Royal Canadian Mint Gold is Missing

Nearly 17,500 ounces of gold, worth approximately $16.4 million dollars seems to be missing from the Royal Canadian Mint. What was initially thought to be an accounting/inventory paperwork error of some kind has now moved one step closer to a possible criminal investigation.

Ministers of the Canadian government have called for immediate action after an independent third-party review indicated the all accounting was in order. Technical reviews of the internal procedures at the mint may follow. Royal Canadian Mounted Police have been called in and the Mint will have to set up an independent review of it's current security proceedures.

But the question still remains - "Where's the missing gold?"

For more information check out this Mining Weekly article by Liezel Hill.

Tuesday, June 30, 2009 4:31:10 PM (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)    Comments [0]

SCWC 1901-2000 and 2001-Date Now on Sale

Great news! Both the 1901-2000 and 2001-Date Standard Catalogs of World Coins are back from the printer. You should be able to find both these new editions at Barnes & Noble bookstores, on Amazon, at most local coin dealers and at most coin shows. These are the last editions in which KP plans on including the free DVD bound into the printed catalog, so get them while you can. If you prefer buying just a stand alone digital version of these two books, we have them available at this time also and for a bit less money.

In addition, you might consider buying your copies of these standard references from our new online website - www.shopnumismaster.com  With new titles ShopNumisMaster.com has been offering a substantial discount and you can also shop through our backlist of other coin and paper money titles, as well as our CD's and DVD's and digital downloads of various sections of the Standard Catalog series.

Friday, June 26, 2009 9:20:10 PM (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)    Comments [0]

Ship Coins and Medals to Sarawak at Spink - William Brooke Christensen at Auction

Author and long time contributor to the Standard Catalog of World Coins, Yossi Dotan, has long held an interest in the subject of Ships on coins. Over the years Dotan has compiled data and complete extensive research on the subject of coins depicting watercraft.

Recently Dotan began the process of publishing a series of three volumes covering this thematic collecting area with the release of Watercraft on World Coins Volume I: Europe, 1800-2005. The next two books scheduled for Dotan's trilogy will be Volume II: America and Asia, 1800-2008 followed later by Volume III: Africa and Oceania, 1800-2011.

For those interested in ships on coins, Dotan's books should prove both enjoyable and essential for reading and reference.

Another worthwhile addition to a thematic Watercraft or Ship coin token and medal collection library will be the recent Spink auction catalog containing the Nautical Theme coin and token collection of William Brooke Christensen. The Spink London 199 auction closed yesterday selling about 40 lots of Bill's ship coins and tokens, some of them pretty hard to find types. Bill was a very interesting guy. I had the pleasure of meeting him years ago when he was still running the auction firm founded by his father, Henry Christensen, which specialized in Latin American coins.

Bill's collecting interests differed from his fathers, as he fancied himself tied to the Brooke family of White Rajahs ruling in Sarawak from the 1840's to the 1940's. Next week Spink will offer Christensen's banknote and coin collections of Sarawak which are the most complete I have ever seen at auction. These collections will be sold on July 4th in Singapore. It's a fine tribute to a classic numismatist!

Friday, June 26, 2009 4:47:03 PM (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)    Comments [0]

Friday Fix

London pm fixes for 6-26-09

Gold $942.00

Silver $14.26

Platinum $1203.00

Palladium $245.00

Friday, June 26, 2009 3:05:12 PM (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)    Comments [0]

Swedish Possesion Collection - Kunker Auction 156

200 lots of Swedish Possession gold, silver and copper coins and medals are contained in the Fritz Rudolf Kunker Auktion 156 set for sale on June 25th in Osnabruck. This is one of four auction offerings this week from Kunker, all containing stellar collections of scarce and rare material, including German and Swiss coins, a great selection of world gold and German Colonial coinage, plus over 1000 lots of Russian coins and medals. Pictured above is an exceptional rarity being offered in Auktion 156, a 1664 Reichstaler of Reval issued under Karl XI. Not listed in Davenport, this piece is belived to be unique.

There may still be time to bid by phone or over the internet, but if not, I would suggest visiting the Kunker website and making plans to search their sales for future offerings.

The Swedish Possession collection, along with the catalogs for the German Colonial and World Gold, will all remain on my shelf for reference for a while, being good source material for research.

If your budget is lighter than auction quality material but you are interested in collecting coins of the Swedish Possessions, consider visiting the Rusty Pennies website for a selection of more common and moderately prices items.

Thursday, June 25, 2009 4:32:13 PM (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)    Comments [0]

Friday Fix

London pm fixes for 6-19-09

Gold $935.25

Silver $14.23

Platinum $1212.00

Palladium $243.00

Friday, June 19, 2009 3:38:14 PM (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)    Comments [0]

Tom's Recommended Film of the Week

Colditz

Remember - the premise of Tom's Recommended Film of the Week is this: of all the films I've watched in the past week, this one (or sometimes two or three) is the one I liked the best. I do admit that I try to steer clear of films that might offend some of my readership and I tend to try to choose films with an international flavor which might appeal to more of my world coin readers.

This week, I watched about four films, including a British two part mini-series centered on the German prisoner of war camp at Colditz castle. Colditz was a compelling story for me, not a great history of the camp, but a good WWII story of intrigue and romance.

Checking the IMDB website reviews backs up this viewpoint revealing that most WWII aficionados find Colditz to be a bit of a let-down, while their wives and people of other demographics tend to enjoy the story. In other words, watch Colditz for a good British drama of life inside the prison and back on the home-front. Don't watch Colditz for a true story of life at the prison camp during WWII.

For those of you who have enjoyed the great series Band of Brothers and Life, Colditz provides one more interesting feature, you get to see Damian Lewis in a completely different character role.

Friday, June 19, 2009 3:03:20 PM (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)    Comments [0]

Tom Cederlind Sale 151 Closes at 5PM Today

Tom Cederlind's buy or bid sale No. 151, offering 274 lots of ancient and medieval coins is set to close in afew hours at 5pm west coast time tonight. The sale features a great array of Roman and Greek coins along with Byzantine, Dark Ages, English hammered, Scottish and Medieval coins.

Among the many interesting highlights of this sale rests an aEF silver Denier of Lothaire I, grandson of Charlemagne. Lothaire's struggle with his brothers for territory ended in the establishment of what evolved into the modern nations of France and Germany. Lothaire was the looser in this conflict, but the territory he was left with became something those two larger nations have fought over for years, Alsace-Lorraine.

Check out this sale and bid today at Tom's website: www.tomcederlind.com 

Thursday, June 18, 2009 10:06:07 PM (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)    Comments [0]

Treasure Coins - Some Thoughts on Ownership

The case of the Odyssey Marine Exploration crew vs the Spanish government over legal possesion of coins and artifacts from the sunken treasure ship Nuestra Senora de las Mercedes has received it's first written judicial recommendations recently and the word is the coins should be returned to Spain. Considered in the ruling was an acceptence of the notition that Spain never expressly surrendered ownership, which got me to thinking.

If I were to leave something laying around in harsh conditions, left to the elements with no regard for the items security - have I not, in essense, relinquished ownership through abandonment? This is how I see a sunken ship. If the owner of the ship, or owners of cargo which was aboard that ship have made no efforts to find or reclaim their property in over 200 years, I should think they have expressed an abandonment or dereliction of their former property.

Once a company has made an investment in time and effort to reclaim this abandoned property, they have expressed an interest in ownership through their actions. I don't consider this to be theft and I don't think a former owner can step up once the items have reached the surface and say "Give me my stuff!" without even paying for the extensive cost incurred in raising the material.

All theory aside, the reality is that treasure hunting has come to a fork in the road. If a treasure hunter cannot obtain rights to property before the exploration begins, then they will not be financially able to explore profitably. These government claims may end in a result that no one wants, an end to treasure hunting and reclamation of coin hoards and sunken treasure. Firms like Odyssey Marine Exploration, if denied their finds, will soon cease to exist or change their business plan to being exploration for hire, with payment in advance.

It's an interesting dilema and one which various courts will be considering for a long time to come. In the meantime, Check out the article on the cover of this months World Coin News and express your opinion on the subject with a comment to this posting or by voting in our NumisMaster poll.

Thursday, June 18, 2009 5:08:26 PM (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)    Comments [0]

Friday Fix

London pm fixes for 6-12-09

Gold $937.25

Silver $15.07

Platinum $1241.00

Palladium $252.50

Friday, June 12, 2009 3:13:59 PM (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)    Comments [0]