There is an old phrase used when something is very valuable, “It’s worth a king’s ransom.” But what is a ransom worth?

We have an idea now that Heritage has sold some of the $20 Federal Reserve Notes that were used to pay off skyjacker D.B. Cooper, who jumped out of a passenger jet Nov. 24, 1971, somewhere in the Pacific Northwest.

Cooper was never found, but some of the ransom money he was paid was. It turned up in 1980 on the banks of the Columbia River near Vancouver, Wash. It was found by Brian Ingram, who was eight years old at the time.

Fifteen Series 1969 (and other then current series) $20 Federal Reserve Notes that no collector would even look at in less than uncirculated grade realized $37,433 combined in a Heritage Auction Galleries Americana memorabilia auction June 13. Though they were certified by PCGS Currency, they were in tatters. Prices include a 19,5 percent buyer’s fee.

Ingram still has 70 more of these notes, so at that rate they would be worth almost another $175,000, which is interesting, because the full ransom at the time of the hijacking was $200,000.

Obviously, in light of the high prices, none of the current buyers would like to see the rest of the ransom turn up – as historically interesting as such a possibility would be.

It is easy to get caught up in the fluctuations of gold, silver and platinum. Or is it? Are we in just a small niche?

My first bullion boom was in the 1960s. The federal government controlled the price of silver until it set it free in 1967. Then it was real control. There were no hints in investment newsletters about something unprovable. There was an official price of $1.2929 per ounce. It could not hold because the Treasury  had to sell in the open market to keep the price there and it was rapidly drawing down its holdings of the precious metal.

The price was freed and before year end, it had hit a high of $2.17. In 1968, the high point was $2.56.

In those days, everybody could play. There were still $1 Silver Certificates in circulation. Can you imagine that virtually all the $1 bills in circulation up until 1963 were Silver Certificates? It was in that year that $1 Federal Reserve Notes were authorized.

Since Silver Certificates were backed by real silver, first silver dollars and later bullion and they were redeemable, their price rose with the price of silver bullion.

Numerous buy ads appeared from issue to issue in Numismatic News and Coins Magazine. The redemption deadline was June 24, 1968, so the activity really got frantic as the clock ticked down the final moments of real commodity backed money that the public could redeem.

Anybody could check change for 90 percent silver coins. There were buy ads for these, too.

Nowadays, there seems to be a feeding frenzy, but it has not ever achieved the widespread involvement of the 1960s.

Times and conditions change. We are in a niche. It is a quiet boom.

Complaints by collectors that their banks do not get examples of new Presidential dollar coins as they are issued seem to have resonated at the Mint.

Yesterday, it announced a new program that allows banks and retailers and even members of the public to bypass the normal banking coin distribution system to get the coins directly from the Mint.

There are limitations. The quantity is limited to 500 coins per Presidential dollar issuing period, the coins will not be separated by mintmark, and I presume, no special care will be taken to keep the coins looking good.

The initiative is called the $1 Coin Direct Ship Program. The coins are packaged in box quantities of 10 rolls totaling 250 coins.

The minimum order is one box and the maximum is two.

Would be buyers are directed to the Mint’s Web site at http://www.usmint.gov/$1coin. The boxes may also be ordered by telephone at (800) USA-MINT.

The Mint pays standard shipping costs. It will charge buyers for shipping only if special handling is required.

This program is not intended to run around special collector issues, though undoubtedly some individuals might give these boxes a whirl precisely for that reason.

Also, it will be interesting to see how many banks take advantage of the opportunity now that their standard excuse of not getting Presidential $1 coins from their armored car service is removed.

Kudos to the Mint for the effort.

I received an e-mail of concern this morning from a reader asking how we were doing in light of the news he was hearing about floods in Wisconsin.

I appreciate the concern, though I could not resist answering humorously. I responded that we here in Iola are so far north that the rain couldn’t find us.

It is no joking matter for the people in the southern part of the state. Areas from La Crosse on the west to Milwaukee on the east were affected, including major damage to the tourist area known as the Wisconsin Dells.

With gas around $4 a gallon, there is concern about the summer tourist season. Now with the flooding, further misery has been added.

Speaking of tourists, I have written about Iola’s annual Old Car Show before. It is coming up July 10-13. This topic arises again because in the weekly Numismatic News poll question, it was asked if high gasoline prices are causing readers to reduce show attendance.

I received one response from a reader in Arkansas who said it would mean he couldn’t come to the car show. While that wasn’t the question asked, it certainly is a relevant topic. Arkansas is a long drive from here. I have done it myself when driving to the Memphis paper money show.

I still hope he can scrape up the time and money to come visit. There is still a month to figure out how.

Though the calendar does not officially declare it summer, the weather certainly does and in a way so does the numismatic calendar.

The Baltimore show concluded over the weekend and now the show schedule thins out. The question that I ask annually as routinely as a doctor’s office takes blood pressure is will commercial activity maintain an active pace or will it recede to a slow and easy pace as hobbyists take up their summer activities?

My next scheduled show is the International Paper Money Show in Memphis the last weekend in June. The second summer Florida United Numismatists convention will also be held the same weekend.

Both shows are looking to find a home on the calendar. Memphis used to be anchored to Father’s Day weekend until the convention center and hotels got better paying guests.

Summer FUN in West Palm Beach is in its second year and is still looking to establish itself in the hobby routine. Last year’s show was held in July and it was a good start. This year’s show is expected to build on the prior one.

Would-be hobby vacationers know it is easier to skip coin shows than it is paper money shows because there are so few of the latter. Memphis is the big paper money show on the calendar, so the paper money segment of the hobby will not yield to the temptation to slack off until after it has concluded.

The large fluctuations in the bullion market argue for coin collectors to pay more than the usual summer attention to coins. This goes double for dealers.

So what is my conclusion?

Perhaps the old-fashioned notion of combining business and pleasure will prevail. FUN has a beach. Memphis has Graceland and nearby gambling, so show goers could find a reason to stay in both areas longer.

I just received a copy of a letter being sent to the Mint's authorized purchasers of silver American Eagles. The tight supply situation continues and will get even tighter next week. Text of the letter follows:

June 6, 2008

MEMORANDUM TO ALL AMERICAN EAGLE AUTHORIZED PURCHASERS

FROM:      Cathy Laperle
        Team Lead, Bullion Program
        United States Mint

SUBJECT:    American Eagle Silver Bullion Coin Update


The United States Mint has been informed by its silver blank vendors
that the volume of blanks they will be shipping to us in the coming
weeks will be significantly reduced.  Specifically, the quantities they
will ship to us during the week of June 9 are expected to be less than
half the quantities they shipped to us during the week of June 2.  Our
vendors, however, expect to be able to make incremental increases in
supplies each week thereafter.  In the mean time, the significant
reduction in the number of blanks they supply to us will, of course,
directly affect the quantity of coins we can make available for
allocation to our Authorized Purchasers.  Accordingly, the United States
Mint will continue allocating American Eagle Silver Bullion Coins per
the process initiated on April 21, 2008.

As you know, in the first six months of 2008 production, the United
States Mint produced more American Eagle Silver Bullion Coins (10.07
million) than we did during the entire 12-month period of 2007 (9.03
million).  The United States Mint stands ready to continue this high
level of production as additional blanks become available from our
suppliers. 

The United States Mint is making every effort to increase its
acquisition of silver bullion blanks that meet the specifications and
requirements of the law.  In our efforts to meet unprecedented demand,
the United States Mint is again preparing a request for proposals (RFP)
for additional silver blank suppliers.  Additionally, we are not using
incoming supplies of silver blanks to produce numismatic versions of
these coins (American Eagle Silver Proof and Uncirculated Coins); all
incoming inventory is being used solely for silver bullion coins during
this reduced supply period. 

Thank you for your patience and your continued support of the United
States Mint American Eagle Silver Bullion Coin Program. 

What do you think? I read the following about the Mint's rationing of silver American Eagles and I have to give the guy points for guts, but it seems to be an allegation that anything less than an effort by the government to make silver holdings worth more is somehow illegal.

http://news.silverseek.com/SilverSeek/1212595279.php

There has been a speculative streak in collectors regarding silver for over 40 years, since the great coin shortage of the middle 1960s and the Coinage Act of 1965 that by and large drove silver coins out of circulation by the end of 1968.

We’ve had up markets and down markets, but this is the most novel approach I have ever seen in any market in the last four decades. It comes in language that we might have heard in the backrooms of Washington, D.C., just prior to the Bland-Allison Act of 1878 or any other silver-propping legislation of the following years.

If this is the intent, it would seem to me to indicate market weakness rather than a sound economic position and a strange appeal for government intervention to cause prices to rise couched in language that implies the opposite.

Most days of the week I check the Web site http://www.coinflation.com/ to see what the metallic values of the zinc cent and the nickel are.

It is a handy site if you want to know those numbers because it sure beats making the calculations myself or setting up something on my computer to calculate it for me.

Though it is illegal to melt cents and nickels, the concept of melt value is a handy one. It is an indicator of the level of stress on the supplies of these and other coins in the U.S. banking system.

If the melt value rises, you can be sure that the risk of hoarding rises. If the melt value falls, the risk of hoarding falls.

What are the current numbers? Well, when I checked this morning, the copper-coated zinc cent was valued at slightly more than one-half cent as metal. To be precise, as the Coinflation.com site is, the number is .0052711. Nobody in his right mind would be tempted to melt anything that would reduce its value by half.

There would appear to be no stress on the cent supply from a threat of hoarding. A previous blog where I mentioned the significant decline of Mint output of cents would confirm this. Any incipient hoarding would show up as increasing demand for the coins from the Mint and that would make production totals rise.

What about the nickel? Numismatic News ran several pieces by Russ Rulau last year about hoarding and what is currently found in circulation. This seemed a reasonable topic when the price of the metal in the coin very nearly reached 10 cents, or double the face value.

The current value, though still over face value, is .0577402. That means that on a $1,000 face value, if you could melt everything without cost to you, you would have copper and nickel worth roughly $1,154. Since accumulating the coins, shipping the coins and melting the coins cannot occur without cost, there doesn’t seem to be any hoarding stress on this denomation either.

Current mintage figures confirm this. They are down, too.

The Web site also provides melt values for other coins that are useful. These run from the 90 percent silver coins to the current clad compositions.

Thanks Coinflation.com.

I had phone call yesterday. The topic isn’t memorable. My thoughts are somewhat more so. It was another one of those calls where the caller identified himself and then began to speak. I listened.

After five or six seconds he asked if I was still on the line.

This has been happening to me more and more. Is the quality of our phones so bad now and callers so frequently cut off that they routinely interrupt to inquire if I am still there?

I get the joke of the cellphone commercials, “Can you here me now?” But I thought we had finally cleared the hurdle of going in and out of dead zones in recent years.

Another part of me wondered if we have become so unused to silence that when it occurs, it is startling and unexpected.

People run around with their iPods and give their whole life a sound track like a TV show. There is no background music on my phone when I am on the line. If I am asked to listen, I do and it is absolutely quiet.

So are all these inquiries as to whether I am still there the result of erratic technology or the startling and apparently unexpected absence of sound as I listen?