Henri Charriere

[Duplicate post; my error.] Re Enron... "not dubious accounting practices,...nor golden parachutes offered to departing chief executive officers,...nor theft of employees' pensions. The biggest mistake Enron made was doing all of this on U.S. soil to Americans. (from a quote embedded in Googleland.)

Your legacy is assured, Great One! I must contend with the Fickle Finger of Fate.

@GoldFinger1969: Re $2T, or 1T... The former figure was cited repeatedly in last night's radio broadcast, and I believe the discrepancy is my failure to re-state clearly that losses had already occurred which inspired this thread. The $2T figure represents not the most recent daily loss but cumulative losses, in aggregate, from BTC's highest peak attained eight months ago in November 2021. What I had hoped for was a reply from someone, anyone, who having sustained previous losses, continued to maintain I simply do not understand the phenomenon (I don't) and that one must BUY when any gains are wiped out. It appears most, unfamiliar with the "pseudo-product," chose to flee. Such a one has yet to respond here in support of his highly speculative, wildly fluctuating participation which @GoldFinger1969 aptly refuses to call an "investment" or "currency." I caught a good 40 minutes of the broadcast listening to three professional women who, regrettably for me, spoke in terms I did not upstand in a cool, call and collected manner. None of the listeners who called in seemed to be upset or agitated. What am I missing here?

@zadok: It is 1:11 am in New York. Yet again, you've honored the Forum by taking time out of your busy schedule to share your thoughts. Thank you. All is well with the world. I have heard from my dearest friends. NOW I can go to sleep...

@Oldhoopster: The majority of my holdings came through MA-SHOPS, a major conduit of dealers every last one of which I have sent Want Lists to only to be bombarded repeatedly with clearly inapplicable notifications for the past 18 months. The most recent notification, coming from CDMA via M-S, was frankly the last straw. I AM DONE.

If that's "exceptional," maybe my reputation is salvageable

[I know what you're driving at. Allow me to remind you I hold the rights to 1736 SMS (Small Medium Speck)].

@VKurtB: Your observation is all the more remarkable coming from someone immersed in convention[al] affairs! 😉

Respectfully, this exchange will not be complete until @zadok and @MarkFeld among others share their views.

Cut my cable, so I am back to Frequency Modulation. (That's FM radio to all the oldies and newbies out there.) Some eight months after crypto peaked, it reportedly crashed in a spectacular meltdown: $2 TRILLION DOLLARS, a virtual market wipeout. An SEC official in the former administration, speaking privately, and a spokeswoman for "Web 3," whatever that may be, spoke for one hour with a moderator, neither side conceding anything but both agreeing "regulation" was needed. One listener who readily conceded he had lost "a ton of money," made vague references to a Ponzi-like scheme and another leapt on Elon Musk's recent announcement [to 80 million Twitter followers] that his comment that this crypto ecosystem was "bad for the environment" resulting in a 15% loss of value was actionable suggesting he ought to be brought up on criminal charges. As I have stated before, I know nothing about crypto, but statistics bandied about surprised me: 1 in 6 Americans have at one time or another invested in crypto and if I understood what I heard correctly, half of all American men under the age of 49, have too. How they were able to determine that eludes me.

My beard is roughly a meter longer, but that may change come August...

I don't know what I was thinking. Thing is, I formally requested MA-SHOPS discontinue sending me notifications after @VKurtB recently posed a simple question concerning the mintage years of French 20-franc gold Angels (Genie) and Roosters (Coq) and I inadvertently discovered that NO Genie were minted in 1900, much less the 6 MA-SHOPS claimed were available in MS65--the rarest date, with a pop of 2, none finer--a coin I desperately needed... To me that potted plant w/logo was a provocation [slap in the face] and I reacted.

Very clear way of getting the potential consumer's attention with subliminal suggestion. And they require as much care as a pet rock. Good ploy!

My incomprehensible reply, reduced to three words which all occurred in mid-stride over two years' time, possibly less: Raw, slabs, upgrades. I lucked out; there is nothing else out there, presently, according to reliable sources. Knowing myself as well as I do, I would not attempt to start something I could not finish. If there is a cure for this type of patently ridiculous obsession, I do not know its cure. It's quite possible I am using the polite term, coin collecting, to explain otherwise inexplicable conduct. 🐓

I am sorry to report I have been deprived of the pleasure of owning a genuine counterfeit coin or bill. But I do have my Want List engraved in my memory. The first is any one of a number of pewter fifty-cent pieces produced by Edward John Wellman in his car, a 1941 Buick. An account of his inevitable arrest, in pertinent part, reads as follows: After escaping from a jail in Coral Gables, Florida--unlocking his cell door with the mainspring of an alarm clock he had brought in with him, he was recognized by a Secret Service man in New York's Flushing Meadow Park's Skating Rink where "he was dazzling everybody with a whizzing glide to the center of the ice that ended in a triumphant pirouette." As he came out of the pirouette, he was arrested... and sent to a Federal penitentiary. Item #2 on my secret Want List (to the eternal dismay of rather vocal anti-counterfeitists on this Forum) is any one of the thousands of one-dollar bills printed and passed in New York City over a ten-year span by Edward Mueller, the manhunt for whom by the Secret Service, "exceeded in intensity and scope any other manhunt in the chronicles of counterfeiting. ["The idea of money is older than the idea of counterfeit money but older, perhaps by no more than a few minutes."] Mr. Mueller's bills were described as follows: "Clearly no criminal mastermind had produced [them]. It was printed on a piece of cheap paper, available at stationery stores all over. At best the artwork was crude, childish even. A black splotch served as Washington's left eye, his right was almond shaped. Letters and numbers were poorly formed, illegible, or uneven. In addition to the fanciful artwork, one batch of bills featured an unbelievable typo -- "Wahsington." This only infuriated the local Secret Service and the former agent once assigned to the local office who had since been elevated to chief, in Washington, D.C. (To be continued, at the discretion of Moderation.) (Edit: I have since learned my next post may be my last; I believe I will leave the conclusion of this story, well enough alone.)

COMPARING THE NGC CENSUS FOR THIS PAST APRIL WITH THE CURRENT ONE, SOME 90 DAYS LATER - RESTRIKES 1907- 1914, [MOVEMENT FOR THE "ORIGINALS," 1899-1906, HAS BEEN GLACIAL AT OTHER GRADES, BUT IS OF NO MOMENT AT MS66, e.g. 1899 - 1, 1900-1905 - 0, 1906 - 1] APRIL 2022 / JULY 2022 1907 MS66 67 / 64 - 3 1909 " 42 / 76 + 34 1910 " 89 /100 + 11 1911 " 48 / 57 + 9 1912 " 50 / 55 + 5 1913 " 44 / 57 + 13 1914 " 56 /102 + 46 Note: I cannot account for the "defections" reflected in 1907, the most common year in the entire series, and continue to see neither hair no hide of the first two gold Roosters certified at P- at MS68 and quickly cross-graded at N- at MS68. The recent discussion on the "Top Collections" thread prompted me to re-visit the census to ascertain why a complete collection of French 20-franc gold roosters, straight-graded MS66, is not possible, as of this writing. I should like to take this opportunity to congratulate fellow collector @ jfoster1 on achieving #1 rank status with his, "still a work in progress" set, J. D. Foster, which promises to be not only the current and all-time finest collection, but the very BEST French Set ever compiled.

FWIW... Maybe 40 or 50 years ago, I came across a book by Andrew Tobias, entitled: The Only Investment Guide You'll Ever Need. And if my recollection is correct, somewhere in that book was a piece of advice I've taken to heart, in substance: You save money by not spending any. That thought was a Eureka! moment for me. There will be those who will demand an explanation from me about the Roosters, and rightly so. I don't have one. I was seized with an irresistible impulse and acted accordingly. In one of his books, E.A. Poe wrote: "Have we not a perpetual inclination, in the teeth of our best judgment, to violate that which is [Law], merely because we understand it to be such?" Yes, guilty as charged. 🐓

I've been mulling over your reply and wondered why I would think otherwise. The answer for me was in your first two words: "On those..." Right you are! I know nothing about Franklin Halves or what they go for today. In my Rooster-centric view, e.g., a prominent dealer in California had a sell price of $795. for an 1899 NGC-graded MS-62, of which only 6 have been certified. And that is at the lower end of the Mint State scale. Therefore, in my mind, reconsideration-- meant clearly as a joke-- would be a whole lot less cheaper than outright buying, up or down.

For the record, last I checked, there is only one reason why I cannot complete a matched set of my 66 line: only two coins [of the eight original 🐓 's] have been certified by NGC.

Deleted.

A "BUDGET SECTION"? I thought it cost money to put on a show.

I spent all nite, way past the midnight hour, poring over these comments and slowly realized only a few members would truly understand and/or appreciate the point I would attempt to make. It's a new day. Let me give it a shot... Firstly, I own a "top" collection, under P's auspices. [For that matter so does the member at post position #2, though I believe his overall presentation is by far superior.] The gentleman who chose N to showcase his wares, as I had predicted, has the current and all-time best collection ever compiled and exhibited publicly--and his collection is two coins short of completion. I cannot help but feel, however, that all this talk about money and investments has corrupted the spirit of coin collecting which I maintain [to at least one member's amusement] is nothing more than a behavioral trait much like OCD, which the folks who produce the DSM-5 have yet to acknowledge. Here is the reason why why all the conjecturing, posturing and defensive assertions are inapplicable to me: I do not smoke, I do not drink, I do not use drugs save for the medications prescribed for me. I would still come out way ahead of the pack, if I gave every coin I now own away free. Only you know if you may be a winner too if you can summon the courage to exercise a little humility and honesty and do your own calculations using a sheet of paper and a No. 2 pencil. 🐓

Why don't you let the market -- us -- decide? It'll give me a legitimate chance to use my expressly forbidden 30-power loupe and at least one other member an excuse to break out his heavy artillery. We will let you know if it's an S or a P as they claim. If you want a fair, unbiased opinion, consult your bosom buddies right here first. [And may I suggest posting pictures with your running commentary.] 🐓

I don't have the luxury of time. I would simply resubmit the MS-65 FBL, state that it is clearly overgraded and pay handsomely for the privilege of reconsideration with a view toward downgrading it to an MS-64 FBL. Problem solved.

Got something else for you fresh off the Kitco wire... "U.S. Mint gold bullion sales drop 76% in June year-over-year; silver demand down 69%" [In view of the outrageous comments made by a distinguished member, re gold and silver prices, reporting on-site from Rosemont, it looks like he got his wish!]