Friday Fix

London pm fixes for 7-6-07

Gold $648.75

Silver $12.40

Platinum $1,287.00

Palladium $363.00

Not Tom's Recommended Film of the Week, but something Fun With Film!

Building the Hobbies Future With NumisMaster

NumisMaster is now a live system . All our new issue entry, descriptive updates, variety listings and of course price changes are going into NumisMaster directly. Our updates are happening live online. I enter a price change and you can see it on NumisMaster, no time delay, no week to synchronize databases, no weeks for information to traverse the mails, no months for book production. It's now a live system and we can work from that point to ensure that new improvements are built into the system to satisfy your needs.

As we embark on phase two we will be looking at better ways for users and editors to maintain good communication. Along these lines, I would encourage all subscribers to use the suggestion system to offer specific new or updated information to the editors. At the moment it is half automated and half manual, so we're all making an extra effort to keep it fluid. In the not too distant future we plan on adding some additional automation to speed the suggestion system up a bit. The two big things to keep in mind are; be Patient and Participate. We want NumisMaster to be a lively knowledge exchange. If you've noticed something that we haven't yet, please let us know. Everyone can be a part of NumisMaster.

On the catalog front we are through the early portions of the 4th edition updates to the Standard Catalog of World Coins 1701-1800. There have been some exciting additions to the German States listings instituted by Doug Nicol, some serious price changes to France brought about by Serge Huard and Wade Hinderling, and lots of major and minor adjustments to many other national listings derived through internet observation and extensive work from our host of expert contributors. We have a few months yet to work on this catalog before it goes out to the printer. Books should be available in the market by early October, barring any problems.

As we work through the 18th Century catalog, we are also beginning our update and expansion of Unusual World Coins. This will be UWC's 5th edition and Colin Bruce, George Cuhaj and I are all adding in new listings, new images and price updates. At the moment we each have other chores taking the lions share of our time, but by the end of July I would hope to be into UWC full tilt.

June brought us a few new catalogs. The 35th edition of The Standard Catalog of World Coins 1901-2000 was released several weeks ago, while the 2nd edition of the SCWC 2001-Date just hit my desk June 29th. This 2nd edition grew the title by about 70 pages and included some dazzling work regarding mintages, new issues and pricing from contributors Melvin Kassenoff and Dr. Kerry A Rodgers. Finally we saw the release of an especially timely and useful new title: The Standard Catalog of Modern World Gold Coins 1801-Present. This new edition houses all gold, platinum and palladium coins for the time period and has brought all prices for these coins up to current market levels for the burgeoning precious metals escalation. Heavily illustrated, with 772 pages of listings, this book is a great addition to the line and one, which should help many collectors as well as novices to successfully navigate, profit from and enjoy the current gold coin market.   

Tom's Recommended Film of the Week

The Last King of Scotland

In the 1970's we all watched Idi Amin's rule of Uganda with an almost morbid fascination. Some 300,000 Ugandan citizens were killed while Amin solidified power and gave way to his paranoia. With only 20 years of perspective behind us, Giles Foden tackled the job of writing a fictional novel based on the idea of a naive Scottish Doctor traveling to a mission in Uganda and eventually being sucked into the Amin regime as medical adviser to the dictator. A grand concept and one, which allowed both Foden as novelist and Kevin MacDonald as the films director to draw us into the intrigue, glory and horror, as implicated partners of the young Dr. Garrigan. We can relate to James McAvoy in his role as Dr. Nicholas Garrigan, we naturally gravitate to his perspective and as a result, find ourselves wanting to help and direct him out of his somewhat self imposed predicaments. On the other hand we can clearly see the reflection of his arrogance in years of colonial rule in Africa on the whole. This all makes for a very thought provoking film, while the central character of Amin, played by a dazzling Forest Whitaker, who won an Best Actor Academy Award for this role, creates a very compelling, freight train of a movie.

The Last King of Scotland is an excellent example of the types of films I like the most, ones that both entertain and allow for some introspection and discussion. Be cautioned however, that there are a few graphically violent and disturbing images, as one would expect from a story about Idi Amin, one of the 20th Centuries most eloquently ruthless mass murderers.

Decline of the Silver Surfer...quarter

Back on June 1st, I posted a story about the Silver Surfer applique quarters produced by the Frankiln Mint and released by Twentieth Century Fox to promote their new Marvel Entertainment film venture Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer. At that time examples were selling on eBay in a range from $90 to $150 in the midst of high anticipation of the film from anxious comic and film fans. Coin and token types may have been involved in the early fray as well, although the reported mintage of 40,000 may have kept them at bay, waiting for possible lower prices after the films release on June 15th.

Here we are on June 22nd, a week into the films theatrical run and I thought we'd take a minute to check in on the strength of the market. Looking over the past week on eBay it seems that most Silver Surfer quarters that sold went within a range of $45 to $75 a piece. Many multiple item lots are now being offered with four to five coin groups bringing $200 to $250 or so. Lots opening above $50 seem to go unsold for the most part.

So it has developed into a much softer market, with what seems like less demand and a continuing supply. We'll check things again after the movie has finished it's primary theater run and then see where the market settles in after Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer has closed.

For more stories on the controversy over the Silver Surfer quarters, check out Ray Sidman's reporting, or to get an informed insider comic professionals take on the film itself, stop in at Tony Isabella's forum, both at CBGxtra.com.