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 Monday, April 13, 2009
Birthplace Lincoln mintages revealed
Posted by Dave
Final mintage numbers for the 2009 Birthplace Lincoln cent are now available. For collectors who have been used to totals in the billions and billions, the numbers are refreshingly low. The question is, are they low enough to feed the current online trading frenzy, or will the market phenomenon begin to abate? The Philadelphia Mint struck 284.8 million of the coins. The Denver Mint struck 350 million. The combined total is 634.8 million. You have to go back to 1954 to find a combined annual cent output total that is lower. If you want to look at simply the mintage of a single coin, the circulation strike 1968-S cent has a mintage of 261,311,507. Looking at the value of the 1968-S, Coin Market lists it at $8 in MS-65. Of course, not all 1968-S cents make it to MS-65 and neither do all 2009 Birthplace cents. Arguing the case from the other side, the scarcity factor for the 2009 is amplified because the coin is also a type coin. There will be no others like it. Every collector who wants an example of the design has to pull it from the pool of 634.8 million. Nobody has to buy a 1968-S cent to obtain the design type. Any coin struck from 1959 to 2008 will do. As long as collectors remain anxious about obtaining specimens, the secondary market will be supported. But to make one last comparison to the 1968-S cent, it was midsummer 1968 before I saw one in change. Were we more patient then? Before I say yes, I should point out that the secondary market frenzy that year was directed to the proof set, which also had “S” mintmarks on the coins. They were the first proof sets to feature coins with mintmarks. Eventually, that set’s price came down to earth, but it took a while.
Monday, April 13, 2009 1:53:08 PM (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00) 
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Friday, April 10, 2009
Count your quarters
Posted by Dave
The difficulty in finding the scarce District of Columbia and U.S. Territories quarters have many individuals searching supplies of the denomination in the nation’s banking system and there are interesting observations being made. Gene Funkhouser of Pensacola, Fla., says that he will no longer accept sealed boxes of plastic wrapped rolls because they are always short $1-$3. He told me that he first realized something was up about a month ago when he used more quarters as replacements than he thought he should. He tried five bank companies in his area and even a major retailer and any time the rolls were machine wrapped in plastic the overall total was an undercount. He said occasionally he still finds a roll with an extra coin in it, but that doesn’t affect the overall result. He wondered why he had never heard of this happening before. I told him I had never heard of this happening, either. The theory of machine wrapping is coins are handled by weight and every roll with an undercount should be offset by a roll with an overcount. Apprently that is not so in Pensacola. I suppose a statistician could prove that Mr. Funkhouser is just being unlucky for the moment and if he would continue to obtain rolls the quantities would balance out over time, but is that something you would want to bet $1-$3 a box on? He doesn't. Now it is up to others to see what counts they come up with in their supplies of quarter rolls that are machine wrapped in plastic.
Friday, April 10, 2009 1:57:53 PM (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)
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Thursday, April 09, 2009
Ready for any Lincoln cent opportunity
Posted by Dave
More and more of the new 2009 Lincoln cents are finding their way into collector hands. Part of the reason is perhaps the slowly working banking system is finally releasing a few more coins, but the other reason is probably that so many collectors across the country are watching for them. I had a telephone call yesterday from Patricia Smith, a person who said she really did not consider herself a collector, but she reads Numismatic News and has kept, as she put it, what comes her way for over 50 years. Yesterday she reported that four rolls of the new Lincoln cent had come her way. However, she had to work for them. She was at a California retail establishment when she spotted some of the new coins in the till. As a former clerk herself, she asked the clerk nicely if she could buy some of the new cents. The clerk replied that she had no others but invited Ms. Smith to talk to the manager. The manager was most agreeable. He had four rolls that he was willing to sell her. This is where it gets interesting and creative. Ms. Smith says she always keeps four rolls of Lincoln cents with her for just these occasions. She traded her rolls for the manager’s and both got what they wanted. The store had the same amount of change available to it and Ms. Smith had her nice new Lincolns. She is now ready to start the hunt for the second Lincoln issue that will come in May.
Thursday, April 09, 2009 1:47:38 PM (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)
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Wednesday, April 08, 2009
One bullion we don't need
Posted by Dave
Montana’s two senators want the United States to begin striking bullion coins out of palladium. They introduced legislation in early April calling for a .995 fine one-ounce coin. No surprise there as Montana has the only working palladium mine in the United States. The senators' action follows a long line of Western legislative history of supporting mining with metal purchases and turning the metal into coinage. The Bland-Allison Act of 1878 started the ball rolling, mandating silver purchases and the production of what became the Morgan silver dollar series. Most Americans probably don’t know what palladium is. I have never seen it even though there have been a few coins made of palladium since Tonga issued the first one in 1967. Its exotic nature hardly recommends a palladium bullion coin to the investment crowd. When the financial markets became fearful they rushed to embrace what they knew, gold and silver bullion coins. Even platinum, which I assume we are more used to now than we used to be, was abandoned in the bullion coin buying spree of the past year. The palladium coin proposal is also odd in another way. It wants it to copy the Ultra High Relief Saint-Gaudens gold coin design currently being sold to collectors, right down to the 27mm diameter. Now making a one-ounce palladium bullion coin just 27mm wide will make it look more like a rubber bathroom sink stopper than a coin. The question of whether we actually need another bullion coin aside, couldn’t the writers of the bill come up with a more plausible coin? They should have at least had the initiative to raid the Mint’s old coin design cupboard and come up with a Standing Liberty bullion coin or a Mercury bullion coin, or perhaps an 1804 dollar restrike bullion coin.
Wednesday, April 08, 2009 1:51:14 PM (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)
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Tuesday, April 07, 2009
No quarters at Denver in March
Posted by Dave
No quarters were struck by the Denver Mint in the month of March and Philadelphia coined just 200,000 pieces. Those startling numbers have set collectors who are already circling around the new District of Columbia and Territorial quarter program because of the unusually low mintages running for their calculators to figure out just how low the Guam production total might go. If the banking system doesn’t need quarters, the Guam issue could make the current frenzy over the Birthplace Lincoln cent look like the appetizer before the speculative banquet. For the month of March there were cents produced, but once again the rate of production is declining. Just 98 million were struck. Most of those, or 90 million, were struck at Philadelphia and just 8 million were coined at Denver. This brings total cent production this year to 634,800,000. Both these sets of figures confirm an e-mail I had earlier this month from a collector who said there didn’t seem to be any production activity at the Denver Mint. He knew someone who had just taken a public tour. There were no half dollars or Native American dollars produced in March at either mint. Denver also struck no dimes in March and Philadelphia struck just 11 million pieces. However, Denver wasn’t completely shut down in March. In addition to the small number of cents, it produced 3,120,000 nickels and 29,260,000 Presidential dollars. Philadelphia contributed 12,960,000 nickels and 10,500,000 Presidential dollars. Overall, just 165,040,000 coins were struck by both mints together. If the pace would continue like this, which isn’t likely, the total coinage for the year would be just under 2.7 billion coins. A production plunge of this magnitude would confirm financial pundits who are calling the current recession the worst since the 1930s.
Tuesday, April 07, 2009 2:11:40 PM (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)
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Monday, April 06, 2009
Market cycles both seasonal and long term
Posted by Dave
One of the perennial topics of numismatic writing is the arrival of the April 15 tax filing deadline, a date that usually looms larger for those who owe Uncle Sam money than those who do not. Those individuals who are entitled to refunds usually get their returns submitted as fast as they can to get their hands on the refund. My first boss, Arnold Jeffcoat, who occupied the editor’s chair at Numismatic News 1973-1982, had his tax time editorial all ready to go. He usually wrote that the market would slow down, either as items were sold to raise money to pay taxes or money was not available to make as many purchases. This pause was often characterized as a buying opportunity if one was interested in the popularly traded and easily salable items like proof sets. Rarities, of course, don’t trade in quite such a seasonal manner. Their sales cycle runs in longer stretches. When markets are hot, they tend to appear in public sales more frequently as each owner grabs the prestige of adding his name to a pedigree and then decides the easy profit is worth taking in a year or two. During down parts of the long-term cycles, the rarities appear less and less as the owners, knowing their long-term value, put them away, awaiting the next crazy up cycle that will earn them the profit they are looking for. Sometimes life events prevent owners from optimizing their sales timing, but it is amazing to watch this speeding up and slowing down process over the years. Heritage putting an 1804 silver dollar in the Central States auction at the end of this month just a year after selling another 1804 dollar at the prior Central States convention could be an indication that the upside of the market cycle is still intact. Anyone active in the business will certainly hope so.
Monday, April 06, 2009 1:58:19 PM (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)
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Friday, April 03, 2009
Feeding frenzy comes before decline
Posted by Dave
Will we see packed highways and crowds of collectors at the May 14 formal introduction of the second 2009 Lincoln cent? The odds are good because of the online feeding frenzy surrounding the first design of the year. It is hard to believe it can still be going on with a mintage of over half a billion coins, but it is. Too many people seem to believe that if the new cents cannot appear effortlessly and instantaneously all over the country, they must be rare. That is a financially dangerous assumption, but as long as the bubble of online enthusiasm lasts, it can go on for a while. The Rail Splitter design will make its appearance May 14 at the Lincoln Amphitheatre in Lincoln City, Ind. That’s a ways off the beaten path, so collectors who want to obtain early supplies for face value will have to grab a truck and drive. How many cents will the Mint have on hand that day? I don’t know, but I hope the staff is planning for more than at the first launch. There were no shortages on that ceremonial first day Feb. 12 in Kentucky, but some collectors who afterwards jealously watched the prices those early supplies brought online will hope lightning will strike twice. This phenomenon itself argues against a repeat of the high prices, but perhaps only by degree. Second issues of anything often see much higher initial demand. However, this increased demand is from buyers whose only goal is to dump them as fast as they can for as much as they can get. Only when the market later gets a sufficient sense of how much greater this early demand contributed to existing supplies does the correction set in. Markets generally are not kind to the prices of second issues, but another feeding frenzy will likely occur before that happens.
Friday, April 03, 2009 1:57:20 PM (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)
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Thursday, April 02, 2009
Caught between rock and hard place
Posted by Dave
It was bound to happen. I received my first complaint from a reader who received a package from the Mint by UPS and complained that he had to sign for it and arrange to be home to do it. To be fair, what was in the package was the book that is supposed to accompany the Ultra High Relief Saint-Gaudens $20 gold piece that the Mint is selling this year. The Mint had starting shipping coins without the books so that collectors didn’t have to wait for their coins while the Mint worked out the problems in acquiring the books themselves. The collector I heard from apparently received his coin before the new policy took effect because he contrasted not signing for the valuable coin but having to sign for the much less valuable book. This event follows a change in policy on signatures. Prior to March 13, signatures for the very valuable coins were not required. After that date, they were. This policy change occurred after collector complaints were heard about these gold coins being left on doorsteps without the recipients having to sign for them. So the Mint showed it was responsive to its customer base. What’s the Mint to do now? In this case, the wise course is to treat it as an anomaly and ignore the complaint.
Thursday, April 02, 2009 1:48:11 PM (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)
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Wednesday, April 01, 2009
More candidates enter the ANA field
Posted by Dave
Two new candidates have thrown their hat in the ring for election to the American Numismatic Association Board of Governors. Though not all have accepted their nominations yet, the field has swelled to 17 candidates from the 15 that were present or issued statements for the candidate forum in Portland, Ore., March 7. Deadline for accepting or rejecting nomination is April 7. The additions to the field are Mandeville, La., coin dealer and former Republican candidate for U.S. senator Paul Hollis. The other is J.P. Martin, a professional coin grader whose career at one time saw him grading coins for ANACS when it was owned and operated by the American Numismatic Association. The rest of the field includes two candidates for president, current Vice President Patti Finner, and Gov. Clifford Mishler. Both are from Iola, Wis. Tom Hallenbeck of Colorado Springs, Colo., is the only candidate for vice president. The other candidates for governor are: • Joseph E. Boling of Indianapolis. • Michael Ellis, Virginia Beach, Va. • Brian E. Fanton, Hiawatha, Iowa • Jeff C. Garrett, Lexington, Ky. • Alan Herbert, Mesa, Ariz. • Chester L. Krause, Iola, Wis. • Walter A. Ostromecki Jr., Encino, Calif. • Thomas A. Palmer Jr., New Smyrna Beach, Fla. • Scott Rottinghaus, New London, Conn. • Jeffrey Swindling, Jacksonville, Fla. • Michael S. Turrini, Vallejo, Calif. • Wendell Wolka, Greenwood, Ind. The election will be held by mail ballot. They usually go into the mail about June 1 and voting is conducted until the middle of July. A new board will be sworn in Aug. 8 at the Los Angeles World’s Fair of Money. So far the heat of the 2007 campaign is missing, but on the other hand, it is still early in the campaign.
Wednesday, April 01, 2009 1:57:21 PM (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)
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Tuesday, March 31, 2009
Can it happen again?
Posted by Dave
It has been many years since a coin struck for circulation has become scarce. The 1950-D nickel was not struck for collectors only. The 1955-S cent was not coined to sell on a Mint Web site. Mintage totals were based on what the economy was demanding. With the mintages of the first two of the six District of Columbia and Territorial quarters now known, we have the tantalizing number of 53,000,000 Puerto Rico quarters struck in Philadelphia. That is the lowest total since 1962. So there is some basis for me to feel like a kid again. The 1962 quarter was not impossible to find in change. There were enough, but I seemed to see many more 1962-D quarters than the mintage ratio would have indicated, but then I lived in the part of the country where the coins came from Denver. The 1958 quarter from Philadelphia was hard to find. Its mintage, though, was 7,235,652. That, too, was not rare, but I looked long and hard for it in my change and I was jubilant when the elderly man on my paper route who attempted to teach me to count to 10 in Welsh paid his bill with coins that included the 1958. Is such a low mintage possible today? If the banking system continues to back up with old coins, can the next four quarters in the 2009 sequence continue their mintage declines? If the Philadelphia production declines at the same rate through the six-design quarter run, we would be close to the 7 million figure. It would be interesting to see how collectors would react to it.
Tuesday, March 31, 2009 1:57:43 PM (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)
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