Tom's Recommended Film of the Week

The Proposition

Australia in the 19th Century was as least as wild as the American West from what I understand of the history. There were aborigines, outlaws and lawmen, though I think in many ways their outlaws were more brazen and bloodthirsty and their lawmen more civilized than what we had in our western territories. At least that's how it seems in The Proposition.

The interesting thing about The Proposition is our perception of the characters as good or evil and how this changes as the film progresses. A simple premise takes on added meaning over time and with added character interaction. Intentions and true natures are revealed through situations and our stance shifts, as does that of the characters. The plot draws substantially from Jaws, in that a lawman is undermined in his responsibility to serve and protect the community from a savage force by bureaucratic callousness, petty townspeople's demands and sloppy performance of subordinates, forcing him to step outside the normal boundaries of law enforcement to resolve the problem. There are also similarities to A History of Violence in that a man is compelled to destroy his brother in order to escape his past.

All these classic themes are there in The Proposition, plus solid performances by Ray Winstone, Danny Huston and Guy Pierce and good camera work of stark scenery. You might even discover something new about the use of camels in western Australia. But I will caution potential viewers that this is a very violent and grim film, similar in nature to the spaghetti westerns and the Peckinpah films of the 70's. If that doesn't deter you, I think you will find value in The Proposition.

Patterns at Heritage Long Beach Sale

Session Five of the upcoming HeritageLong Beach Auction contains a nice run of United States patterns. There are some of the classic pieces such as the popular Judd-1655 Coiled Hair Goloid Metric Dollar in copper and a Judd 346 Seated Liberty muling also in copper. These types always generate high interest, but this grouping also has a few more obscure pieces well worth the look.

An outstandingly sharp strike of the Liberty Head nickel design for a proposed alloy change to 50% nickel and 50% copper, Judd-1710, is offered as lot 3033. This pattern piece grades proof-67 and is a real dazzler. There are several International Nickel Company Inc. strikes from 1964 when the U.S. Mint farmed out some of the composition testing for new nickel based coinage brought on from higher silver bullion prices. Many of these pieces were designed by Gilroy Roberts and had hubs produced by the Medallic Art Company. Some were struck by General Numismatics, which evolved into The Franklin Mint. All display Dr. Paul D. Merica of INCO on the obverse and the INCO laboratory on the reverse. This sale contains one of the Dimes from this series and three of the quarters including one of the scarce type three patterns with the revised design pictured here.

Finally this sale contains an undated DuPontBenjamin Franklinquarter pattern produced in 1964 under the same U.S. Mint program as the INCO pieces. In their search for a replacement for silver, DuPont experimented with a patented method called Detaclad. Detaclad was a process of explosion bonded laminating designed to adhere 75% copper onto 25% nickel. Judging by the results on this piece, it must have worked pretty well. DuPont eventually supplied 70 million pounds of Detaclad coin blank stock to the U.S. Mints in Philadelphia and Denver during the 1960's. This was a great start for the new Detaclad division which DuPont built up to an 11 million a year buisness before selling it to Dynamic Materials Corporation in mid 1996.

Diana Lingers On

Last week my Blogging Pal and numismatic neighbor, George Cuhaj, wrote a nice posting on the anniversary of Princess Diana's death. George noted that Princess Di has been immortalized on coins, stamps and at least one fantasy banknote. Check out George's Blog posting for illustrations, more links and his experienced take on sculpture. When he was writing this posting, George asked my opinion on what coins to illustrate and I suggested my favorite off the wall Diana coin, which is a 10 Dollar silver piece from Liberia, KM#350, showing Diana wearing protective gear and observing a minefield. There is a similar coin type listed for Mongolia, KM#202, a 500 Tugrik, though I have never seen that piece.

One area that George did not cover in his Blog posting was Diana medals. So when the Coincraft special flyer from Richard Lobel arrived a few days ago serendipity lent a hand.

Coincraft is offering an unusually large gold Memorial Medal of Princess Diana. The obverse sports a nice depiction of Diana facing right with birth and death dates of 1961-1997 below. The obverse legend reads: IN MEMORY OF DIANA PRINCESS OF WALES. The reverse identifies the medal as Princess Diana's Pattern Gold Fifty Pounds and notes it as a Milestones of the Millennium piece. The weights and measures are included at the bottom of the reverse. At five ounces of .999 fine gold this piece carries about $3400 in melt value alone. Coincraft is offering the medal at 1,870 pounds or about $3780, just about $400 over melt.

Of course this isn't the only Di medal available for collectors. If you are looking for something less weighty, try eBay or look at the other Diana Medals offered through Coincraft's website.