During some weeks waiting for news to happen is the order of the day. This is one of them. Gold is skittering along at a price level just below the May 11, 2006, high of $719.80 a troy ounce. It is not a record but it is a level that has not been visited since January of 1980, a month that saw the record close of $850 a troy ounce.
It seems likely that gold will close above that May 2006 level. It might even do so before this issue is completed, but it has not done so yet. When it does, it will cause excitement among collector/investors.
President George Bush likely will sign legislation authorizing a series of Native American reverses on the Sacagawea dollar, but word of that event has not yet reached me. It might arrive before the paper goes to press, then again, it might not.
The Sac news is significant, but it does not stir the blood of readers to the same degree as the price of gold. The gold news is immediate. The Sac news is something that is scheduled to start in 2009. That gives us all plenty of time to prepare.
These are but two examples of one kind of waiting. It cannot be known whether anything will occur in time for this week?s deadline and it becomes a matter of constant monitoring.
Another kind of waiting is seeing how the week?s content unfolds minute by minute or day by day. In this case, what comes to me is expected. The unknown is timing and quality.
Photos of the Wyoming quarter launch ceremony are arriving in my e-mail as I write these lines. Photo by photo I see how the event occurs and I make my selection for the front page. I have five images to choose from.
Collectors are already buying Wyoming quarters by the bag and by the roll, but it is always interesting to see what local dignitaries attend the launch ceremony and what occurs that makes the event unique to the state being honored.
The presence of descendants of Nellie Tayloe Ross is interesting. She served as director of the Mint for 20 years, appointed in 1933 by Franklin Delano Roosevelt and serving through the administration of Harry Truman. She was the first woman to hold that office, but that?s nothing compared to her being the first woman to be governor of a state. That state just happens to be Wyoming, where women had the right to vote more than a generation before women in other states.
News of the plain-edge Jefferson error dollar coin is also due, but the images had not arrived by the time this column was started, but a zip file popped into view during the course of these sentences. The story was to be filed afterwards. However, the story is included with five images in the file, a pleasant surprise. Another notation can now be crossed off my work-in-progress list.
Some weeks I can write a column on a single topic without interruption. That isn?t the case here. I prize those weeks, because they are treasures for thought.
Then there were my phone calls to the American Numismatic Association in pursuit of information for my next trip to Colorado Springs, Colo., but I know some readers aren?t ready for that yet.
