The "Buzz" Coin Blog with Dave Harper

What impact National Gold Exchange bankruptcy?
Posted by Dave

Yesterday bags and rolls of American Samoa quarters went on sale at the Mint and the news hit the hobby that a major player, National Gold Exchange of Tampa, Fla., filed for bankruptcy protection Friday.

Both items are important to the future of the hobby, but if I had to make a bet, I would say that the readers of Numismatic News would consider the availability of the quarters they are trying to collect to be more important than the business news.

I am equally sure that commercially active readers would have the opposite opinion – there just aren’t as many of those.

There is no question that National Gold Exchange was a player. At shows it had multiple tables in prominent locations on the bourse floor.

The question becomes one of assessing damage. Did other dealers see it coming and protect themselves, or is there a lot of paper out there. “Paper” in hobby parlance is issued but uncashed checks, but primarily unpaid invoices called memos whereby one dealer gives a coin to another dealer on memo, trusting that he will be paid when the second dealer sells the coin.

There are always secondary effects. Who bought something last week planning to sell it to someone else who in turn would be offering it to NGE?

The disentangling process will be the topic of many a conversation at next week’s American Numismatic Association convention in Los Angeles.

Tuesday, July 28, 2009 2:04:32 PM (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)

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Monday, July 27, 2009

Ready, set, talk
Posted by Dave

I was on Harry Rinker’s “Whatcha Got?” radio program yesterday morning. The reason was the recent release of the 2010 edition of U.S. Coin Digest.

It is always a pleasure to be on the show. It is also a bit of a challenge.

What do you say in two minutes to sum up what has gone on in the hobby over the past 12 months? And that two minutes includes questions from Harry.

I mentioned the active Lincoln cent market, though many dealers can probably now argue it the other way. Those who wanted coins to sell in this, the centennial year of the Lincoln cent, have probably already done their buying and will be in the process of lightening up so they can focus on gathering inventory for 2010. But the book reflects the last 12-month cycle, not the next one.

Gold is still strong, but it has essentially gone sideways since my appearance last year.
I mentioned that the gold uptrend that started in 2001 is still unbroken and this serves as a rising floor to numismatically valuable coins.

Prices in the 2010 book have been extensively revised. Collectors live and breathe prices. It is almost a personal thing.

You feel like you have had a good year if you see your favorite holdings have increased a bit in value. If what you own has not changed or gone down, you feel like you have somehow failed.

We spoke a lot about silver. Harry noted that a friend was currently paying 8.5 times face value for 90-percent silver coins. Silver has had a rip-roaring time while gold has gone sideways. It has fallen by half and recovered a bit. Now it is trading at $14.

Overall, when I finish, I think that no matter what I managed to say in the allotted time, it wasn’t nearly enough.

But the old stage advice to leave people wanting more probably applies.

I can file these thoughts away until next year’s program.

Monday, July 27, 2009 2:08:44 PM (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)

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Friday, July 24, 2009

Will we be singing "Hello Dalai?"
Posted by Dave

With sales of the Formative Years two-roll Lincoln cent set approaching 300,000, it is fair to ask how many will ultimately be sold.

I do not have a specific answer. This week’s running total is 290,086.

However, the Mint promises that one of the items it will have at its booth Aug. 5-9 at the American Numismatic Association World’s Fair of Money will be these two-roll sets.

If you are attending the convention and haven’t purchased any, this will be your chance to examine the rolls before you buy to make sure the end coins are not damaged.

Timing is everything. Can you imagine the mob scene that could have been organized had the Aug. 13 debut of the Professional Life cent design been just one week earlier?

The ANA would have gotten an extra 4,000 people. With the new admission charge of $6 a day for nonmembers, that could have translated into $24,000 extra dollars for an organization that could use every extra penny it can get.

Such is not to be. The Mint booth is plenty popular even without a new product, but it could have been an event in its own right but for this timing issue.

Perhaps demand for the Dalai Lama medal will surprise me.

Friday, July 24, 2009 2:04:02 PM (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)

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Thursday, July 23, 2009

Step right up and put your money down
Posted by Dave

Price guides are an essential part of numismatics. I don’t know what I would have done without my 1965 Red Book, or my Telequotes in Numismatic News as I got started in the hobby.

I imagine most collectors feel the same way.

But what should be done about the proliferation of privately produced numismatic products?

These range from colorized state quarters to sets of U.S. coins packaged in a specific way to be marketed to what largely seem to be non-collector audiences.

I had a phone call from a fellow this week who bought a set of three Bicentennial coins that were combined with autographs of the artists who designed the quarter, half dollar and dollar coins.

He wanted to know where he could find out what they were worth.

He was disappointed when I told him they were not government sets and were privately produced.

The long pause on the other end of the line seemed to say “and your point is?”

I explained that our price guides and the guides that I see elsewhere are pretty standardized with the government-issue qualification.

Anybody can buy U.S. coins in the secondary market, design some attractive packaging and remarket the coins as a new product.

But when the time comes to sell these, what are they worth?

I told the man that the underlying value of the coins would most likely determine the value.

He retorted that President Ford had been selling them.

I could not tell him that in this instance the late President had no known numismatic judgment.

To conclude I finally had to say that I had no additional information to supply and I wished him luck.

Thursday, July 23, 2009 1:59:09 PM (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)

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Wednesday, July 22, 2009

Get those cents more easily
Posted by Dave

The introduction of the third Lincoln cent design for 2009, the one marking Abraham’ Lincoln’s professional career in Springfield, Ill., will be held at the Old Capitol in that city Aug. 13.

The question is: will anybody be paying any attention to the governor of Illinois and the Mint director at the ceremony, or will the public behave as they did in Lincoln City, Ind., in May and skip the ceremony to stand in line to obtain the new cents for face value?

At this point, I would be fairly certain that standing in line will trump ceremony.

It doesn’t have to be that way. I have an idea.

Why not organize the event as a business might?

Give everybody who arrives on site a numbered ticket. The number will be the place in line that the holder gets when the cents become available from Chase Bank at the conclusion of the ceremonial event.

This would allow the public to witness the ceremony in a relaxed manner, steep themselves in the history that they are a part of and not worry about missing out on the coins.

People holding tickets can very easily sort themselves into an orderly line.
The downside, of course, is the public won’t have to stand in line for many hours, making friends of those people immediately ahead and behind them as the hobbyists did in Indiana.

I think they would probably be willing to give up that opportunity.

Wednesday, July 22, 2009 2:05:37 PM (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)

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Tuesday, July 21, 2009

Lincoln cent distribution widens
Posted by Dave

I had lunch yesterday with Cliff Mishler, Fred Borgmann and his wife Kathy. The conversation is always interesting when we get together.

Fred retired from Krause Publications two years ago and Cliff, who was once CEO of Krause, is about to become the president of the American Numismatic Association.

Kathy at one point opened her purse and said that she had gotten one of the new Formative Years Lincoln cents. She handed it to me, saying, “I want you to have this.”

I looked immediately at the date side. It was a 2009 Philadelphia issue
.
Observing what was going on, Cliff interjected that he had just gotten one of the new cents also and had put it in his next Numismatic News columns.

Earlier that morning Lisa Bellavin had come to work with the news that she had received one of each of the new cent designs, the Birthplace and the Formative Years, when she was at Plymouth, Wis., over the weekend.

Even though I have not yet personally received one of these commemorative cents in my own change, I can take note of what is going on around me.

It would seem that the new coins are definitely making it into circulation. That’s a good thing for all those collectors who have been patiently awaiting release in their areas.

Wisconsin is not exactly at the forefront of new coin issuance, and Iola is not even in the running. Our local bank actually generates more coins in its business than it needs, so unless there is a special effort, as was the case with the first Presidential dollar, new coins will arrive in Iola only when they find their way here through use.

I am sure there are still people like me who are awaiting that moment when they receive their first new cent. I know it will happen. The only question is will anyone besides myself still be interested when it finally does?

Tuesday, July 21, 2009 2:08:23 PM (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)

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Monday, July 20, 2009

All things were possible then
Posted by Dave

It is the 40th anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing. It was quite an achievement.

I remember it as an Iowa summer day and a very late television broadcast on a Sunday night.

It was an event significant enough that it was married to a proposal to honor the late President Dwight Eisenhower on a new dollar coin not made of silver but retaining the old cartwheel’s size.

Since nothing moves quickly where congressional authorization is concerned, the clad dollar coins were released in 1971. Collectors received a bonus of a 40 percent silver version that was struck as both uncirculated and proof. The uncirculated was housed in a polyester film packet within a blue envelope and was priced at $3. The proof was housed in a very large hard plastic case, which in turn was put in a brown box. It sold for $10.

The prices sound low now, but at the time they seemed like highway robbery, the proof especially. There was almost as much collector outcry about that as there presently is about $8.95 Lincoln cent rolls sets.

But then as now, that didn’t stop a collector population enthralled by the theme from ordering in significant quantities.

The fact you can still buy the proof for roughly issue price nearly 40 years later shows how popularity is the opposite of a good investment. Remember that when you take your Lincoln cents out in 40 years' time.

But the coin always reminds me of my younger self and that warm summer night when all things seemed possible.

Monday, July 20, 2009 2:06:12 PM (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)

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Friday, July 17, 2009

Dream fulfilled; now we just count
Posted by Dave

Six months after the US. Mint began selling the Ultra-High-Relief Saint-Gaudens $20 gold pieces, it will increase the number of coins collectors can order from one coin per household to 10.

The new limit becomes effective July 27 at noon Eastern Daylight Time.

This step is both logical and expected. Anybody who wanted to get one has had the opportunity buy one since the coins went on sale Jan. 22. Anyone who might have wanted to attempt to corner the market amid the excitement of the initial release has been prevented from doing so.

With roughly 70,000 sold, the coin is fairly widely distributed for something priced at $1,289. But in a way it is a ticket into the dreams of the artist, Augustus Saint-Gaudens who died in 1907, and President Theodore Roosevelt. Roosevelt wondered why a great nation at the beginning of the 20th century could not create a coinage to equal the beauty of what was produced over 2,000 years ago in ancient Greece.

Collectors know that it wasn’t ability that was lacking. It was bankers and merchants who killed the high-relief idea.

These coins are simply impractical. They do not stack. They do not slide easily across the counter. The high points would look vandalized very quickly under such conditions. (And wear reduces the actual gold weight of the coin.)

So the original Saint-Gaudens $20 design remained an unsatisfied dream of many collectors for 100 years. Mint Director Ed Moy shared the dream and made it come true.

Am I getting too dreamy here as well? Well, a work of numismatic art can do that.

There. Back to counting. If you want 10, your wait is nearly over.

Friday, July 17, 2009 2:10:11 PM (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)

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Thursday, July 16, 2009

Selling steel cent hoard not easy
Posted by Dave

I had a phone call this week from someone who said he had 25,000 1943 steel cents that he had put into individual 2X2s. He wanted to sell them.

From time to time I get calls from people who want to sell coins. I tell them that we are a publishing firm and don’t buy or sell coins.

Of course, that line has to be modified. Our online business has undertaken the purchase of some new issues and then offers them online. This was inspired by yet another set of phone calls and e-mails that occur after the Coin of the Year is announced. Those contacting us want to know how to buy the Coin of the Year and the contenders.

For years, we’ve simply shrugged and suggested contacting dealers on the secondary market. This year we are trying to sell a few.

Will it work? That is a two-level question. First is can it succeed simply on a business level. Can we sell enough coins to generate enough profit so that our superiors believe it is worth the bother.

The second question is will advertisers think we are competing with them. There is that risk. It isn’t our intent. The reason we got the inquiries in the first place was our advertisers didn’t have the Coin of the Year coins in stock, either.

So, we will see.

As for the caller with the steel cents, I told him he would have to contact some coin dealers in his area and see if they were interested.

I have never heard of a hoard of that many steel cents in individual holders. Bags are findable and more easily traded. After all, that is just five bags the size of a bowling ball.

Are they all uncirculated? The caller was vague on that point.

I imagine he has his work cut out for him to turn his hoard into cash at a price he wants.

Thursday, July 16, 2009 1:55:19 PM (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)

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Wednesday, July 15, 2009

Collectors on edge
Posted by Dave

Edge lettering continues to confuse. The “In God We Trust” controversy was defused this year when the national motto was moved to the obverse of the Presidential dollars after two years of it being on the edge.

That hasn’t stopped e-mails claiming the Godless dollars should be boycotted. I have received two of those in my inbox in the last month or so. They are virtually identical to the ones I received in 2007 right down to the image of the George Washington dollar.

I guess the Internet makes these things virtually eternal. By sending these e-mails you can stir people up who have never seen a Presidential dollar.

Average collectors though apparently know what is going on because these e-mails did not originate from readers wondering what is going on as was partly the case two years ago.

I had an e-mail yesterday from an average collector. He had just received the 2009 clad proof set that he had ordered.

He inquired, “Should the Sacagawea and her infant son dollar have a mintmark, mine doesn’t?”

I answered right away that the “S” mintmark is on the edge.

The funny thing is that he didn’t even mention the lack of obverse date because it too is on the edge, or the entirely new reverse design for the now renamed Native American dollar.

The e-mailer also mentioned that he didn’t remember reading anything about the new coin. I guess that means I still have a job to do to continue to try to get the word out on.

It is also a good reminder that all collectors should look at all of their coins closely. I am as guilty as the next guy in receiving collector sets and putting them in a safe deposit box without looking too closely at them when I am in a hurry. That isn’t smart, but doing the smart thing isn’t always the highest thing on my “to do” list.

Wednesday, July 15, 2009 2:10:04 PM (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)

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