Your Rupee: Paper or Plastic
India Real Time
When it comes to shopping, “paper” is always the greener answer. But now India’s central bank is going plastic – and that may not be all bad. In the world of currency, plastic notes are promoted as the cleaner, more durable and harder to fake alternative to paper. They might even be greener. The Reserve Bank of India plans to issue one billion pieces of polymer-based banknotes of 10-rupee denomination in five cities as part of a field trial. Right now India only uses paper money, 95% of which is printed on imported paper. That leaves the country at the mercy of what the RBI has called “a strong oligarchy” in the banknote paper market, as well as escalating currency paper costs.
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The Best Education in Numismatics
American Numismatic Association
For many, Summer Seminar is a life-changing event. It has catapulted the careers of many of the nation’s most successful numismatic collectors, authors and dealers, and guided young numismatists to become hobby leaders. Now celebrating its 42nd year, Summer Seminar, as always, will feature a lineup of classes to suit virtually every collector’s hobby needs. Whether your interest is ancients, paper money, Morgan dollars, Lincoln cents, shipwreck coins, commemoratives, or medals and tokens, there’s a class or mini-seminar for you. Students can learn to grade coins and detect counterfeits and, most important, hobnob with the hobby’s most distinguished scholars, rising young stars and successful business leaders.
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NGC Instructors at the ANA Summer Seminar
Numismatic Guaranty Corporation
Numismatists from NGC will be present in full force at this year’s ANA Summer Seminar. Now celebrating its 42nd year, Summer Seminar features a lineup of classes to suit virtually every collector’s hobby needs. Whether your interest is ancients, paper money, Colonial Americana, Lincoln cents, shipwreck coins, commemoratives, or medals and tokens, there’s a class or mini-seminar for you. Want to start or grow a business, or learn something about security? There’s a class for you. Students can learn to grade coins and detect counterfeits and, most important, hobnob with the hobby’s most distinguished scholars and successful business leaders.
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Recession Depression: Counterfeit $1 Bills
Huffington Post
Police in Alaska say lawbreakers must be really getting desperate because someone left 13 fake $1 bills in a bar’s tip jar – an unusually small denomination for the crime. Viking Lounge owner Jack Tripp says that in the 19 years he has owned the establishment, it has received counterfeit money only twice. Both times were in the last year, and both were fake $20 bills.
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Half Dollars Rarely in my Thoughts
Dave Harper’s Buzz
I don’t find myself thinking about half dollars very often. They are almost never seen in circulation. If I happen to get one it is because someone at the Crystal Cafe was short of funds and happened to spend one for coffee. My habit if I get a half dollar in change is to immediately turn it around by leaving it as part of the tip. I really don’t want to take it home. There are so few uses for half dollars. They are not spendable in the average vending machine, so I cannot buy a morning coffee here in the break room with it. The Mint, though, still sells rolls and bags of the coins and even though totals are small, there are some collectors who continue to buy them.
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Coin Operated Parking Meters on the Way Out?
The Statesman
Last year, Austin’s Transportation Department replaced 3,800 coin-only parking meters with pay stations that accept coins and credit and debit cards. The stations serve multiple parking spaces on longer blocks. Now the department plans to replace about 550 single-space meters on shorter blocks. Today, the City Council will consider approving a $512,650 contract with IPS Group Inc., with options to extend the contract, to install and provide warranties for single-space meters that will accept coins, credit and debit cards. Solar arrays will charge the batteries in the meters.
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America’s Coinage Abroad
Numismatic Guaranty Corporation
Books and articles have been written about the various World coins that formerly circulated as legal tender in the United States, but very little has appeared regarding the circulation of USA coins in other countries. Unlike the former practice, which effectively ended with the demonetization of foreign coins in 1857, the circulation of our own coinage overseas is ongoing. While this commerce pales in comparison to the value of paper dollars being held and used in other countries, it is still worthy of study by numismatists. In the first decades of the US Mint’s operations, many of our silver and gold coins were exported to Europe, due largely to Congress’s failure to respond quickly to fluctuating bullion values. These coins did not actually circulate in the conventional sense; in fact, most were almost immediately melted and recoined into native issues.
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What In the World Is Notaphily?
Banknote News
Notaphily is the formal term used to describe banknote collectors. While people have most likely been collecting banknotes since they were first used to pay for goods and services, it wasn’t really considered a separate area of collections until late in the 20th century. Even the systematic collection of banknotes didn’t really begin in earnest until about the 1940s. One factor in determining the value of a collectors banknote is the quality of the actual paper. Collectors can expect different grades to reflect this quality. These different grades will be compiled into a grading scale. While grading scales can change from one country to the next, expect to find uniformity in the grading scale within a particular country. For example, if you’re trading in the United States, you’ll probably find uniformity in its grading scale. However, you would not expect the grading scale in America to be necessarily the same as that of a European country.
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I’ll Never Sell My Cent Set
Numismaster
Our numismatist looked at his friend in disbelief. “You’re going to sell your Indian cent collection,” he said. “I thought that collection was your pride and joy.” His friend looked shocked. He hadn’t expected our numismatist to take the news so badly. “Putting the collection together was a lot of fun. I made a lot of friends along the way as I picked up individual coins. I actually finished the collection about 10 years ago, which is a long time in my book. “It’s time to move on to something else.
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A $5 Gold Type Set
Numismatic News
If rising coin production signals good news for the economy as I have If you were doing your regular shopping during the days of the gold standard, you were living at a time before credit cards and during a time when paper money was not always trusted. So, if you encountered one gold coin in your routine, it would have probably been a half eagle, or $5 gold piece. Today the $5 gets short shrift as everybody tends to focus on the larger gold coins. The one-ounce gold bullion coins make the headlines and the Saint-Gaudens gold $20 gets all the applause for artistic merit. Perhaps that is typical of life as the hard working sometimes get very little attention. While gold double eagles and eagles many times sat in vaults, it was the half eagle that was out in circulation.
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The Future of Cash in Finland
Mint of Finland
The future of the coin in a world colonized by plastic cards will be considered by Holger Ziegler. Although there is much electronic movement of money, Ziegler nevertheless sees coins and cash as part of our everyday life in the future as well. Holger Ziegler is the Manager of the German smart card manufacturer Giesecke & Devrient. The Mint of Finland is one of Europe’s largest manufacturers of circulation and collector coins. It is the largest Nordic producer of decorations and medals. Its customer base is global and it exports to nearly 40 countries.
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UK Royal Mint Issues 2012 Olympic Countdown Coins
The Royal Mint
On 27 July 2012, London will proudly unveil the Games of the 30th Olympiad to the world – the first time the city has hosted the Olympic Games for over 60 years. To commemorate this momentous event, the Royal Mint has commissioned an exclusive and highly collectable series of four superb £5 coins, to be released in limited numbers. The four reverses have all been designed by Claire Aldridge and she has ensured that the companion coins will complement one another beautifully each featuring a border symbolising a bird’s eye view of the new stadium, a countdown ‘clock’ and the London 2012 logo which, on the gold coins, is highlighted in colour.
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How to Avoid Silver Eagle Fraud and Other Fake Silver Coins
About.com:Coins
Avoiding coin fraud boils down to one basic point: knowledge. If you want to avoid buying fake silver coins and becoming a victim of coin fraud, you first need to learn what the genuine coin looks like. Then it’s just a matter of making some comparisons, and employing a little bit of common sense. To give an example, we’ll use a fake silver coin type that is being produced in large numbers in China: the fake American Silver Eagle Bullion coin.
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U.S. Mint 2010 Presidential $1 Coin Uncirculated Set Available April 13
U.S. Mint
This set is presented in a folder with biographical sketches, notable quotes and portraits of each President. Each coin is mounted in an individual protective, rotatable blister; edge-incused inscriptions on the coins are fully visible. An image of the President appears on each obverse of the coins and the common reverse features a striking rendition of the Statue of Liberty. These coins also feature edge-incused inscriptions of the year, E PLURIBUS UNUM, and the mint mark. The size, weight and metal composition of the Presidential $1 Coins are identical to that of the Native American $1 Coin.
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Secret Service Fight Against Counterfeit Money Exhibit Opens April 9
American Numismatic Society
The Fight of the United States Secret Service against Counterfeit Money opens on Friday, April 9, 2010 at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. Counterfeiting money is one of the most common financial crimes in the history of mankind. Often punished severely, it nevertheless continues to the present day. Organized by the American Numismatic Society, the Federal Reserve Bank and the United States Secret Service, the exhibition gives a unique insight in the workings of the Secret Service in their fight against counterfeiters. Better known today for its protection of the US President, the Secret Service was originally set up in 1865 to combat and prevent counterfeiting. The material in the exhibition, most of which has never been displayed before, illustrates the work of one of the more mysterious government agencies, which has rarely made its operations as public as in this exhibition.
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Do More Coins Mean Better Times?
Dave Harper’s Buzz
If rising coin production signals good news for the economy as I have observed over the years, then the March production numbers of the U.S. Mint confirm that conditions are on the upswing. The Mint nearly doubled its output in March as compared to February, from 194.4 million coins to 384.42 million pieces. Collectors who have been scrambling to try to find examples of the four 2009 cent designs and then the new Union Shield design that was introduced this year can probably relax about the 2010 design.
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Five Numismatic Venues Beckon
Numismatic News
It was about 8:30 Saturday morning when we gathered in a small meeting room on the ninth floor of the InterContinental, getting our day started with some light breakfast treats. We spent the next nine hours or so, with an hour break for lunch, discussing various perspectives of how the three organizations might better cooperatively develop and apply their respective assets in building pathways to a larger and more robust hobby community and organizations. While I don’t believe any shocking revelations materialized, nor did any concrete plans for joint efforts unfold, I came away from the retreat with the belief that we collectively better understood the interests and capabilities of each organization, with a spirit emerging of the need and benefit of working together in the pursuit of mutually beneficial goals.
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Gold and Silver Last a Short Time But Iron Lasts Forever
Coins Weekly
The story goes that in former times the local inhabitants detected a form of water sprite – a sort of merman – living in an underwater grotto in Lake Leopoldstein. They believed the merman must possess great treasures and therefore they determined to capture him. Meat and wine were placed at the waterside to entice him. As expected, the merman came out of his grotto, ate, drank and fell fast asleep. Two of the villagers crept up to the sleeping merman and quickly ravelled him up in a tar-covered coat to prevent his slipping from their grasp. They carried him back to the village. To the joy of his captors, the merman promised them great riches in exchange for his freedom. He offered: “Gold will last but a short time, silver not long either, but iron will last you forever.”
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