Forecasts not an investment lesson

The very first response to my annual forecast column of last week has arrived. The writer disagrees with my forecast that gold will be down for the year. I expect that he isn’t alone in that opinion. I hope to receive other reactions. Continue reading

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‘Collector’ is more than just a name

Is it possible simply to be a collector anymore, or do you have to be a collector/investor, or worse, an investor these days to be a success in numismatics? Read this week’s Viewpoint. I can understand collectors sometimes feeling like tourists in their own land. Continue reading

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Mint needs to beg, borrow or ‘steel’

The decision to suspend production of dollar coins for circulation indirectly is kicking the props out from under the cent and the nickel because it is seigniorage from the dollar coins that is masking the large losses the U.S. Mint takes each year to strike cents and nickels. Continue reading

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Revise dollar rules to complete set

No more Presidential dollar coins will be struck for circulation. Can that be any surprise after last summer’s uproar over the fact that more than 1 billion are being housed at great cost in the vaults of the Federal Reserve System? Continue reading

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Enduring hobby slave to fashions?

Coin collecting is about as close to an eternal hobby as we are likely to see on this earth. We can count on it carrying on through the remainder of our lives. But what else would we expect of a field that has its roots in the actions of Italian princes during the Renaissance 700 years ago? Continue reading

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Set backlash continues with twist

As you might expect, I have been getting a steady flow of phone calls, letters and emails from collectors irate over not getting 25th anniversary silver American Eagle sets. Continue reading

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All it takes is a look at a coin book

When you sit at my desk week to week, it is easy to see the ongoing drama of numismatics unfold. But what about collectors who might skip reading a week or two of the paper, or the online version of the same stories? What about collectors who buy only the annual guide book? Continue reading

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Buy palladium if you know what it is

Do you know what palladium is? I suppose I shouldn’t admit this, but I probably wouldn’t recognize it if you dropped some on my foot. From a coin collector’s experience, it is a fairly exotic metal. There are not many coins made of it. Continue reading

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Sellout opens all the same wounds

The Mint achieved a sellout of its 25th anniversary American Eagle set in a few hours Oct. 27. Collectors ponied up over $30 million to snap up 100,000 sets. They jammed the Mint’s phone lines and spiked traffic to the Mint’s website. Continue reading

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No ‘kick me’ signs on our backs?

Do coin collectors need to suffer to truly get excited about new coin issues? Do we have to be told that there might not be enough to go around to get our juices flowing and to try to jump to the head of the line? Continue reading

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