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 Saturday, October 25, 2008
Lithuania - Where Coins Are Still King
Posted by tom
  Lithuanian Coins Always On The Rise
 Tight markets with limited supply and broad collector demand always make for good appreciation. One of the best modern examples comes from Lithuania, where the art of matching mintages to collector base has become quite highly refined.
The Bank of Lithuania limits their commemorative new issue program to a reasonable number of types each year and keeps their mintages close enough to satisfy their countries active collectors, while allowing for a healthy upward swing in the secondary market. If you collect Lithuanian coins, you probably know exactly what I mean, once the Bank sells out, you will have to work hard and pay dearly to get an example on the seconary market.
 This 2005 silver proof 50 Litu, KM#144, is a perfect example. I don't recall the exact issue price, but would guess it to have been around $50. The catalog value rose up to $75, but that may have been conservative guess work too, as the very limited mintage of 1,500 would have meant that this type would not generally have been available at all after the Bank of Lithuania had finished primary sales.
Just this month however, I noted one selling on eBay and watched as bidders drove it up to a closing price of $325. That's what you get with a ravenous collector base, intelligent coin program decisions, attractive designs and carefully thought out mintage limits.
Other examples of recent rising prices in Lithuania include:
1998 10 Litu, copper-nickel proof, KM#115, former $30 = now $70
1999 10 Litu, copper-nickel proof, KM#116, former $20 = now $75
1995 50 Litu silver proof, KM#98, former $150 = now $200
1997 50 Litu silver proof, KM#105, former $150 = now $350
1999 50 Litu silver proof, KM#119, former $55 = now $200
Focus Country | Price Change of the Week
10/25/2008 5:41:59 PM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00) 
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Thursday, June 19, 2008
Price updating for Danish India - Tranquebar
Posted by tom
 Prices Going Up For Tranquebar
This week I have been working on upgrading the values in our India-Danish Tranquebar or Trankebar section, with the expert advice of numismatist Olav Sejeroe. Values on these scarce, crude,  primarily lead and copper issues have gone up, up, up in the years since we published the 3rd edition of the Standard Catalog of Wolrd Coins 1601-1700. In the interim Olav's website has has proved to be an excellent resource for collectors, allowing everyone to keep up with his ongoing research advancements.
For some of the types we formerly listed only as Rare, Olav has now been able to determine values. Some duplicated listings have been cleaned up and removed. Better descriptions have been added where needed and some varieties which are no longer of significance financially have been deleted.
Olav's work should make these fascinating coins a bit easier to understand for the average collector. Check out this revision now at NumisMaster and keep an eye out for the new 4th edition SCWC 1601-1700 coming this fall from KPbooks.
Price Change of the Week
6/19/2008 11:46:35 AM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)
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Thursday, May 29, 2008
Ever Considered Owls?
Posted by tom
Owls on Coins Remain Popular
If you are involved in animal coin collecting, then you know that Owls have always been one of the more popular design choices. From ancient to modern issue Owls have always been used in attractive coin designs to represent strength and wisedom. Even more common circulating coins which bear Owl designs ususally go up in value over time. There is always demand for Owl coins.
 The Finland Owl coin which celebrat es the 350th Anniversary of the University of Helsinki went up in value this year from $60 to $90 in BU on NumisMaster. It's a lovely traditional design by Raimo Heino with an Owl on the obverse and a Harp on the reverse. Struck in silver, denominated at 100 Markkaa and cataloged as KM#68, this coin has always had a strong following.
 A few years ago, South Africa struck a pair of Owl coins with a less-traditional perspective. Cataloged as KM#283 and KM#284 in the Standard Catalog of World Coins 2001-Date, these Owls offer a unique sense of the Owls life in the wild. The 2 Rand is struck in proof with one ounce of silver.This type shows a close-up of the Verreaux's Eagle Owl's face. Released in 2004 with a mintage of 3,000 this coin has moved up in value from $45 to $60 over the last year.
It's counterpart is a small silver coin, also struck in 2004 to proof standards. Denominated at 2 1/2 cents, but not used for circulation, this type sports a Pearl Spotted Owlet on a tree branch. Currently it is holding it's value at $25, though it's mintage of 2,000 is too small to maintain at that level indefinitely.
Al Beck of the Coin Lode, a specialist in animal coins, tells me that the 2 1/2 cent Pearl Spotted Owlet coin has come to him in two different types of packaging. Some were held in a knotted leather pouch, while others were contained in a sonic sealed capsule. Either way, it has been a popluar type for which Beck has seen continued demand.
Price Change of the Week
5/29/2008 10:25:47 AM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)
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Wednesday, May 21, 2008
Chinese Provincial Coinage on the Rise
Posted by tom
Chinese Provincial Hunan Dollar
As I mentioned in earlier postings, Chinese Provincial coinage has been on the rise for at least a year now.  Interest increased first for the milled silver coinage and has since spread to the copper cast cash coins.
With the help of some of our dedicated contributing experts, I have been updating prices in the 19th and 20th Century listings for various Chinese Provices on NumisMaster and for the Standard Catalog series. Today, I thought I would mention one specific price increase instituted in the province of Hunan. The coin is the largest 20th Century denomination for Hunan, One Dollar, struck in silver and cataloged as Y#404. Values for this type have risen by about 50% driving uncirculated examples from $1850 up to $2800.
For the most current coin data, coin values, color images of coins and new issue listing, check out NumisMaster on the Internet. It's the best place to keep up with what's going on in the world of coins.
Price Change of the Week
5/21/2008 11:09:16 AM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)
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Friday, August 10, 2007
Price Updates to Rare Czechoslovakian Dates
Posted by tom
Rare late Date Czechoslovakian Gold Brings High Prices
I arrived at the ANA convention yesterday afternoon with the help of fellow KP workers David Kranz and Katy Gertz, to find a completely new and exciting booth set up for our products and web services. Specially for this major show our staff had set up a wondeful open booth which allowed collectors and dealers to float right in and engage us in conversation, with no table barriers at all. This new set-up coupled with the ready availability of lap-top computers to access NumisMaster for demonstrations lead to some great exchanges of vital information on new issues and coin values.
The great aspect of all this was that I was able examine coins, verify information and immediately enter the new data into NumisMaster, live to all our subscribers, on the spot. What a wonderful world!
Specifically I had an unuexpected visitor from Czechoslovakia, who assisted us in updating values for some of the extremely rare and desirebale late dates in the Czechoslovakian gold Dukat Trade Coinage series. Using notes on auction records and information on private offerings we updated values, sometimes in multiples of two or three times, for the 1936-39 dates and also the tough 1951 dates in the Dukat series. All of this was entered directly into NumisMaster and became available to all subscribers immediately after I verified and entered the data. We were also able to enter a new listing for an interesting coin, struck but never released for circulation, which I was lucky enough to be able to examine at the show.
Price Change of the Week
8/10/2007 10:51:27 AM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)
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Tuesday, April 24, 2007
Snippets of fun stuff
Posted by tom
Auction Lot of the Week
I’m always looking at auction lots, both on line and in catalogs, so each week I’ll share with you one of the more unusual ones I’ve come across.  Tom’s Inescapable TruthsWe’ll attempt to inject a little humor into this Blog with some funny little quips on family and office life. Price Change of the WeekValues are continually being changed in our database. Each week I’ll cue you in to a single price change of prominent significance.  Tom’s Recommended Film of the Week I watch a lot of movies, so each week, just for fun, you’ll get to find out which one I thought was the best.  Focus Country
Here I will try to give you a little news you can use. This segment will feature a country, which is on the move price wise, or has some significant news worthy event happening that day or week.  Friday FixEach Friday I’ll post the precious metals closes, London fix.  Commemorative Showdown!With commemortive coinage exploding all over the market, I thought it would be interesting to create ratios of population compared to number of commemorative coin types by country. Over time we'll be able to rank counties by their ratios to see which ones produce the most commeorative coins per capita. Population data will be derived from the CIA website, while commemorative type totals will be compiled from the Standard Catalog of World Coins database for issues from 1901 to present.  Old to New – Book ReviewA guide to building a working numismatic library, based on brief reviews of older references and classic auction catalogs, along with reviews of new works and recent auction sales of significance.  KP UpdateFor those who like to be in the know, I'll give you the inside track on what Standard catalogs and other new coin books are on the horizon from Krause Publications, plus Numismaster updates and news of other web offerings.
Auction Lot of the Week | Commemorative Showdown! | Focus Country | Friday Fix | KP Update | Old to New - Book Review | Price Change of the Week | Tom's Inescapable Truths | Tom's Recommended Film of the Week
4/24/2007 5:49:59 PM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)
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