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World Colonial

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Everything posted by World Colonial

  1. It's not what I personally find more interesting. It's what other collectors do or will. Any number of non-US coins across any price range. Some or many US too, depending upon the price. You didn't identify any specific dates or grades, but this is a strike designation and a label on a holder. It's of interest to those building top registry sets and a low number who collect the series somewhat below top grades, but not otherwise at "full freight". It's one thing to "cherry pick" this coinage at FV or a "nominal" price. It's another entirely for a noticeably larger number to pay a (much) "high(er)" price for one already in a holder ("full freight"). It's also one thing to pay "nominal" prices for what are actually very common coins. Again, it's another entirely to pay "high" prices for a coin in a series that actually has a very low collector preference. The series is "popular" because the US has a very large collector base and it's affordable to modest budget collectors. It's not actually preferred over hardly any US series, prior to SQ. This is readily apparent by looking at the Heritage archives which provides confirmation for what is presumably common knowledge. I see no catalyst to "meaningfully" increase the price level longer term. Look at SQ which doesn't appear to have done much of anything for Washington quarters, silver or clad. It created a temporary bump (in a rising market) which to my knowledge ended before the program even concluded. This series is priced higher versus before the program (like the US market generally), but to my knowledge well below the peak. Every US collector is aware of it. It's not "undiscovered", just like any other US series. The strike designation alone almost certainly isn't interesting enough either to motivate many to pay noticeably higher prices than now, unless the entire US market is moving up with it. Yes, my inference of future demand. But I don't want to take this thread in an entirely different direction, again. I've written about this topic elsewhere on this forum and some on PCGS too. Yes, it's a very unpopular view.
  2. Not me. There are far more interesting coins available for the same money. Also depends upon your time frame. Longer term, I expect most post 1933 US coinage to sell for no more than the grading fee or nominal premiums to silver spot, even in grades up to MS-66. As for your original question, I agree with War Nickels. Not because it's silver but because it looks somewhat different and is actually a short set.
  3. It all depends upon your interests. The only coin books I bought recently were purchased directly from the author. But then, he collects the some of the same coins I do. If you are interested in generic information to collecting, many books out there with most of it seeming to be about US coins written by US based authors. If you are interested in learning a specific US series, everyone except maybe SQ and later has one. If you are interested in non-US coins, it depends. Most non-US series don't have reference books. Most of these "reference" books are inaccurate price guides useful for attribution but not much else. Many aren't written in English and some are quite dated too.
  4. If I really want a coin, I'll watch and place my bid a few seconds before auction end. Usually, 15 seconds to reduce the likelihood of a slow response. I don't buy much anymore and nothing common. I've bought four coins this year, two on eBay. 1768 Bolivia 1/2R XF (lightly corroded on one side I think) and a 1772 Peru 2R (pillar not portrait) roughly fine with a small but noticeable scratch. No, I can't find any better examples. Total cost for both about $100. If I were still buying common coins, I'd place my max bid earlier and just forget about it until I am notified if I won or lost.
  5. There were warning signs for well over a year, an example being the big declines in bank stocks well before Lehman.. It was a mania, the same mania we are in now. The COVID economic response was an entirely voluntary event economically, with the politics mostly if not entirely driven by psychology. There was no economic requirement to do it. It was unprecedented and no one did it before. Concurrently, many other countries shut down less (and maybe not at all) based upon their perception of the medical risks and affordability of the response. The best explanation for the response in the US and many other countries is the belief that it was economically affordable, even though it required massive amounts of additional debt and "printing".
  6. Writing covered options works great in a long-term bull market when the major averages or the stocks are rising consistently. It doesn't work nearly as well or at all in a major bear market. You'll find yourself deep underwater consistently writing new calls at (deep) underwater strike prices. Look at Exxon. It peaked in 2008 and crashed over 70% into 2020. That's 12 years. Sure, you can keep on writing calls but way below cost where you might have to buy it again if it's called away. Works better with diversification but once again, diversification mostly works in bull markets because credit has inflated all major asset classes. Absent a meteor strike, I don't think there are any legitimate "black swans". It's that 99%+ aren't paying attention. The GFC wasn't one. When the Enron scandal broke and the company filed for bankruptcy (late 2001 I recall), the stock had already crashed to $14 from $90. That's when the rating agencies downgraded it, once again closing the barn door after the horses bolted. There may be exceptions, but I don't remember any and this pattern is absolutely the norm.
  7. You mean like that CNBC article on Celsius today? If so, these people didn't ask the most important question which is, how can these firms pay these "guaranteed" rates when no other actually legitimate business can do it? The people who fit the profile of those in the article are asking (including writing judges) for exceptions to established creditor priority. They should not receive it, no matter how gut wrenching their story. Otherwise, establishing a pattern with this precedent will bring into question the entire reliability of the US financial system. If you have another scenario in mind, depends upon what it is. Lastly, the "money" isn't actually gone. It's always transferred to whoever these people bought their "coins" from.
  8. (Most) Everything is negotiable in a consignment. I don't think it takes that large of a consignment to get the seller's fee to 0%. As I presume you know, larger consignors can get over 100% of hammer.
  9. Tyrant collection is a lot more comprehensive because it includes a large number of non-US coins. Of those I know, it's the most equivalent to prominent collections from the past though not as broad.
  10. Not the one for world coinage. It's a bizarre list with a lot of undistinguished coins in it. I don't own it but have seen the list online.
  11. Events do not unfold linearly, but in saying this I'm not anticipating this scenario now. It won't happen with the 10YR UST at less than 3% and the DXY at 106.
  12. My experience with eBay is that it was much over a decade ago. Part of it was the lower fees, but the prevalence of fixed price listings indicates that liquidity for most coins must not be that good either.
  13. There is no absolute fail safe available, even without the limitation of the gold standard. Modern economics believes it but it's a lie. The reason there cannot be one is because ultimately, the state itself is subject to failure. And no, the United States is not exempt from this comment either. Me too. This is one of the primary root causes behind the failure of every nation state. Ultimately, there are no exceptions, once the fundamentals underpinning the society erode sufficiently.
  14. I never promised you would like my responses. Many do not. What I stated about the EO is accurate. I agree it created a longer-term problem but the worst of it isn't what you stated. Without this EO, the government we have today couldn't exist. That's the problem. Hardly anyone agrees with this statement either, since with a gold standard, no expansionary activist "progressive" government is possible as there is no mechanism to pay for it. The majority of the population today and in the recent past love activist "progressive" expansionary government, they just want someone else to pay for their "free" benefits. The problem with the civil forfeiture laws is the culture of endemic corruption it will eventually create if left in place. It's small scale in the context of the economy but the problem isn't specifically the scale, but the incentives in creates in law enforcement to bypass public (budget) accountability and even worse, a mob equivalent shakedown protection racket to extort the public.
  15. The $20 FRN someone received at the time bought exactly what the Saint or $20 Liberty involved in the exchange. I know the two were related, the EO and the change in the fixed price.
  16. At one time, Rudman was in the top five in overall NGC registry points. So, an extensive and top tier collection. My assumption is that Rudman did try to find the best specimens he could, But I don't actually know it. There are high quality coins (better than his) in the TPG data but maybe he didn't want to pay a noticeable premium to "market", even though he could afford it. This isn't unusual. The mints I collect are noticeably scarcer or at least harder to buy than Mexico, generally though not for every date/denomination. I presume it's due to the mintages mostly. For Mexico, the mintage data is recorded by 8R equivalents as a lump sum, not broken out by denomination. Not sure why the Mexico City mint did this, as the others did not. World Numismatics (aka, Mexican Coin Company) had a write-up on Ferdinand VI mintages on their website, but it must have been an estimate. It wasn't on their website anymore last I looked and of course, my hard drive where I stored it crashed too. Guatemala mintages are quite low, maxing out at about 20,000. Bolivia lower than Peru mostly but the coins are still usually (a lot) more common, except in the better or highest quality. Of the 86 coins in the four Peru denominations I buy, only a few mintages I consider low. The coins just don't seem to have survived and of those that did, disproportionately as "dreck". As an example, 1767 1/2R is recorded at 1,040,000. However, from the description, I don't consider Sellschopp's or Patterson's to be of particular high quality. Hard to know from the lack of images and inconsistent grading but it's not described as "high quality", like a mid-grade TPG AU.
  17. To my knowledge, there is nothing in the US Constitution providing for EO. That's a form of law making which is supposed to be reserved to Congress, but someone can correct me if I am wrong. Anyone can challenge an EO or statute in court, whether either "permit" it or not. That's irrelevant. Whether they will succeed or not is a different story. the point I was making is that the FDR EO didn't leave the person any worse off financially at the time of the exchange. The $20 FRN they received in exchange for their Saint or $20 Liberty could still buy the same thing. There is no analogy with civil forfeiture because the property owner is left with nothing, subject to proving they obtained the property lawfully in court.
  18. I only know what I have read, which I can't confirm but it can't be all wrong because it's from too many sources. No one should have to incur the expense of going to court to recover their own property without even being charged with anything. That's what I would expect in Bizarro World, not a supposedly "law abiding country" supposedly protecting private property rights. I don't disagree with you.
  19. My primary interest is to use this data as a reference point for what might be available in my areas of interest, primarily Lima and Potosi pillar 1/2R, 1R, 2R, and 4R. Bolivia coinage is included in the Norweb South American catalogue which I have seen but just not bought. 170 lots to my recollection, probably mostly in Spanish cobs and Republic Bolivar pre-decimal which I do not collect. Most of the catalog is Brazil, an area of no interest to me. Norweb donated their Peru collection to the ANS. It's available for viewing for a $50 administrative fee (maybe more now) but I can't get to NYC now. I wanted to go on last work trip in December 2019 but could not. ANS has a noticeable collection of this coinage (about 100 coins with some duplicates) but not images in MANTIS. Norweb, Sellschopp (sold 1988), and Patterson (sold 1996) were pre-internet (and the three most comprehensive I know), so it was much harder to find difficult to find low priced coins (most or all of these) at the time. Heritage sold Rudman's Mexico pillars in 2016. The collection was complete by date/denomination with many varieties, but mostly of lower to average quality with a lot of "details" coins. I don't know whether Rudman couldn't find better examples or didn't care. The first three are better than mine (don't know if Rudman collect(ed) Peru) of course, but I have a more higher quality than Patterson and several dates missing from both Sellschopp and Patterson. Most of the time with coins like this, coins missing from a "name" collection is an indication of relative scarcity and confirmation it's actually hard to find. I'm not aware of any other "noticeable collections", though someone or a few today must have it and I just do not know it. I've never seen most of these coins come up for sale since or for that matter, the few dates in the PCGS data I do not already own.
  20. US was the primary focus of their collection. I used to have the US catalogs from Bowers and Merena but don't remember where it went.
  21. Presumed innocent until proven guilty. It's unconstitutional, plain and simple. The 1933 Executive Order didn't involve a "taking". It was the devaluation afterwards that did that.
  22. iCollector is not an auctioneer. It's only a hosting site.
  23. I'll take the "under" on this "bet". You're familiar with civil asset forfeitures, right? That's a lot worse.
  24. It only makes sense to sell this type of coin (or practically any NCLT) through them with a discounted rate. I don't know if large value consigners get rebates on this type of coin (more than 100% of hammer). Otherwise, you run the risk of netting less than melt.
  25. Heritage minimum buyer's fee is now $29, up from $19 before COVID. Not sure what price range you have in mind for "lower priced", but it's my inference that they must have made this change because handling a large number of low value coins isn't worth the effort. I will still buy a low priced coin (below $150 where the $29 minimum is more than 20% - from them if I can't find it anywhere else, but I'd never sell in this price range through them.