculation. What leads me to think it was NOT a European hoard is that hiding/missing this quantity of DEs for decades would have been tough. Plus, you had representatives of U.S. dealers actively scouring the European banks in the 1950', 1960's, and 1970's. I would think they wouldn't have missed a 20,000 coin hoard all that time. That said, clearly there are sensitive issues with disclosing the COMPLETE story with these coins. I hope Mr. Gillio does release them at some time, even if posthumously for himself or the counterparties. I suspect that whomever he purchased them from was sensitive about the sale for whatever reasons.

Agreed....I don't think it was because of the coins or the nature of the hoard....standards were just starting to liberalize after the opening decade of TPGs.

I've heard that from others. But when you get into the top of the Wells Fargo coins, the MCMVII UHRs, or the best of the MCMVII HRs.... you seem to have a fluid grading system where the ability of a buyer to pay more for a higher-graded coin appears to have influenced the grading even if subconsciously. Thankfully, PCGS did NOT give out a 70 grade even though they admit they tried to justify one.

I could care less about Dan Carr; from what I know of him he's transparent about what he is doing and what he sells. There is no intent to deceive as I understand it. I'm talking about all these Ebay counterfeits and the overseas (Chinese) fakes. Folks producing fake coins and fake slabs in quantity are the main problem, not somebody mischaracterizing a single coin on Craigslist or Ebay.

It's part of the story that is attractive to some people...and that is enough to justify a higher price to those individuals. But you are right, some of the "hoards" are self-created or exaggerated and not worth anything IMO. Ironically, the Saints 1908 Wells Fargo No Motto Hoard is really misnamed because "Wells Fargo" dealt with where they were stored when they were bought by Ron Gillio and his partners. The name on them should really deal with the circa 1917 international transaction which resulted in them remaining untouched for decades.

I'd like to see the ANA do more to fight counterfeiting with state and federal authorities....and working with online sellers.....etc. Sting operations along with heavy fines/jail time seem to be the solutuion for domestics, not sure about foreign/Chinese.

Yes, we're the collectors who like to talk and learn about what we have and others have. Others simply collect...store their goodies....and get on with their lives.

I'll report back when I goto some local shows next few weeks. FUN 2020 was definitely skewing older, last big show I attended.