jtryka

So after all the fiascos of late with the WWII eagles, WWII medals etc. I decided to try my hand at the new Mayflower coins/medals as I wanted to buy one of the sets with the British 2-pound coin and the silver US medal, since it seemed appropriate with the two countries deeply involved with what happened in 1620.  Well, unlike all the technical issues last time, I waiting and kept clicking refresh as the time ticked to 12:00 and I kept getting the product not available message, just like it appears when I logged on just before noon.  No changes, it's like it never became available for me at all.  I went to just the US medal and apparently bought one of those, but I've never seen it before where it just never becomes available.

And I know that a lot of folks have been frustrated by the Mint and rightfully so, and it appears the US silver medal is still available nearly 15 minutes later, so maybe people just gave up after the 2-coin set wasn't available?

There's a local dealer that comes to the local show and he always has a box of random foreign silver coins that he sells for melt and sometimes I find something interesting like this 1898 Mexico 5-centavo.  It was previously mounted for jewelry or something (I could imagine it might have been part of a bracelet) but still not bad for a dollar.

It seems the mint never learns on these.  I had similar frustrations with whatever the special proof was a year ago, had all sort of technical problems and finally got one.  I found out later they were selling for like $1,500 but I didn't care, it's in it's little blue box in a closet with all the rest of them, just where this one will go.  This one seemed as though the technology problems from last year were just exponentially worse as you had that idiotic "I'm not a robot" screen that it just kept going back to over and over again, then it was "you have been banned" which I've never seen before!  Finally after about an hour and 20 minutes, I got a confirmation and took a screen shot to be sure (rumor has it the coin was shipped yesterday).  Then when the WW2 medal came out I thought I'd try again since it was an attractive design in my view and although there were still issues, it wasn't nearly so bad and I ended up getting one in about 20 minutes.

The Royal Canadian Mint seems to have a better approach (though to be fair most of their coin offerings are produced in small numbers that are well in excess of potential demand since there are fewer collectors there compared to the US) as they have a loyalty program that rewards you based on purchase level.  So each level gets advance notice and ability to order, so platinum members might get to buy 5 days before the general public, gold might be 4 days, silver might be 3 days, but if gives some recognition to collectors who want to collect their coins and rewards them for loyalty.  They also offer a percentage in rewards that you can use for purchases the next year.  Overall, it's a reason that I've never been super ticked off at the Canadians like I seem to be routinely annoyed by the US mint.

The 1920 is an interesting one, as it is plentiful, but not so much in higher grades.  They used to see a big jump in price at the MS-63 level, but with grade inflation over time that break is now at the MS-64 level. 

Certainly, if there is no price difference it would seem wise to buy the lower mintage coins, but often that's not the case since older issues might be harder to find.  I just checked Apmex, and they have these dates available, but they are $39.60 for the 1988 or 1989 (the former has a slightly lower mintage) compared to current issue at $30.60.  The 1998 might even be better since it has a mintage under 5 million and is only $38.60.  In any case, these coins seem to command a premium which may or may not be justified.

I agree @bsshog40, I signed up for subscriptions to the coins I collect from the mint earlier this year since they finally decided to waive shipping charges on subscriptions.  I was stunned when I received an e-mail from the mint saying my proof ASE was shipped last week and the charge was $73!  I thought that $54 was fair, and $64 was a stretch, but this is getting out of hand.  I bought a 2003 proof ASE at my last coin club meeting and the dealer was asking greysheet bid which was just $35!  Perhaps it's time to put the sets on hold and wait a few years to buy them in the aftermarket for something closer to melt.

17 hours ago, physics-fan3.14 said:

This is a fairly new book, right? Came out last year? 

I've heard good things about it, but as that series is well outside of my collecting area, I've not gotten the book. 

That's right, and I think it won a numismatic literary award, though I can't recall which one!

So a few weeks ago, the John Reich Collectors Society held a virtual meeting via Zoom, and one of the featured speakers was Darly Haynor, the author of a new book on classic head gold coins entitled, "United States Classic Gold Coins 1834-39" which presents a detailed analysis of the various die marriages for Classic Head quarter eagles and half eagles of that period.  For someone like me who collects bust half dollars by die marriage, this was an interesting new book and new avenue for my nascent collection (or perhaps accumulation) of Classic Head half eagles.  Even among my small collection, I found duplicates, but it was also a new dimension of collecting this sleepy series.

Perhaps the most interesting discovery was on the first coin of this series I ever purchased, which was in a lot of two 1836 "sea salvaged" coins in ANACS AU details holders that I bought maybe 20 years ago.  I kept the most attractive one and sold the other, but the one I kept turned out to be an HM-1 die marriage, rated R.6 and the rarest die marriage I own in the series!  If any of you are interested in this series, I highly recommend this book, available at Wizard Coin Supply.

I think I recall noow, but I might have blocked the memory.  I still have truthteller on my blocked list, is he still around?  Most of the others on my list of 9 I don't actually recall, so they likely faded from the forum...

Getting back to the original topic, I have blocked perhaps 6 to 8 users on this forum in the past 18 years, and have actually unblocked one person (though the jury's still out on whether that was wise).  I appreciate that the forum allows you to view specific posts if you choose, but one improvement that the admins could make would be to hide quoted posts from people you've blocked.  That seems to be the only flaw in the system.

Life is too short, and this is just a hobby, it should be fun and informative, it should not add stress to your life for no good reason.

Nearly all of my Mexican 8-reales are in coin alignment, but I have an 1837 that has a rotated die that is nearly in medal alignment.  So it's possible, but not likely.  Have you tested the coin with a magnet?  Many Chinese counterfeits are made from steel, so that would be an easy first test for this one.  I'm also suspicious as any reputable grading company would have noted the die rotation on the holder, though TPGs make mistakes at time too.

4 hours ago, VKurtB said:

Actually my talk was quite heavily attended, including by the then-editors of both Numismatic News and Coin World. Dave Harper and I became quite close after that talk.

1. History is irrelevant. As we mature as a society, we collectively learn more, and learn about more. We for many centuries routinely "bled" people to treat diseases. By your implied belief system, because we did that for centuries, we should still do it now. No, we know better now. Plus, hard money currency does have some things to recommend it in a static economy with nearly no growth. That is its forte, strangling growth.

2. Money does not have to be a measure at all. And other measures are not as fixed as you think they are. Pick up a little college physics and you'll see that. Most things are actually undefined. Even what we call "matter" is actually only a "probability".

3. At the end, the fate of us fallible humans with our biases and errors is all that matters. Tying prices to any commodity is the ultimate in foolishness. Tying it each and every commodity, and service, is the only thing that makes sense. For millenia, we didn't have the technology to determine that. I suppose we shouldn't now just because we couldn't then.

And @jtryka, what ever else you may be, you also come across as my least favorite type of being, an anti-intellectualist. Common sense is neither.

 

I've asked a number of times for you to actually debate and refrain from ad hominem fallacy, but you can't.  Therefore you @VKurtB come across as my least favorite type of being, the person_who_is_obnoxiously_self-impressed.

You are typical of the asshats that support this system, you see nothing wrong with the fed printing money from nothing as long as it's your fellow asshats that are doing it.  You have tremendous gall behaving as though you have all the answers for your idiotic PhD standard, tell us genius (and I use that term in the most derogatory way), how is it we've had the largest jump in income inequality since you enlightened the world with the magic of your printing press?  How is it that we've had nearly FIVE DECADES of zero or negative real wage growth?  The simple answer is that during the time of unfettered printing, we have seen wealth concentrate in the hands of the 1% of the 1% since they've rigged the game in their favor, but you are either too stupid or too much of a useful insufficiently_thoughtful_person to support these destructive actions.  

Oh, and next time I go to the butcher for a couple pounds of steak and he gives me only 8 ounces of steak, I'll be sure not to mention the error knowing that some message board insufficiently_thoughtful_person reminded me once that college physics (and economics for that matter) suggests that paying for two pounds of meat but getting only a half pound is actually just hunky dory!

19 minutes ago, VKurtB said:

If you’d bother to look, economic busts have become EXTREMELY fewer and farther apart, than prior to 1971. Or if you had attended my 2011 Money Talk at the ANA show in Chicago, you’d have known that for 9 years now.

Sorry for not attending your talk, I'm sure it was because it was oversubscribed.  If you'll humor me (though I'm honestly expecting yet another ad hominem argument, because people who have no logical arguments are forced to resort to fallacy), please address the following (if they were in your talk, again I apologize for my inability to fit that into my schedule):

1. Please name one fiat currency system that has survived at least a millennium (given that gold has been valuable throughout recorded history, this seems like a small thing to ask).
2. If we think of money, broadly as a measure, why should it be different than any other measures?  What I mean is that a foot is always 12 inches, a meter is 100 cm, a kilogram is 1,000 grams, a troy ounce is always 31.1 grams, would we allow for any of these measures to fluctuate?  Would you want to fly on a plane made by an engineer that thought that a meter should be 90 cm because it would boost the economy?  Why should we tolerate the measure we use to define the entirety of economic production in the global economy and in each of our lives to be undefined?
3. You seem to be hellbent against tying anything in the economy to a commodity, but you seem to have no issue tying it to fallible humans who are prone to biases and error, why?

Granted, these may be simplistic questions to you, but please give me some leeway, after all, I'm just an average man of common sense, which means I could never in my wildest dreams be an economist. 

On 9/11/2020 at 10:16 AM, VKurtB said:

And I find it remarkably unsurprising that someone who would attempt to defend the Austrian School would be so predictable as to use a St. Gaudens as an avatar. Start with this: there is no such thing as malinvestment, and the only reason a cyclical boom-bust situation is inevitable is because a hard currency is being employed.

So, which hard currency caused the booms and busts since 1971?  And maybe I have that avatar because that's what I collect, what do you collect again?

I've seen some for sale on eBay, but they are all pre-sales, with expected release date by the end of this month.

On 9/4/2020 at 12:35 PM, VKurtB said:

I'm kinda partial to thoroughly tetanus-laden rusty nails. It's the only way to get many Austrian School proponents to "STFU" - lockjaw.

I find if remarkably unsurprising that someone of your stature would respond to the Austrian School with ad hominem arguments and a desire to silence them.  Those are sure signs of the strengths of one's positions. 

Very helpful @Conder101

Wow @bsshog40 I can't believe you have that many posts!

What about the "date" question, perhaps RWB has some insights into the law, but I didn't think it was a big deal for coins to be produced with a date that was not reflective of when they were produced.  After all, I believe the Mint starts striking the next year's silver eagle coins in the last two months or so of the prior year, and thought they did the same for circulating coinage.

On 8/28/2020 at 7:40 PM, Quintus Arrius said:

It's really too bad I got mesmerized by VKurtB's luminosity, dwarf stars and the like because with almost a hundred posts on this question to date I would like to re-focus our attention on Maulemull's reference to "AU-60," at post position 3, which I refer to as "almost pregnant," and Coinbuf's "MS-60," at post position 4, which I refer to as "pregnancy confirmed." Would anyone in the know care to explain the distinction between the two grades so that a rank amateur, ME!, can understand? Much obliged!

The idea as it evolved were that there were many coins that many "purists" or old school collectors would have said are high-AU coins (just so close to mint state, were it not for a slight rub on the high points or one too many bag marks) but in the days of TPGs and the evolution of grading standards (as well as multiple resubmissions and other similar factors) that a coin that in the past might be considered just shy of mint state, would be slabbed with a grade of MS-60 to MS-62.  The snarky reply from the old school or more traditionalist collectors was that the grades were really AU-62, as the number denoted mint state, but everyone knows these coins are really and truly just nice AU examples.  As for the need for an MS-58, it's an interesting idea, particularly for gold coins since the vast majority of eagles and double eagles never circulated (which my technical definition would make them all uncirculated) but when bankers had to count them every so often and audit them, bringing them out of the bags/vault and then putting them back in, they easily acquired a larger number of marks than you might see from a newly released bag of silver or other minor coins.  This tends to be one of the reasons why TPGs can be more lenient with gold, particularly the later issues.  You don't have nearly the controversies on earlier issues, I also collect classic head half eagles and with so many circulated examples, you rarely count the bag marks for a VF or XF coin!  You also note that many of the MS coins in those earlier series are much more likely to be truly MS given the price jump in the higher grades.  As noted for my coin above and many others (like MS-63 common date double eagles, the coins basically trade for gold value so whether it's a classically graded AU-58 or a generous MS-62 or MS-63, the price isn't all that different.

Well that escalated quickly...

On 8/23/2020 at 9:18 PM, kenlee47 said:

Is that the same coin as the one you posted above?