The "Buzz" Coin Blog with Dave Harper

Wednesday morning health check
Posted by Dave

The cold and flu season is never any fun. With the arrival of the swine flu it has engendered a workday morning health checkup.

Who made it into work? Who didn’t? How does the workload get split up today?

Even more important: who came to work ill and should be avoided?

I can’t say that Krause Publications has had any significant outbreaks of illness – or at least any more than in a typical year. It’s just that the subject seems to be on everybody’s mind this year because of all the public warnings about staying home when you are ill, washing hands and getting inoculated with a vaccine that is basically not yet available.

I haven’t seen anyone wearing surgical masks around here.

Krause has already had the seasonal flu shots, so that should at least keep the usual flu varieties to lower activity levels.

I imagine this situation is playing out in workplaces all across America.

What happens next, I cannot say, except it is time to find out who made it into the office today, get Numismatic News laid out and hope subscribers have it handy to read if they have to stay at home for awhile.

Wednesday, October 21, 2009 2:07:17 PM (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)

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Tuesday, October 20, 2009

Market can be more than new Buffalo gold
Posted by Dave

The one-ounce Buffalo gold bullion coin became available to the U.S. Mint’s authorized purchasers Oct. 15. By Oct. 19, they had taken 71,500 of the .9999 fine bullion coins.

The market will be crazy about them because gold bullion itself is moving along in record territory over the $1,000 mark and because 71,500 coins in the present environment will seem scarce and hard to get.

It seems to me that some gold buyers should take the time to try to ferret out 19th century American gold issues in circulated grades that have mintages far lower than the 2009 Buffalo coin and yet trade for not that much more than bullion coins.

Part of the reason for this is the price of gold has gone up so much in recent years that many of the small price differentials that used to distinguish one coin from another have been swept away.

Another part of the reason for this is dealers who handle large volumes of gold coins don’t really have time to sort them. There is little reward when the current high level of interest in bullion coins makes rapid turnover a sure thing for far less bother in time and effort.

Where are these coins? That’s a good question. It will take some effort to find them.

When found, the owners may not want to part with them. Then again, holding them simply ties up working capital that can earn a higher return in the rapid turnover bullion business. Any potential buyer might actually be doing the dealer a favor by freeing up more working capital.

By focusing on the circulated grades, collectors won’t be tripped up by any condition mania.

Another angle to this is in the world gold coin field where collectors can find many issues of the last two or three decades with tiny mintages. These can be located even more readily than low-mintage American coins.

What’s the reward?

The first reward is actually still being a collector in the present environment. If the price of gold bullion continues to rise, that will augment the value of the scarcer 19th century regular issues.

Someday, the market will stabilize and relative rarities will again begin to be made in the marketplace.

Is this the way to great speculative gains? Probably not.

But actively trying to collect amid such frothy speculative market conditions will help keep everything else in perspective.

Tuesday, October 20, 2009 2:18:46 PM (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)

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Monday, October 19, 2009

We will miss you, Jay
Posted by Dave

The road not taken is a question that occurs not only in a Robert Frost poem, but in the minds of everybody from time to time.

What would have happened had a decision gone differently, we all ask?

News of former Mint Director Jay Johnson’s death from a heart attack Saturday at the age of 66 at his suburban Washington home raises that question in my mind for the American Numismatic Association.

After his time as Mint director ended in 2001, Johnson wanted to be executive director of the ANA.

He would have put a warm and friendly face on an organization that has spent more than a decade in leadership turmoil since Bob Leuver left the executive director’s post in 1997.

It was not to be.

Instead over the years since 1997 the ANA board chose a six-week wonder, gone back to retired executive directors, and then most disastrously chose its legal counsel, Christopher Cipoletti, to hold that post and the executive director’s post simultaneously, thereby cutting the board off by its own action from any independent input.

The current legal counsel, Ron Sirna, reported to the current ANA board Oct. 13 that Cipoletti’s tenure cost the ANA $5 million to $8 million.

Johnson was elected to the House of Representatives from the congressional district that includes Iola for one term.

That made him a politician. It also made him suspect in the minds of some hobbyists as a result of that label.

But he just might have been the person who could have interpreted hobby needs to official Washington in a manner that the power brokers there understand. Perhaps then the hobby today would not be asking why the government does not seem to want to do anything about the imports of Chinese counterfeit coins.

To his credit, Johnson stuck with the hobby and did some work in marketing, most recently becoming a public face for buying gold.

What might have happened under an ANA Executive Director Johnson?

I can only wonder.

Note: The U.S. Mint has sold out the 50,000 available the Lincoln Coin and Chronicles sets, but it is still taking orders on standby just in case others are canceled.

Monday, October 19, 2009 2:06:23 PM (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)

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Friday, October 16, 2009

What's the total for Chronicles sets?
Posted by Dave

At 5 p.m. Eastern time Thursday, sales of the Chronicles set had reached 29,919.

Mint accounting is busily adding up today's sales.

Friday, October 16, 2009 5:52:12 PM (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)

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Chronicle sets still available
Posted by Dave

Orders are still being accepted for the United States Mint Lincoln Coin and Chronicles Set.

I got through on the Mint's telephone order line rapidly this morning before I wrote this.

The order taker was very polite when she found out all I wanted to do was see whether the order line was working. She said she understood after they had been “so bombed” with orders yesterday.

How long it will take for this particular set to sell out I can only guess at because I do not know how many sets have been sold so far. There is a seemly low total of just 50,000 available, but there is also an order limit of one per household.

Arguing in favor of a rapid sellout was the obvious backup and problems experienced by collectors trying to place their orders yesterday.

Perhaps arguing in the opposite direction is the small number of contacts I have had from readers about it: just two e-mails and one phone call. I would think I would get more if there was a serious interest in something.

If personal upset and heat of the moment count for anything, the telephone caller yesterday who said he had been a collector for 55 years gets the prize and could be an indication of a rapid sellout.

I placed a few calls at scattered times yesterday afternoon just to see if I could get through. I could not.

The irony in all this for me is that the computer server that I use to write this crashed as I composed this, delaying the posting by a few minutes.

Do computers sympathize with one another?

Friday, October 16, 2009 2:08:50 PM (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)

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Thursday, October 15, 2009

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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