The "Buzz" Coin Blog with Dave Harper

Cent production falls, but Birth design still scarcest
Posted by Dave

Mintage figures have come my way and I can figure how the race to be the scarcest 2009 Lincoln cent is shaping up.

Production of the Professional Life Lincoln cent, the third of four designs this year, dropped off from the total achieved by the Formative Years design, but not by enough to threaten the position of the Philadelphia Birth cent as the lowest mintage of the 2009 Lincoln cents so.

Philadelphia cranked out 316 million of the Professional Life design. This was low enough to slide it into second scarcest status behind the 284.4 million Birth cents struck by Philadelphia.

Denver’s 336 million output of the Professional Life cents puts this coin third on the scarcity list.

Fourth place is currently held by the 350.4 million Denver Birth cents.

Fifth place is held by the 363.6 million Denver Formative Years cents.

Sixth place is held by the 376 million Philadelphia Formative Years cents. This, obviously is the most common of the commemorative designs so far.

Two more entries in the scarcity sweepstakes will be added when we know the output numbers for the fourth cent design of the year, the Presidency.

Combined output for the Birth design was 634.8 million. This rose to 739.6 million for the Formative Years and then fell to 652 million for the Professional Life design.

With production of the third design falling from the level of output for the second design, perhaps one of the fourth designs will have a low enough mintage to displace the P-mint Birth cent as the lowest mintage of the year.

For that news, though, we have to wait until production concludes for the year.

Thursday, October 15, 2009 1:40:07 PM (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)

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Wednesday, October 14, 2009

Mint set sales open at fast pace
Posted by Dave

Hobbyists of a speculative frame of mind are watching demand for the 2009 uncirculated coin set very closely.

Have you ordered yours yet?

This set includes the four designs of the 2009 Philadelphia and Denver Lincoln cents in copper. The set is the only way to get the copper version of the coins from those two minting facilities. The proof copper collector cents are from San Francisco. The strikes for use in commerce are copper-coated zinc.

The first sales numbers from the U.S. Mint for the 2009 mint set do show a significant uptick in demand.

Sales began Oct. 1 and as of Oct. 11, the Mint had sold 392,007 sets.

In comparison, the first rush of sales for the 2008 set reached only 234,762. When sales ended, for the 2008 set, the total take by collectors was only 745,464.

Already then, sales have reached more than half of the total of the 2008 set.

Going back to 2007, the sales of the uncirculated coin set reached 907,886.

If the Mint is using the sales numbers for the 2007 and 2008 sets as a production guide, we could witness a rapid sellout of the 2009 uncirculated coin set.

If additional production remains an option, it seems clear that sales likely will jump over the million mark fairly easily.

Nothing is ever certain, but it would seem that overall interest will at least be enough to carry demand to the nice, round million mark.

In any case, this set is worth watching a little more closely than collectors have been used to.

Call it another gift to us from the Year of Lincoln.

Wednesday, October 14, 2009 2:10:57 PM (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)

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Tuesday, October 13, 2009

Dealers rally to solve crime
Posted by Dave

A $22,000 reward is being offered for information leading to the arrest and conviction of the thief or thieves who stole coins Oct. 11 from the car of Silver Spring, Md., coin dealer Julian Leidman.

The Numismatic Crime Information Center reports that a side window of Leidman’s car was smashed and the coins removed. Leidman was returning from Coinfest, a show held over the weekend in Stamford.

The dealer community is banding together to help law enforcement solve the case. The reward stands at $22,000 as this is written, but it started out yesterday at $5,000 with the initial reward offer of Coinfest founders Laura Sperber and Jon Lerner through the Professional Numismatists Guild. Other PNG dealers followed.

The possibility of theft of valuable coin inventories is always on the mind of the nation’s coin dealers as they travel from show to show.

When theft becomes reality, the dealer community moves swiftly to attempt remedies.

It is a tribute to them as they transform from fierce competitors to concerned numismatic community members. They know a danger to one is a danger to all.

The Township of Montville, N.J., police are investigating the crime.

Identifiable inventory items according to NCIC includes:

• 1921 $20 gold piece NGC MS-61
• 1932 $20 gold piece uncirculated
• Several scarce date Libs and Saints
• 1806 half dollar PCGS MS-63 (proof- like) planchet flaw on reverse
• 1807 half dollar PCGS MS-65
• 1892-O dollar PCGS genuine holder incredible coin appears to be proof.
• 1829 5 mark struck off center

Three contact phone numbers have been given for the use by anyone who can help with information.

• Det. Keezer
(973) 257-4113

• Julian Leidman
(301) 585-8467

• Doug Davis
(817) 705-4450

Let’s hope this story has a happy ending. We do know from the actions of the dealers that it has had a happy first step.

Tuesday, October 13, 2009 2:12:06 PM (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)

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Monday, October 12, 2009

Wait 'til next year?
Posted by Dave

After every season, fans of defeated teams either think or say, “Just wait ’til next year."

I was thinking about that as the Minnesota Twins went down to defeat at the hands of the New York Yankees in three straight games. It was not pretty for Twins fans.

The Yankees are a powerful team. This is true not only this year but over many years. It might be said that they have dominated the American League since the time of Babe Ruth.

I will allow my colleagues in the sports department to fill in the details of this dominance if they so choose.

The U.S. dollar is something like the Yankees. It has been on top in the world for a similar length of time despite the best efforts of other countries to knock it from its pedestal.

Why would other countries want that?

You might as well ask why fans of teams other than the Yankees root for them. It’s simply who they are.

In the years the Yankees don’t win, there is always the chortling of the team’s detractors. They enjoy it. And they should. It doesn’t happen often enough for the fans of other teams.

Those rooting against the dollar are having their season now just as they did in 1968 when President of France Charles De Gaulle led a run on the greenback. The demise of the U.S. currency was foretold.

Rooting against the dollar had another season in the late 1970s and again in the early 1990s.

The question now is as it was in those other periods: has the dollar simply lost the current round of playoff games?

The other fans are rightfully reveling in their victories this season, but next year will come.

Monday, October 12, 2009 2:13:51 PM (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)

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Friday, October 09, 2009

Rich, I tell you, rich!
Posted by Dave

Today is flu shot day at Krause Publications. I plan to get one this afternoon.

Last year, the inoculations were given later in the month of October and as luck would have it, I was already ill with flu.

This is the regular annual dose rather than the one for H1N1, otherwise known as swine flu.

I was pleased to learn that I was at very near the end of the priority list for the swine flu shot. I guess in this case age seems to yield the privilege of being less susceptible to it.

Fortunately for me, there was never any inoculation for coin fever, or whatever you might want to call the collecting impulse. That ailment struck me down in 1963 when I was very young and I have never been the same since.

Coin collecting fever should not be confused with gold fever. While symptoms can be similar for a while, gold fever tends to get worse with time as visions of great wealth start dancing in your head.

Coin fever tends to be a self-regulating kind of illness where the boundaries are set by the number of holes in a particular album or the number of coins one can put in a family budget before the objections start.

Do those who already have a case of coin fever get a less severe form of gold fever when the latter strikes?

Possibly.

Constant attention to gold even in down markets and the experiences that come with age can build up the anti-bodies to getting carried away.

Perhaps like swine flu, the older we are, the more we can resist the exclamation, “We’re going to be rich, I tell you, rich!”

Then again, maybe I just don’t hear as well as I used to.

Friday, October 09, 2009 2:24:56 PM (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)

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Thursday, October 08, 2009

What's a 2009 copper cent worth?
Posted by Dave

There seems to be some speculative interest in the 2009 uncirculated coin set because this will be the only way collectors can obtain examples of the 2009-P&D cents in copper alloy.

Will early orders run hot and heavy as a result?

We have seen this kind of interest in the plain vanilla mint set before. In 1987, the annual set was the only way to get half dollars. In 1981, the set was the only way to get Anthony dollars.

Neither of these sets have performed well on the long-term secondary market. The 1987 is trading well below the $7 issue price and the 1981 set is trading right around the $11 issue price – and this is 22 and 28 years later, respectively.

Can copper cents give buyers of the 2009 set a quick profit? Possibly. Certainly there was trading excitement shortly after the 1981 and 1987 sets were released. It just didn’t last.

There is a logic that the cents will be removed from the sets and trade independently, some perhaps in slabs attesting to the fact that they grade MS-69 or MS-70 and are indeed coins with the copper alloy.

Whether there will be much of a premium for the lower graded pieces remains to be seen. It will, of course, hinge on collector perception that mintage is low. This is a near certainty for the first few weeks, but not necessarily so over the long haul.

What happens to cents that somehow get separated from the original packaging? How will collectors know they are copper?

The short answer is they weigh more, at 3.11 grams versus 2.5 grams for cents with the zinc core.

Since most collectors don’t own scales, they will have to fall back on the handy, dandy popsicle stick scale recommended back in 1982 when collectors wondered which cents of that year were copper and which were zinc.

Don’t know that trick?

Well, get a cent dated 1981 or before. It weighs 3.11 grams. Center the stick on a fulcrum for balance. Put the old cent at one end. Put the suspect 2009 coin on the other end. If it balances, the 2009 coin is copper. If it doesn’t, it is zinc.

Thursday, October 08, 2009 2:10:50 PM (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)

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Wednesday, October 07, 2009

Silver often dictates collector feelings
Posted by Dave

Expressions of disappointment have begun to make their way to me via e-mail following yesterday’s news that there will be no proof silver American Eagle coins among other things in 2009.

It is interesting and certainly logical that the first comments I get ignore gold and focus instead on silver.

Concerns about silver have been this generation’s companions since the Coinage Act of 1965 removed the metal from dimes and quarters and reduced it in the half dollar.

The loss of gold, on the other hand, was another generation’s experience in 1933 and they are mostly gone.

We collectors seem to alternate between fear of silver’s loss to the thrill of getting it in some new collector form.

The first silver "gift" after 1965 came in the Eisenhower dollar series in 1971. Congress authorized a special version in 40 percent silver for collectors.

Collector versions of the Bicentennial quarter, halves and dollars were the next “gifts.”

Silver went wild in 1979-1980 and along with a little giddiness or glee from the profits on the coins we currently owned there came a sense of forboding that with silver approaching and then reaching $50 an ounce that we really could not afford to maintain our interests in the same manner as before.

But the silver landscape was always changing. At the point of dispair there always seemed to arise a new collecting opportunity.

Proof silver American Eagles were one of those issues in the line of “gifts” to collectors. It is a popular set. It helped collectors imagine what it was like in the 19th century as each new Morgan dollar came off the press.

Now there is a gap in it. That familiar sense of loss kicks in. It is understandable.

But as sure as that loss has arrived, there will be another “gift.” What will it be? We’ll see.

Wednesday, October 07, 2009 2:04:47 PM (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)

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Tuesday, October 06, 2009

Eagles, no; Buffaloes, yes
Posted by Dave

No proof one-ounce American Eagle gold or silver collector coins will be produced in 2009 by the U.S. Mint.

The bad news, cleared for release at noon Eastern Daylight time Oct. 6, doesn’t end there.

There will also be:
• No “W” mintmarked uncirculated silver American Eagle collector coins,
• No proof fractional gold American Eagles,
• No “W” uncirculated one-ounce gold American Eagles (the fractionals of this were killed at the end of last year),
• No Uncirculated Dollar Coin Set, which would include a “W” silver American Eagle, and
• No platinum American Eagle bullion coins.

But the Mint also gives as well as takes.

Perhaps the most surprising new issues coming are the probable Oct. 15 release of the 2009 gold Buffalo bullion coin and the Oct. 29 release of the proof collector version.

Fractional gold American Eagle bullion coins in tenth-ounce, quarter-ounce and half-ounce weights are scheduled tentatively for release Dec. 3.

A proof one-ounce platinum American Eagle also is scheduled tentatively for release Dec. 3.

The Mint stresses the word “tentatively.”

It is still battling to supply the market with American Eagle bullion coins, which are mandated by law whereas the collector versions are not.

“Because of unprecedented demand for American Eagle gold and silver bullion coins, the United States Mint suspended production of 2009 proof and uncirculated versions of these coins,” it says.

Even though the rationing of the bullion gold and silver American Eagles ended June 15, acquiring adequate supplies of blanks has been an ongoing struggle for the Mint. In light of this, it might perhaps be surprising that the Mint would bother to produce the gold Buffalo coins this year at all.

Those with a lawyer’s eye will spot the exception in the language here: “All available 22-karat gold and silver bullion blanks are being allocated to the American Eagle gold and American Eagle silver bullion coins programs as mandated by Public Law 99-185 and Public Law 99-61, respectively.”

The one-ounce Buffalo gold bullion coins and collector coins are struck on 24-karat gold planchets.

Once again the Mint holds out the hope that the collector coins suspended this year will be returned to production, but now in 2010, as it works “diligently with current and potential blank suppliers to increase the supply of bullion coins blanks.”

Tuesday, October 06, 2009 5:00:43 PM (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)

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Too good to be true?
Posted by Dave

Sometimes I feel old. I wrote a column about this four years ago when I became eligible to join the American Association of Retired Persons, or AARP.

I received a few e-mails from my contemporaries who said they felt the same way.
Time just moves too fast.

A handwritten letter I received yesterday returns me to this theme. It came from a reader of my Class of ’63 column in Numismatic News.

He suspects I am seriously understating my age and running a very old photo of myself.

“Every week when I look at your photo, you remind me of Q. David Bowers who going back for years always had a young photo of himself with his ads.”

Now being compared to professional numismatist and writer Q. David Bowers for any reason is a compliment. He is a one-man industry. I wish his resume were a secret because it makes the rest of us look lazy.

Bowers, he noted, eventually had to change the photo in his ads. Bowers has been in the business since 1953 and photo updates are required from time to time in such a lengthy career.

The letter writer expects me to do the same.

“Let’s see what you really look like for a change.”

He adds in a postscript: “I’m 84 years old, about your age, maybe?”

Tuesday, October 06, 2009 2:08:40 PM (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)

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Monday, October 05, 2009

September Mint production drops
Posted by Dave

Mint production in the month of September ran at the lowest level since March I discovered after I turned my computer on this morning and began checking around various Web sites.

The overall September total of 181.96 million coins is somewhat larger than the March total of 165.04 million.

After the March drop, production recovered to roughly 350 million coins per month.
The Mint tries to minimize monthly production fluctuations, but September was the end of the fiscal year, so perhaps there was less flexibility.

September cent production actually fell below the March total of 98 million coins to 93.2 million pieces.

For the first time in this year’s quarter program, the output of the current design was almost identical to the prior one.

The quarter honoring the U.S. Virgin Islands has an overall mintage of 82 million split evenly between the Denver and Philadelphia mints. Neither figure fell below the 39.6 million Denver output of the prior American Samoa design. That retains the title of having the lowest mintage of the 2009 quarters.

Combined, there are just slightly more American Samoa quarters as the total is 82.2 million.

What this means is the two 41 million totals from Denver and Philadelphia for the U.S. Virgin Islands share the title of being the second lowest mintages for any 2009 quarter.
We now await the production of the Northern Mariana Islands quarter to see if the low mintage distinction will be shifted from the Denver American Samoa quarter, or if it will retain the honor.

No dimes and no nickels were produced in September, but a small number of half dollars raised the annual total so far to 3.6 million coins, up by 200,000 pieces produced at Denver from the August total of 3.4 million, or 1.7 million each at Denver and Philadelphia.

Even though the numbers are on the low side, distribution patterns around the country seem to be improving and giving collectors the impression of greater availability than was the case in the first part of the year.

Monday, October 05, 2009 2:20:22 PM (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)

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