By Jon Mark Beilue at Amarillo.com

The Case of the Missing 300 Silver Dollars, or What In The World Is Something Like That Doing In A Place Like This, likely will never be solved. That they were actually uncovered is astonishing enough, but to find out why 300 Morgan silver dollars from 1887 in mint condition were under a foot of hardened soil on former Amarillo Mayor Jerry Hodge’s property, well, let your imagination be your guide.

Our story begins June 11. Plumbers were digging a trench to run utilities for a pool house and swimming pool on property Hodge had purchased adjacent to his home on Oldham Circle in Amarillo. Randy McMinn had a backhoe about a foot deep when on one particular scoop, mixed in with the dirt, was found a bunch of dingy little objects.

Whoa, time out. Work came to a halt, and closer inspection revealed them to be coins – old coins from 1887. Careful digging found a lot more in some kind of fine plastic, what Margaret, Hodge’s wife, described as sort of an old version of Saran Wrap. Lest anyone think plastic is a recent invention, plastic was used as early as World War I.

The coins had Lady Liberty on one side and the American eagle on the other. A little bit of homework found them to be Morgan silver dollars, which were minted from 1878 to 1904. A count of the coins totaled 100 … 150 … 200 … 250 … 300 of them.

Avast, matey, buried treasure!

Read Full Story Here

By Miki Perkins for THE AGE

THE crowd of medal collectors breathed a collective sigh and craned in their seats as Australia’s first piece of colonial art sold for $750,000 at auction to a beaming mystery buyer seated in the third row.

Minutes later, it was revealed that the National Maritime Museum had bought the Charlotte Medal — a silver disc engraved by the convict and expert forger Thomas Barrett when the First Fleet arrived at Botany Bay. Even the most hardened medal collectors paused in their bidding to clap.

Very little material survives from the ships of the First Fleet, so the Sydney museum sent its assistant director of collection and exhibitions, Michael Crayford, to Melbourne to secure a seminal piece of Australian history.

“It is also one of the best artworks for that period (so) we’re absolutely thrilled to have it and it will be on display to the public within weeks,” Mr Crayford said.

The silver disc was sold by John Chapman, a retired dentist, who bought it at auction in 1981 for $15,000.

The rest of his extensive collection of Australian medals, coins and banknotes, valued at $1.6 million before auction, also went under the hammer at the Noble Numismatics auction yesterday. (more…)

By Ishita Singh for the Baltimore Sun

When the American Numismatic Association’s World’s Fair of Money last came to Baltimore in 2003, it made history: It displayed a 1913 Liberty Head nickel, now valued at $3 million, last seen almost five decades ago.

That nickel returns to Baltimore as a part of this year’s event. The association’s five-day convention at the Baltimore Convention Center features educational seminars, exhibits of historical coins and a treasure hunt and trivia game for children, among many other activities.

“It’s basically a giant meeting for people who have a common interest in the study or collection of money, and an opportunity for people to view and buy rare coins,” said Larry Shepherd, executive director of the roughly 33,000-member association.

Shepherd said the rarest of those coins will be the 1913 nickel. The coin disappeared after its owner, George O. Walton, was killed in a 1962 car crash. An appraiser had erroneously told the coin’s heirs that it was a fake, so they kept it in their Virginia closet for decades. It resurfaced in 2003 when the association held a nationwide search for the missing nickel, one of only five such coins known to collectors.

“At that time, we had a reunion tour of all of the 1913 nickels, and we were attempting to put them all together for our Baltimore show, and we were hoping that the fifth coin would turn up. And it actually did,” Shepherd said.

Other highlights of this year’s show are a $1 billion display from the U.S. Treasury Department, which features $100,000 bills and other high denominations. The Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History will also display its traveling exhibit, Historic Rarities: Early United States Proof Coins. (more…)