Welcome to Coin Update!
We’re back for another round up of coin collecting news from around the internet! First, upcoming gold and silver coin issues from various world mints. Also, challenge in numismatics, counterfeit detection information, the 1942/1 Mercury Dime, street sweeper coin discovery, BusinessWeek on gold’s evangelist, 100 Greatest U.S. Error Coins, awards for exhibits at the ANA World’s Fair of Money, First Spouse Gold Coins, and notable auctions. On to the links…
Three upcoming world coin issues: the 2011 Australian Gold Kangaroo from the Perth Mint, the Barnyard euro coin series from the Ireland, and a commemorative silver coin for 125 Years of Unification of Bulgaria.
Q. David Bowers talks about Stack’s upcoming Philadelphia Americana sale and describes how to maintain interest in numismatics, there has to be challenge.
Should counterfeit coin detection information be broadly distributed to the public, or should the information be closely held within a group of established numismatists. Here’s a Numismatic News viewpoint, arguing for the latter, as a way of keeping the information out of the hands of counterfeiters.
On that note, here’s NGC’s regular feature on counterfeit detection, which examines known fakes of the 1942/1 Mercury Dime.
Two street sweepers found a 1736 French silver coin while sweeping a parking lot.
BusinessWeek has a cover story on a billionaire gold investor. Quote from the article: “To my amazement, it’s a hard sell. The conventional wisdom is that gold is for primitives. That derision shows me that contrary to the notion we’re in a bubble, we haven’t yet begun the real bull market.”
A brief description and summary of the new book release 100 Greatest U.S. Error Coins. Images and information for each coin are provided, along with descriptions of how the errors occurred. (Here’s the Amazon.com page for the book.)
A listing of the 60 competitive awards presented by the American Numismatic Association for exhibits at the World’s Fair of Money.
Is it time to reconsider the First Spouse Gold Coins series? The upcoming James Buchanan’s Liberty $10 Gold Coin has the potential to be an important issue.
And now for some notable auctions. First, a lot of 10 proof 2005 Marine Corps Silver Dollars with design featuring the iconic Iwo Jima flag raising. The same seller also has a lot of 10 uncirculated coins.
PCGS recently started awarding plus grades for some submission services besides Secure Plus. This 1936 Albany Commemorative Half Dollar PCGS MS66+ is the first plus grade I have seen in a non-Secure holder.
Ever since NGC started awarding plus grades, there have been some coins getting a plus and star. Here’s a 1951-S Roosevelt Dime NGC MS 67 + *.
That it for another update. Have a great weekend!
I most certainly disagree with Mr. Francis’s viewpoint on conserving the knowledge of counterfeits just to that small tight-knit group of dealers and grading companies. This would actually help promote counterfeit opportunities by some of these very wealthy dealers and their business partners within the grading companies. It is 100% certain that many of these dealers have the funding to produce very believable counterfeit coins and will work directly with their business associates within the grading companies to get them graded and slabbed as authentic and then pass them off to the unsuspecting customer who unfortunately may pay $100,000 or more for a counterfeit that is deemed authentic by one of these powerhouse grading companies.
Either way, counterfeits will continue to be a problem. The coin collectors need to have all available facts about every counterfeit known to exist and that source or sources should be updated daily. In no way should any of this very important information be concealed from those who need it most.
-Richard Stinchcomb