RWB

Would like to know if my 1962 Jefferson nickel is worth grading.... Nope. ...if so what would a deal [sic] might pay for it ?? 5-cents.

There is no extra charge for an autographed copy. Ask when ordering.

Does not look original in the photos.

Good. Worn down rims prevent anything higher and it would be tough, I think, to get average Good coin price.

Silver spot +25%

Well, for a week or two. Remember: Crooks don't mind hard work - mostly yours.

Those are very nice. The 4-sovereign pieces are more frequently encountered than 1-sovereign. The discs did not really circulate as "coins" but were used in broker and bank transactions to give the Kingdom more value for their gold. Grading has got to be a little goofy since the planchet got no special treatment and was usually scratched and marred before striking.

OK. I misunderstood. (I don't consider the Morse book in any relationship to the one I wrote.) Whitman has not asked me about updating Bowers' DE book, and they usually do all the price changes internally.

Do you have both sizes?

It will take a while to prepare an update to the DE book. I don't know sales or other business numbers on the book, but I know how much work it took to create, and that's not likely to be repeated soon. Please let me know when you get an answer from Heritage.

..but do they have to be authenticated, graded and slabbed...? Is there an extra charge for attribution? The private owners will do anything they want. Squeezing more revenue and profit from a self-limiting business might mean "brand disfunctionalization" or "unappetizing trinketizing" product.....things like slabbing damaged, altered and counterfeit items, etc. as examples.

From everything presented it appears the coins were pulled from circulation in the late 1940s or mid-1950s. Complete sets of older coins could still be assembled that way until about 1955. Post-Civil War coin sets could be collected into the 1930s. NGC Research Director David Lange has a lot of information on this subject.

If the ones you posted are typical, then your father already had the better coins authenticated and graded.

For silver, gold and platinum bullion pieces, the U.S. Mint is a monopoly manufacturer both in law and commerce. The same metal can be bought in similar form from other sources, but they will never have the associated legal tender or "cachet" of the Mint's product. However, once the contract buyers get their hands on product, it is they who set a wholesale price, and the hobby retailers then set their selling price. Everybody takes a cut much as in other manufactured products. The U.S. Mint has no control once the contract buyers take delivery. (NOTE: Contract buyers get discounts on bullion products based on volume and consistency.)

No. Whitman wanted the Peace dollar book for their 'Guide Book' series, so they published them all.

1943 cents were made from cheap, low carbon steel that easily rusted. It was intended for toys, children's lunch boxes, and similar uses. It was available in large quantities due to suspension of many consumer products during the war. It had to be coated with zinc to inhibit rusting when used for coinage. Details of this and other coin material experiments (plastic, glass, shell case bronze, etc.) are described in my book Pattern and Experimental Pieces of WW-II.

The distributor fro most of my books is Wizard Coins Supply. The Saint-Gaudens double eagle book is available only from Heritage Auctions, and Whitman published my Peace dollar book (4th edition).

...or possibly a guillotine, which creates a different kind of "severance package.".

I hope you will enjoy it.

PS: I've delayed the book until late fall. Too many uncertainties in printing, shipping and other details, and I don't want to rush into publication. The ISBN is reserved.

Reference to "a shortage" of most things are deceptive. They are usually temporary, localized, and causative.

Thanks for the link. I examined the piece and ended up buying it for research. The quality is much higher than most of these and details indicate the dies had been little used at the time this piece was made. For any originals to have survived this long is remarkable. Most of the disc was not altered by the dies, so planchet condition prior to striking is very important in the overall grade - that is, much like Indian half eagles and quarter eagles, appearance and condition depend on the planchet, not striking detail. Notice the rounding of upper surfaces on the reverse (except 235), and bright smooth fields between reverse letters, and in unreticulated parts of the obverse (closed centers of letters A, D, P.) The obverse die had also been used on some 4-sovereign pieces made earlier.

This is as likely as anything, unless the prime supply contractor has encountered other problems. You might recall that a few weeks ago there were news stories about the high cost of lumber and adding as much as $35,000 to an average new home price. Since then, international and domestic supply has improved and prices dropped about 50% of the recent increase. It's expected to continue to decrease until only a modest amount over pre-pandemic prices. (Nearly all businesses use temporary cost fluctuations to add permanent price increases. Theoretically, competition is supposed to create lower prices, but that has never been very efficient - self interest of businesses exerts too great a pressure. This is why we see cycles of Monopoly growth and Government Monopoly suppression ["Trust Busting"]. Steel, railroads, coal, petroleum, electricity, water, telephone, and more recently investigations of Google, Amazon, AntGroup, and others. Government purchases are required to work within this free market framework.)

"Market rates." The government is commonly restricted on how much, or how little, it can pay for supplies. This economic policy is intended to support fair market pricing, and not artificially inflate or suppress capitalist markets. There are exceptions, and the Treasury has been involved in some of them - the largest numismatic-related dollar involvements were price supports for silver, adjustments to gold pricing to stimulate production, the silver Act of 1934 that again supported silver mining. Agricultural price supports and guarantees affect nearly all farming which in turn aids farmers in establishing foreign markets for produce (even when the farmers use their own Co-Ops) where they sell at their own prices. The economic basis is to give everyone fair access to building successful businesses, just as the Constitution guarantees equal rights and justice. At various times, it has been necessary to suspend this policy, but these are usually for limited periods and for certain categories of goods. (WW-I and WW-II rationing, 1970s odd/even gas rationing, Covid-19 vaccine allotments to high risk groups, and similar situations.) Does this help -- at least a little?

Part of all government contracts are provisions covering default and including various deficiencies and remedies. I've not read the Mint silver, gold, platinum, and other metal contracts, but I would expect to see provisions covering raw material fluctuations, shipping, civil unrest and other routine situations. Egregious non-performance might result in removal of GSA approval for bids and penalties.