Unique Lebanese Banknotes go Under the Hammer in London
Paul Fraser Collectibles
Spink will be assisting in the sale, which looks to catch an exciting trend in Middle Eastern collecting. Notaphily is a rapidly growing area in collecting, and as we’ve noted banknotes are increasingly showing how strong they can be as investments, especially in the Middle East where Iraqi and Palestinian notes has torn up their estimates this year. Spink has been at the forefront of such bank sales, and so it is unsurprising that they are involved in the sale tonight of Exceptional Serial Number Lots from the first issue of the 1000 Livres of 2008 from the Banque du Liban.
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CCCCOA Journal Awarded
Numismatic News
Curry’s Chronicle, the journal of the Carson City Coin Collectors of America, has received awards from the Numismatic Literary Guild and the American Numismatic Association, it was announced in the fall-winter 2010 issue of the publication. The NLG bestowed its Best Issue Award in Small Publications for Clubs category on Curry’s Chronicle for the third time in four years. In 2009, the journal received the NLG’s Extraordinary Merit Award.
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Disposal of Strange Collection Continues
Numismaster
Last month I introduced you to a collection, or perhaps two collections, that I’ve been asked to dispose of as profitably as possible. Part of the accumulation, as I indicated, was easy to deal with, as it consisted of mostly modern Mint products, such as proof sets and mint sets. There were also some 90 percent silver coins taken from circulation as well as some extremely common silver dollars. The other part of the collection was more interesting, both for what was in it and for what was not in it.
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Numismatic Gold Coin Price Increase
Mint News Blog
After narrowly missing the mark the past two weeks, a pricing increase for US Mint numismatic gold products seems almost certain to happen today around late morning. The average price of gold based on the London Fix prices from the prior Thursday AM to the current Wednesday AM was $1,393.28 per ounce. The US Mint’s numismatic gold products are currently priced within the lower $1,300 to $1,349.99 range.
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Gold, Technology, the Future, and More
Stack’s
Our 75th Anniversary Sale held in Baltimore last week was a great success. If you were a bidder or buyer, thank you! If you did not participate you can look forward to our next two sales, both in New York City in January—our World Coin Sale and our Americana Sale. Some consignment slots are still available for each, but hurry! In recent days gold has been in the limelight—the price being propelled upward by a decline in the value of the dollar.
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1980 Lake Placid Olympic Hockey Gold Medal Sells
The E-Sylum
Heritage has sold an important Olympic medal for $310,700.00. Here’s the auction lot description. 1980 U.S. Hockey “Miracle on Ice” Olympic Gold Medal Presented to Mark Wells. They finally made a movie about it in 2004. It had to be done, and it’s frankly surprising that it took almost a quarter century for “Miracle” to hit the big screen, Kurt Russell providing star power as coach Herb Brooks.
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Austrian Mint Charlemagne in Untersburg €10 Silver Coin
Coin Update News
The Munze Osterreich (Austrian Mint) has issued the fourth €10 silver coin in their ongoing “Tales and Legends in Austria” series. This coin tells of the legend of Untersberg in intricate detail. The famous emperor Charlemagne and his army sleep beneath the mountain awaiting the recall to life. The obverse of the coin depicts a shepherd boy being shown the way by a dwarf as he points to the mysterious mountain which the ravens are circling on the slopes of the Untersberg.
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1857-C Gold Dollar Lacked Quality
Numismaster
There are some awfully good coins that get very little recognition. That statement could be applied to a large number of gold dollars, one of them being the 1857-C. It’s fascinating to consider how much attention we spend on Morgan silver dollars, for example. It is many times overlooked that in the 1850s the dollar coin being used by much of the U.S. was not a silver dollar but rather the small gold dollars that had been produced since 1849.
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Ron Paul Gains Clout Over Mint
Numismatic News
Congressional Demo-crats had the stuffings kicked out of them Nov. 2 suffering many more than the 39 needed to turn over control of the House of Representatives to the GOP and making John Boehner of Ohio the new Speaker of the House and giving Rep. Ron Paul a subcommittee chairmanship from which to wield an increased influence. Republicans needed a gain of 39 seats to obtain control in the House, but picked up more than 60 seats. There are 435 members in the House, with 218 seats needed for operational control.
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Could This Roman Coin be the Most Incompetent Forgery of all Time?
Paul Fraser Collectibles
A silver denarius found in Brighton may be more valuable because it is so obviously not genuine. There are few things worse than finding that a coin you own is fake – unless you’re Rob Clements and the coin is a Roman one, apparently created by a dyslexic forger. Numismatic experts often have to break it to disappointed coin-finders that Roman coins are often not very valuable. The Roman Empire was vast and buzzing with trade after all. Only coins which are rare or unique for some reason are valuable.
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Market Reports Provide Sense, Auction Results Provide Proof
Rare Coin Market Report
After a major show, there is little shortage of collectors and dealers who post market reports. These can be useful for providing a general sense of the market at a given show, while a look at the auction results provides tangible proof of where the market is at a given moment. Coinfest was held Oct. 28 to 30 in Stamford, Conn. It’s a relatively new show and promoted a bourse of 150 dealers in 2010. This year the show suffered a loss and a gain.
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Ashbury Park Sidewalk Dollars
The E-Sylum
If he hadn’t sent the picture, I’d have told him he was having a flashback to the Psychedelic 60s. I’m stumped – this is the first time I’ve seen anything like this. How are the dollars anchored and protected from the elements? Readers? -Editor
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How’s This For Inflation? Hawaii $10 Bank Note Sells For $134,500 in New York
Paul Fraser Collectibles
Doyle auctioneers of New York held a successful sale of Coins, Bank Notes, Postage Stamps and Gemstones on November 1. The auction offered property from a variety of prominent estates and private collections – with a number of numismatic gems included among the lots. According to Doyle, the event attracted competitive international bidding from buyers in the salesroom, on the telephones and via the internet.
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Coin Bills Pending
Numismatic News
With mid-term elections over, it is time to look at the numismatic program of the 111th Congress, which will be replaced in January 2011 by a 112th Congress comprised of individuals elected Nov. 2. There are a number of numismatic successes, as well as some failures. In the latter category, to the surprise of many, is a proposal signed onto by retiring Senate banking committee chairman Chris Dodd, D-Conn., for a Mark Twain commemorative. He introduced it and it went nowhere.
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Some Spicy Reading on Those Old Mint Reports
The E-Sylum
There is nothing so dead as an old book. Well, that might be true of a piece of popular pulp fiction now forty or fifty years old, but what about a dry as dust piece of statistical compilation from a past century ? The time is 6am and the day of a dealer in numismatic books is a long one, though only because I wake early. As a reader of this journal you are a self-confessed bibliophile, so you may know what I mean.
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Date Set Affordable Quarter Option
Numismaster
The Washington quarter, seen everyday and thought of as a common coin, has been minted for nearly 80 years. A collector could have a good time with a series spanning so many years, whether he plans a complete date and mintmark set or decides to concentrate on a shorter set. If you haven’t considered a Washington quarter set, or think it’s not much of a challenge, try a short set to get a feeling of what the series is about. You may find it’s a fun set to build any way you choose, and assembling the set has its own challenges.
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2010 Silver Eagle Bullion Coin Sales Leap to Annual Record
Silver Coins Today
As of Thursday, November 4, the United States Mint had sold more American Silver Eagle bullion coins in 2010 than in any other year of the coin’s history. U.S. Mint buyers ordered 3.15 million of the .999 fine silver coins in October, breaking a streak of four straight monthly declines. October sales combined with the already 255,000 sold in November (150,000 of those on Thursday) lifted 2010 Silver Eagle bullion coin sales to 28,885,500.
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Mount Hood Quarter is Last Issue For 2010
NJ.com
The final new coin in the first year of the America the Beautiful quarters program will debut Nov. 17, honoring Mount Hood National Forest in Oregon. Mount Hood National Forest covers more than a million scenic acres just 20 miles from Portland, Ore., extending from the Columbia River Gorge for more than 60 miles.
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