Free Updates
Navigation
Categories
| August, 2008 (21) |
| July, 2008 (23) |
| June, 2008 (23) |
| May, 2008 (22) |
| April, 2008 (22) |
| March, 2008 (21) |
| February, 2008 (22) |
| January, 2008 (23) |
| December, 2007 (19) |
| November, 2007 (20) |
| October, 2007 (24) |
| September, 2007 (18) |
| August, 2007 (23) |
| July, 2007 (24) |
| June, 2007 (21) |
| May, 2007 (23) |
| April, 2007 (3) |
Search
Archives
More Links
|
 Thursday, June 21, 2007
Should Jerry Lewis get gold medal?
Posted by dave
Legislation has been introduced to give actor/comedian Jerry Lewis a congressional gold medal. I have been a little bit put off by the trend in recent years of Congress giving gold medals to a whole host of people that I had considered ineligible in light of the history of the medal, but perhaps I am too narrow minded. The medal series started as national recognitions by the Continental Congress for the military leaders whose victories during the Revolutionary War won Americans their liberty from England. George Washington received the first one. Nowadays the medals seem to be awarded to just about everybody under the sun. But perhaps the wider award of the congressional medals is an accurate reflection of the times in which we live and future generations will look back and consider these awards to be perfectly appropriate. Ronald Reagan was at first derided as an actor trying to be President. His rejoinder was he did not see how any occupant of the Oval Office could be anything but an actor to do the job properly. Now we have Law & Order’s Fred Thompson as a leading candidate for the Republican presidential nomination. If congressional gold medals used to go to generals and Presidents, now that actors – and anybody else for that matter – can be President, it is perhaps appropriate that Jerry Lewis be given the congressional gold medal.
6/21/2007 8:55:37 AM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00) 
|
|
Wednesday, June 20, 2007
Is First Spouse sellout fair?
Posted by Dave
The first two First Spouse gold coins sold out quickly on opening day of sales yesterday. Martha Washington and Abigail Adams half-ounce gold coins were sold for $429.95 for the proofs and $410.95 for the uncirculateds. As editor of Numismatic News, I might be expected to pronounce the coins popular and ascribe the sellout to eager collectors snapping up the first coins of what will be a long series. I can’t do that, at least not yet. The reason is that the sellout may be due to the existence of an informal group of buyers that I will call the eBay posse. They only buy the coins in order to immediately turn around and sell them online. There is nothing illegal about this. Collectors have bought quantities of new issues for many years in order to sell a few in order to be able to keep one as the profit. Nothing wrong with that. What has changed is the Mint’s willingness to cater to this profit motive and in essence shove aside the average collector from participating in the process. The Mint sets low mintages in the hopes of inciting the eBay posse to ensure a sellout. The maximum order was five coins per household per sales option. When divided up among proof and uncirculated coins, that becomes 10 coins per household per First Lady. With a maximum mintage of 40,000 combined, that theoretically means that as few as 4,000 buyers can clean out the whole issue. That excludes nearly all of the millions of active collectors. If that didn’t do it, the price of $4,204.50 would preclude many from playing the eBay game. Double that number if buyers bought both designs. Now I know sellouts are in the financial interests of the U.S. Mint. The possibility of profit is the only reason the Mint sells coins to collectors at all. However because this sales approach is so exclusionary, perhaps the Mint should sell all of the coins itself in online auctions. The windfall profits would then belong entirely to the government, and theoretically at least, a piece of the profit would accrue to all Americans as a few dollars less in taxes that would have to be paid. Sporting events don’t sell all of the tickets directly to scalpers. They at least try to achieve some semblance of fairness. The Mint should reflect on what it is doing in this light.
6/20/2007 9:03:23 AM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)
|
|
Tuesday, June 19, 2007
Take a dip to be sure you know how to swim
Posted by Dave
For chess players and diplomats, the end game is very important. It is important for collectors, too, but too many of them don’t think about it. Anybody can collect anything. That is the beauty of a hobby where one size doesn’t fit all. Collectors are individualists. They take the road less traveled. But the road less traveled can be a problem when you’re tired and hungry and need some help, or when it is time to sell your collection of modern errors with a catalog of cute nicknames. Have you thought about how you will sell what you have been eagerly buying? Will there be an active collector or dealer in 5, 10 or 20 years time when you are looking to cash out to convert some assets to cover the cost of a little home in Florida or a little casa in Baja California for retirement? I know from experience that there will always be a market for 1909-S VDB Lincoln cents, or 1916 Mercury dimes that are part of mainstream collector sets. Sure, prices will fluctuate, but there are always eager collectors who want them. This is basically true for the coins that grade good to those that top the grading scale. That can’t been said about some coins. What about currently hot MS-69 and MS-70 state quarters, or Proof-70 Buffalo one-ounce coins? Will the premiums still exist in 10 or 20 years time? There is no way to know for sure. This market could get stronger and stronger, or the coins in those grades might look like the numismatic equivalent of hoola hoops to future collectors. If you happen to be active in new and specialized areas, it pays to try to sell something every now and again just to test the market and see what the real story is. That isn’t always easy either physically or psychologically, because accumulation is what collectors do, but it is important for collectors to be knowledgeable about the sell side of the hobby. Without this knowledge, there could be a large problem waiting for them in the future.
6/19/2007 9:03:41 AM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)
|
|
Monday, June 18, 2007
What happens when coins follow Barbie?
Posted by Dave
I did a five-minute segment on Harry Rinker’s radio program yesterday morning just after 7:30. Fortunately for me, the whole thing was done by telephone and so could be done in the comfort of my own home. My time on the program was little more than five minutes long. It began after a woman asked a question relating to the value of a Barbie thermos bottle from 1965. I learned that they could be auctioned on eBay for between $5 and $10. I have no interests in Barbie dolls and I am sure there were people who had no interest in coins, but Harry is a professional and kept things light and moving along very rapidly. You don’t like state quarters? Well, we touched upon those, the nickel designs of 2004-2006, and the new Presidential dollars. Harry even asked why the United States Mint was turning out so much of this kind of material and I put it in the terms of being able to write a check knowing it would never be cashed. The U.S. government gets the value of the float forever for every state quarter, Keelboat nickel and Washington dollar that is produced and collected or hoarded by the public. That seemed to be the one answer that I gave Harry that he had probably not expected in advance. As a professional, he picked it up and ran with it and made it even more interesting. One of the main reasons I was on the program was to plug the 2008 U.S. Coin Digest. Harry provided ample time for that. He actually did all the heavy lifting for me. He particularly noted the error section in the book and I told him that Alan Herbert had spent many years trying to make the field understandable to collectors. How many listeners will buy the book, I don’t know, but for me it was an opportunity to see myself and my field as others see me. Experiencing first hand what interests them is always a good idea. Then I was done and who knows what followed? I was off on my own day’s activities.
6/18/2007 8:55:03 AM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)
|
|
Friday, June 15, 2007
Get thrills and chills watching the nickel
Posted by Dave
When we last left our heroine, she was tied to the railroad tracks and the locomotive was building speed as it raced toward her. Whoa. Wait. Wrong story. Wrong century. It was just weeks ago when the prices of copper and nickel combined to make it appear that the metallic value of America’s five-cent piece would soon hit 10 cents, or double its face value. Then a funny thing happened. The prices of the two metals, which are in heavy demand in China, declined, taking the metallic value of the coin to 8.4 cents. I wrote in my Class of ’63 column in Numismatic News that the 10-cent level might be a tipping point at which people would seriously considered hoarding the coin despite the Mint’s prohibition on melting them. With the locomotive hurtling toward that price level, it looked like we would soon see if my theory was corrrect. Then the train basically stopped and started going backwards. This halt could be temporary. Copper and nickel both jumped yesterday. I make it a point to check a Web site that recalculates the metallic values of coins on a daily basis to keep track of things. It is called COINflation.com. Take a look at it at http://www.coinflation.com/See what you think. It is a handy Web site and that train might just start moving toward the 10-cent price level for the nickel coin again. Come back next week and see the next chapter. Will our heroine escape her peril?
6/15/2007 9:01:23 AM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)
|
|
Thursday, June 14, 2007
And so's your old man
Posted by Dave
“I’m going to tell mom on you.” That childhood threat is the closest thing I can think of to characterize the present state of the American Numismatic Association campaign to elect its new board of governors. The hyper-legalistic ecstasies being engaged in by some candidates and their supporters makes me wonder what kind of ANA they really do want. President-to-be Barry Stuppler sent out a campaign mailing to gain votes for would-be governors that he favors. The mailing has been called a violation of bylaws by some because it says “ANA Election Material” on the envelope. Give me a break. His supporters counter that Cliff Mishler has put his campaign literature in his privately created and funded newsletters for local volunteers at the Milwaukee summer convention. Horrors. We have an election for the ANA board of governors and some candidates are actually campaigning. What is this world coming to? What is particularly curious about this whole thing is the anti-incumbent faction opposing Stuppler primarily coalesced as opposition to proposed bylaws changes that would have created a nominating committee and ended most forms of election campaigning. The anti-incumbents say ANA members would be disenfranchised by these proposed changes. That charge may be true, but then anti-incumbents should behave as if they believe in campaigning and are not simply hurling empty words at their opponents. No formal complaints of bylaws breaches have been filed with ANA headquarters yet, so perhaps this too shall pass. The election ends July 19.
6/14/2007 8:56:22 AM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)
|
|
Wednesday, June 13, 2007
Why can't banks get me recent Sacs?
Posted by Dave
Why are there coins? What purpose do they serve? I ask these existential questions because of an inquiry that arrived in my e-mail. The inquiry was a perfectly legitimate question from a collector point of view. What was asked was why people could not get current Sacagawea dollar coins from banks instead of paying premium prices to order them from the Mint? Good question. In recent years it seems that the only reason coins are produced is to sell them to collectors. That, however, is not their fundamental purpose. Their purpose is do be used in commerce on a daily basis for the millions upon millions of cash transactions that occur. Coins are supplied to merchants through the banks. At the top of the heap is the Federal Reserve, which places orders for coins as they are needed by its member banks. This is the mechanism through which coins are sent to do their duty in commerce. Any bank that needs dollar coins since 2000 have been supplied Sacagawea coins. They struck so many in 2000 and 2001 that supplies are still plentiful. In the old days, which are not all that long ago, when supply backed up, coinage would cease. This happened with the Anthony dollar after 1981. It wasn’t until 1999 when the surplus supply was finally used up, that more were struck. Well, if a bank orders coins today, it will either get the 2000 or 2001 Sacs or the new Presidential dollars, so average collectors cannot acquire recent Sac dates from their familiar and friendly teller. With the Sac dollar surplus, the Mint didn’t simply shut down production. It decided to make dollar coins a profit center and continue to produce a few. It knew collectors would buy them for more than face value. This helps pay for a piece of the Mint’s overhead and perhaps justifies increasing marketing budgets to collectors. As long as there is a supply of older coins available to be used in commerce, the Mint won’t ship out coins with the new dates. It doesn’t have to by the way the banking system works and it doesn’t want to in order to protect its collector profits.
6/13/2007 9:01:38 AM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)
|
|
Tuesday, June 12, 2007
Go for it, Idaho
Posted by Dave
The Idaho quarter was released to circulation last week and bags and rolls of the coin are being sold to collectors via the Mint’s Web site. I am waiting for word that there will be an official launch ceremony in Idaho, but as of yesterday afternoon, there was nothing from the U.S. Mint. It can be argued that such ceremonies are old hat and unneeded. I disagree. Each state is marking its own history in its own way. States even find their own way to have internal disagreements about quarter designs. That’s the American Way. There are 50 states and there should be 50 unique ceremonies to remember the quarter program and each individual state’s history. Numismatic News staff has not been able to attend them all – not even close – but we do our best to provide a look at each ceremony. It is that state’s rightful place under the numismatic sun. Mint directors have come and gone, but when a program lasts 10 years, that is to be expected. It is gratifying that I personally have made it this far into the process. We are in the 9th year. Next year is the finale. A whole decade will have passed. Amazing. Kids who started collecting the coins in 1999 will have gone off to college. Perhaps I will be able to persuade my superiors that the final ceremony, which will be in Hawaii next year, is worth covering in person. Hey, that’s the ticket. Perhaps other collectors will feel the same way. After all, it will be late October or early November and it wouldn’t be a particularly hard choice to make, Iola vs. Honolulu. Perhaps I had better write the governor immediately.
6/12/2007 8:57:20 AM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)
|
|
Monday, June 11, 2007
What do interest rates matter?
Posted by Dave
I have some of my best ideas in the early morning between the time I take my first sip of coffee until I finish shaving. I often come into work and start a conversation with co-workers with the preface that I had an idea while shaving. If you want to know how often that happens, I guess you will have to talk to Dave Kranz. Anyway, this morning a number of things were rattling through my brain as the Monday morning routine unfolded. One of the interesting comments made by Dwight Manley during his hearing testimony in Long Beach, Calif., May 29 ,was that he regularly loaned money to Don Kagin so that he could do deals. Interestingly, he said he loaned the money at “high rates of interest.” He did not say how high was high. It was a point that didn’t play a role in the greater question at hand, but it found a hook to hang on in the back of my mind. This particular hook was right next to the hook where remarks made by David Hall in January were mentally placed. At a talk at the Florida United Numismatists convention, Hall warned against buying too much on borrowed money and noted that he was a lender. There is nothing unusual in the lending of money in this business. The question is what percentage of the business is financed in this way this year as compared to 10 or 20 years ago. If the percentage of the business financed with borrowed money is greater now, that would make numismatics more susceptible to the ebb and flow of business conditions generally. I remember when gold buyers and coin buyers used to scoff at every increase in the prime rate in the late 1970s. Rather than retard their business, rising interest rates seemed to egg buyers on. Prices kept rising. Deals kept getting done. Of course, when rates hit 20 percent, even the scoffers got brought up short, but this was more the secondary result of the free-fall in the economy than with buyers cutting back because the money that financed their deals cost more. So what’s my point? Well, if numismatics is dependent on borrowed money to a larger degree than formerly, then the fact that interest rates jumped last week to 5.10 percent on the benchmark 10-year Treasury note might be a signal that the current party might be closer to ending than what similar financial conditions might have induced years ago. Are you a more enthusiastic buyer today than you were last year at this time or six months ago? Let me know at david.harper@fwpubs.com.
6/11/2007 9:00:45 AM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)
|
|
Friday, June 08, 2007
Let's go ahead and panic
Posted by Dave
Fear is contagious. Fear can be the physical kind. Fear can be of the kind that causes financial panics in securities and commodities markets. Fear can even sweep a bourse floor and stop dealers from making deals that five minutes before would have been no-brainers. My office saw a demonstration of the physical kind yesterday. The fun and games began when the National Weather Service announced that conditions were right for the formation of severe weather. That kind of announcement is unusual. I thought it was silly. Imagine that. Late spring in Wisconsin, a front is going through and I need the National Weather Service to tell me severe weather is possible? Right. Some public events were canceled in surrounding communities. That set off the chattering in the morning. By afternoon, co-workers were on their cell phones. They were checking their Internet. The front was in Eau Claire in the western part of Wisconsin. It was supposed to reach us by 3 p.m. The front reached Marshfield. There was water in the streets. Ooh, water in the streets of a Wisconsin city in a rainstorm. Must be global warming. People were deciding to go home early to ride out the storm there. The building started emptying. At 3 p.m. no storm. I went out for my usual walk and the sun was shining. There were dark clouds to the west, but no biggie. It’s June in Wisconsin. When I came in I commented about the sunshine. Never mind, the storm would reach us by 4 p.m. It didn’t. By this point most everyone in my area had left. I was working on a World Coin News feature about coin collecting in Vietnam. A person came around to check who was still in the building around 4:30. I certainly was. There were others. I walked toward photo scanning and found someone doing – guess what – talking on a cell phone. Still no storm. About 10 minutes after 5 p.m. I finished up Vietnam and decided to go home. Guess what? Sunshine. I went home. I rented a movie on the way across town at the Depot Street Station. If it is going to rain, I’ll watch a movie, I thought. You know what? It didn’t rain in Iola at all. There was softball-size hail in Wisconsin Rapids 41 miles west, southwest of us. It was pea size in Stevens Point, 22 miles west. Some power lines were down. We lost the usual barn further north, though it was a pole building rather than the familiar red wooden structure. All in all, it was a typical late spring weather pattern. How much work was lost in this state yesterday I don’t imagine we will ever know.
6/8/2007 9:03:53 AM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)
|
|
Thursday, June 07, 2007
Errors that get mainstreamed are winners
Posted by Dave
Errors have been much in the headlines this year. The new Washington Presidential dollar features a plain edge variety that looks like it will become a permanent part of collector lives. I write “looks like” because it is still relatively new and collector habits and traditions build only over long periods of time. For every truly long-term collectible error that arrives in numismatics, there are dozens, even hundreds, that will never make it past a relatively short existence in online auction listings from people who “have never seen anything like it,” create a fancy nickname for it, but of course, they don’t really know much about this sort of thing you understand. Buying these flashes in the pan would be a quick way to the poor house if you chased them all. Fortunately, most collectors don’t. Many of the current error buyers will go on to the next fad someday and their heirs will find the hot errors of 2007 in a drawer somewhere. I shudder to think what they will be worth. If you find yourself attracted to errors, I don’t want to dissuade you from participating in a very interesting field. However, you might consider checking the errors that have stood the test of time. You will have better luck preserving your investment with these coins going forward and they offer you the possibility of solid investment gains. What coins am I thinking of? Well, look at the 1955 doubled-die cent and the 1972 doubled-die cent. Both have been embraced by the mainstream hobby. Check out the 1922 plain cent. Whoa. Why do I mention that? Well, it was an error once. Now it is mainstream. The funny part is if collectors knew in 1922 what they know now, this coin would not be considered collectible. The same thing is true of the 1937-D three-legged Buffalo. It is now a gilt-edge classic collectible that never would have gotten off the ground if today’s knowledge had prevailed when it was issued. It may be fun to try to pick the next winner online. It may be interesting. But there are too many elements of lottery in it and commercial hype for this to be a sound collecting or investing strategy. To truly pick the winners going forward, look also to the winners of the past.
6/7/2007 8:57:20 AM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)
|
|
Wednesday, June 06, 2007
Are you sure you want to talk to me?
Posted by Dave
Remember the TV sitcom “Cheers?” My office is a little like that. Everybody knows my name. There are advantages to being known. When I am covering an event, it can help to open doors, get a photograph or a quote that might otherwise not be available. I remember my first days here when everybody didn’t know my name. I have worked with new staff who have telephoned people for a quote only to be told that they should do a little more research and then call back. So, being known is an advantage. It is also a disadvantage. No, I am not hounded by autograph seekers or stalking photographers. But I do get a lot of communications that come my way solely because my name seems to be the only thing the other party can think of. I had a phone call Monday from a fellow who wants to buy the 2008 U.S. Coin Digest. He called me because my name is on the book and he wanted to know if the book had a hard cover. The sales materials said it had a hard cover, but he didn’t want to act on that information. He wanted to be personally assured that it had a hard cover. If it had a soft cover he would buy just one copy. For a hard cover, he would take three. I could give him the information, but I cannot sell him the books. I am not in sales. I had to send him elsewhere. Some readers send me their subscription problems. I can be sympathetic, but I cannot fix subscription problems. I can only send them to the subscription department. None of this would be a particularly big deal except where time matters. I am not always here. Some people have sent their free weekly classified ads to me by name or by title. When I am out of town, they sometimes don’t get noticed or entered. I have occasionally found checks in my mail when I have returned from a week away. They were mailed to me by name and that’s how the mail room routes it. If you are in a hurry and want to do business with Numismatic News, contact the department you need the help from. While it is always nice to chat, where speed is essential, I am not the one to contact.
6/6/2007 9:01:49 AM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)
|
|
|