Precious metals prices make it easier for acquisition

I know that is has been almost two weeks since my last post but between Michael Phelps run for 8 golds and life being pretty busy, I haven't had too much time to write. It also doesn't help that I'm having trouble with my online account for Coin World AND the post office where I live sucks and hasn't delivered an issue of Coin World in three weeks. Needless to say, I feel a bit out of touch.

On the other hand, I can follow precious metals prices pretty closely and have been doing just that. A week or two ago the US Mint suspended sales of their proof platinum coins as platinum showed no signs of a rebound. There was some thought on this issue that the coins might never be brought back but I find this scenario unlikely.

Oh, as a side note, I just went to the US Mint's homepage and saw that one of their front page links was to the uncirculated AE platinum coins. Clicking the link takes you to a page with no products. Now there is an oversight!

But my reason for going to the Mint's website was to determine when the proof platinum eagles went on sale. My answer: May 5. They were removed from the website at the end of June and returned at the end of July before being pulled again. A rough estimate would be that they were only on sale for 11 weeks. With the 2009 issues probably not coming around till sometime mid-spring to mid-summer and I am pretty sure that the legislation for them says that they are to be sold until a sell out or the next issue is released. Neither of those events has transpired.

Besides the platinum situation all the metals have fallen and I for one welcome this. I do recognize that my collection is now worth less than it was two months ago but because I don't have a large budget and buy coins that I want to hold on to for a long time, I rely on other means to come up with coin funds and the high prices of precious metals have been a sizeable barrier to enjoyment of the hobby. I'm sure there are plenty that don't agree with me but if we're interested in bringing new members into the hobby its great to not have such a huge financial curve on it!

1880 Gold Dollar

Two weeks ago I was paging through the Red Book and I was looking for potential sleeper coins when I saw that the 1880 gold dollar was priced similarly to higher mintage coins but a mere 1600 were coined. This struck me as odd (pun intended) since most other coins with mintages that small would command huge prices in the marketplace. Now go back in time to this past Sunday. I was paging through my August 4 issue of Coin World and a dealer had a PCGS MS-62 1880 gold dollar for $399. Now that I couldn't pass up but as if to mock me, my inquiry to the dealer brought what I had feared: the coin had already been sold. :-(

But it got me thinking about why such a low mintage coin would be priced this way. Fortunately, a Google search revealed the answer for which I had been looking. Apparently a large majority of the total number of coins were hoarded in mint state so that even though the mintage is so small there are hundreds that exist in various grades of uncirculated. Now that is a good thing to know and to understand that mintages aren't the whole story! Here is a link to the full article directly.

Numismatically inspired t-shirt

Several months ago a few of my physics friends got me a t-shirt for my birthday. On the front it says "Obverse" and on the back it says "Reverse." There isn't too much more to say but the friends who got me the shirt are spread out all over the globe (at least one is in each hemisphere - north, south, east and west). Plus I really like my t-shirt.

Oh, but in looking for this I came across a whole website devoted to similar items.

Holy Buckets!

It is BEAUTIFUL!!! Coin News has a wonderful composite image of the 2009 St. Gauden's Double Eagle that'll be minted for one year only. Below are the Mint's high resolution images of the coin:

Obverse
Reverse
Edge Lettering

I also wanted to note that Mint officials traveled to the Smithsonian with an example of the coin to verify that everything had been made according to the original (plus a few modifications: 50 stars and In God We Trust on the reverse).

I somehow suspect that I won't be able to afford one of these but if in any way I can, woo boy, it'd be awesome. :-D

AE Proof Platinum back on sale

Late last week I noticed on the Mint's website that the AE Proof Platinum coins were re-listed for sale. If I remember correctly, they had been removed from the website in late June as platinum prices were moving higher. They spent the 3+ weeks being "revalued" and then placed back on sale. But here is the rub. While they were revaluing the coins, platinum fell. A lot. In fact, if you look at the 60 day trend in platinum it is not obvious why they were removed from the website in the first place. But they did and then platinum fell by $300 an ounce to the point where today platinum is $1730/ounce range. But the Mint must not have been paying attention.

This incident brings up two questions: 1) How does the Mint price these? Do they remove them from their website with the new prices in mind? It seems like they had prices in mind for where they felt platinum was going to go and were waiting for it to get there. BUT...
2) If that is the case then why did they wait so long and then do nothing when platinum fell $300? If they were so concerned about losing money, wouldn't they want to give some illusion that they were pricing them fairly by readjusting the prices to the lower cost of platinum?

In any case, I'm going to wait before making any purchases as I strongly object to paying $279 for a coin containing $174 in platinum.

Query for Numismatic Advice, Part 2

As promised, here is an update on the query for numismatic advice.

On Saturday I came into temporary possession of my friend's coins. Several times I've been told by family/friends that there are coins that I could look at if they hadn't been sold days prior (not an exaggeration, mere days!). Not only is this the second time I've looked at someone else's collection, it is also the first time I've ever been asked to survey the coins, inventory and in some cases, grade them in order to get an estimate of the total value of the collection.

Sunday afternoon found me spending a few hours getting a chance to grade and inventory the dollars, half dollars, and quarters. A little background. There is a small second bedroom in the abode in which my wife and I live. It serves several duties as a guest room, her office and my numismatic nook.

OK. I'm going to come back to this later as the latent carbon disulfide fumes are making me sick.

Back and feeling much better!

This was the first time since we got married where I was really able to use my numismatic nook for numismatics and that was thrilling.  I had my Red Book, latest Coin Values, a quad ruled notepad and my ANA Grading book all spread out along with the coins.  I enjoyed being able to get a bit more grading experience by looking at the halves and quarters and then getting a grade in my head, checking the ANA book to see if I was close and then reevaluating if I needed to.  Needless to say that even doing halves and quarters was enough to wear me out!  But I knew that I needed to have them done by the end of the week and it was going to be a busy week.  So I pulled out the dimes and there were far more of them than the higher denomination coins put together.  Remembering some experience I had while watching someone else sell common date silver dimes I decided against grading all of them and just inventoried them to show a potential buyer.  Now by the time I had finished the dimes I was getting pretty weary and decided to do the rest of the coins the following evening.

Which I did!  The nickels and cents were quite numerous and I relied mostly on an inventory given me by my friend so that I could search through them and look for ones that were better suited for pocket change and those in which a dealer could be interested.  This was a lot of fun because even though most of the coins from the last 50 years were better as pocket change there were a few really nice pieces in there that were quite lovely!

After finishing up with the cents and nickels I moved to the three jewels of the collection.  While none of these are earth shattering they have much larger numismatic and historical value than most of the other coins.  

The first was an 1856-O dime in F-12 (I think that's what I graded it).  Having been minted in the antebellum South brings up a wealth of historical information as well as being the type used from 1840-1853 and 1856-1860.  A few tidbits from 1856: 1) James Buchanan is elected president (and only president to have never married), 2) Lawrence, KS is sacked and burned by pro-slavery forces, 3) Nikola Tesla is born and 4) Khedrup Gyatso the 11th Dalai Lama dies.

The second is an Indian Head small cent from 1859 which was the first year of the Indian Head series that would run through 1909.  It is also a one year type coin in that there is no shield at the top of the wreath.  In 1860, this reverse would be replaced with one bearing a similar but quite distinctive wreath and a shield.  This particular specimen had a nice obverse but a relatively well worn reverse though all the design elements were still visible.  Here are a few historic tidbits from 1859: 1) A Tale of Two Cities is published, 2) The Pig War between the Americans and the British in the San Juan Islands is "fought," 3) John Brown and his followers storm the US Arsenal at Harper's Ferry, VA and 4) Pierre Curie is born.

The final jewel is an 1864 copper-nickel small cent.  In that year, the composition was changed from 88% copper/12% nickel to bronze (95% copper, 5% tin and zinc).  This change, coupled with a reduced weight for the bronze cents made melting of the previous small cents alluring and that coupled with the ongoing Civil War (aka War Between the States) makes survival of some of this issues a collecting challenge.  And finally, a few historic tidbits from 1864: 1) The Confederate submarine CSS Hunley sinks the USS Housatonic becoming the first submarine to sink an enemy vessel, 2) Delegates meet at the Charlottetown Conference to discuss Canadian confederation, 3) American songwriter Stephen Foster dies and 4) Abraham Lincoln is reelected President after running against his former Commander of the Army of the Potomac, George McClellan.

Finally there were a number of interesting coins from Canada and Newfoundland.  Most of them were half dollars from the early 20th century but the were enough coins to cover the monarchs Victoria, Edward VII, George V, George VI and Elizabeth II.  Never having seen much of early Canadian coinage this was quite fascinating to me.

In all I prepared a three page letter describing what I did and recommendations for selling.  Through today, that is all the information that I have but I will keep you posted on any further developments!

HA!

In the past I have railed on about the NASA commemorative coins so I won't do that again. I have also repeatedly pointed out contradictions in the actions of our elected officials (see anything regarding the In God We Trust issue) and will refrain from so doing. However, if you enjoy a good laugh (and I mean that!) read this and smile knowing that your representatives are hard at work.