Latvian Politics, Latvian Commemoratives!

Latvia has elected a new president. President elect Valdi Zatlers comes from a medical background in surgery and has had little, if any experience as a politician prior to this office. He replaces Varia Vike-Freiberga who held the honor of being Eastern Europes first female president.

In recent years Latvia has issued several large silver commemorative coins with classic historical themes, along side circulating coinage with some simple yet unusual desings such as the 1 Lats KM#66 struck in 2005 with a pretzel on the reverse, or the 1 Lats KM#58 from 2003 with an Ant on the reverse. Coming in January 2008 Latvia will be issuing their first Euro coins.

Given Latvias recent political changes, one would hope that future coins might exhibit a portrait of Vike-Freiberga as a pioneer of women in high office, or perhaps Zatlers as a man of medicine turned to public service. Don't get me wrong, I love a good pretzel as much as anyone, but when significant current events occur, it is always wise to note them for future numismatic honors.

Spanish Ship Wreck?

Looks like the Spanish government has decided not to wait any longer! They have filed suite in a U.S. federal court of their claim on a recent shipwreck recovery by Odyssey Marine Exploration. Silver and gold coins, presumably of Spanish origin, were recently discovered, recovered and shipped back to Odyssey's base in Florida, without full disclosure of the location of the wreck. Up to this point Odyssey has been using the name Black Swan for this find and have yet to place an historical name on the ship.

Odyssey has not yet released any close-up photo's of the coins, but from the few pictures of open storage bins that Odyssey released to the press last week it did seem clear that these recovered coins were of Spanish origin.

Tom's Recommended Film of the Week

For those of you who like odd films with quirky, yet compelling characters I'm recommending Junebug for this weeks film. Junebug is an extremely character driven film, which offers some great humor brought on by interactions between city dwellers and rural family members, who end up together for a sort of impromptu family reunion. A side story of business negotiations with an ecclectic folk artist adds an almost surreal effect to this wonderfully compelling and bizarre story. The best thing about this film is that you actually see character development unfolding in little ways as you watch. Great performances by Celia Weston as Peg, Amy Adams as Ashley and Embeth Davidtz as Madeleine, plus wonderful support from all the rest of the cast. Phil Morrison won the New Directors award at MoMA in 2005 and Amy Adams won a Special Jury Prize for Acting at the 2005 Sundance Film Festival for their work in Junebug. I think screen writter Angus Maclachlan should have been honored as well.

Black Death in Venice

All my talk about Black Death and Medieval coinage in recent Blog postings has stirred up some memories in friend and fellow Blogger, George Cuhaj. This morning George mentioned to me that he had read a book which touched on both those subjects directly; Zecca - The Mint of Venice in the Middle Ages, meticulously researched by Alan M. Stahl, currently Curator of Numismatics, Manuscripts, Rare Books and Special Collections Department at Princeton University, and published by The Johns Hopkins University Press in association with The American Numismatic Society in 2000. Geroge remembered that Stahl's book talked about the effect of Black Death on the workings of the mint in Venice. Some of the mintmasters terms were of very short duration, due to their early demises. Specifically, Stahl mentions that heavy rains in 1345 and 1346 lead to crop failures, grain shortages and famine in 1347, which in turn prompted importation of grain and also brought Black Death to the region by 1348. Records show that nearly half the population died in the summer of 1348. Using records from the Venetian archives Stahl recreates an accurate picture of turnover at the mint during the years following the arrival of Black Death.

But of course this is only one aspect of Stahl's book. From the collectors point of view, this text reads like a novel, while imparting vast amounts of information and giving the reader an excellent view of Medieval mint opperations in a mint which grew from a small operation to a major business during this time. Venice became a center of trade during this period and the mint developed into a controler of bullion exchange and in so doing established methods for profiting from coinage production.

Bechtler Territorial Gold for sale

Also coming up in the Milwaukee ANA auction for Heritage will be the Stephen L. Schechter collection of Bechtler Territorial gold coins. This is a very extensive collection of all Bechtler issues with excellent examples of strikes from both the Carolina, A. Bechtler coins and the Georgia, C. Bechtler types. Not too much of the cataloging work has been completed as of this posting, but as these coins do get cataloged you will be able to view them at the Heritage website for coming sales. 

Auction Lot of the Week

For those of you who favor California Gold issues, you might want to check out the upcoming Heritage Long Beach sale for May 31st to June 1st. This sale contains a great run of 240 lots of California Fractional Gold coins, including some nice high grade examples, as well as some of the most popular types and rarest varieties.

Friday Fix

London pm fixes for 5-18-07

Gold $657.00

Silver $12.87

Platinum $1,308.00

Palladium $362.00