By Doug Winter - RareGoldCoins.com

Coin dealers are an “interesting” (yes, this is an ironic use of quotes) group. If you were to take the top fifty professionals in this field and examine their personalities, I believe that a number of the same traits would be seen in a majority of these individuals. What are some of these traits? And do you have what it takes to be a successful coin dealer?

With very few exceptions, most of the top coin dealers have been involved in coins since they were very young. I can’t think of more than one or two coin dealers who I regard as being at the top level of the industry who were not buying and selling coins by the time they were in their early teens (or in some case, before this). Many people have asked me why this is the case. I think that being a good coin dealer is something that is almost genetic in its origin. You can’t really teach an adult the skills to be a truly good dealer. It’s almost as if the top dealers were born with a “coin dealing gene.” If you are a 42 year old insurance salesman with a passing interest in coins, it’s pretty unlikely that, within a few years, you are going to be a force on the bourse floor.

And speaking of genes, I think that every good coin dealer has what I call the “collecting gene.” Even though I don’t really collect coins anymore, there are a number of other areas that I avidly collect. Virtually every great dealer I know is also a serious collector of something; and many have multiple non-numismatic collections. These range from paper money to vintage photographs to globes to muscle cars. If you do not have a passion for collecting, you probably aren’t going to amount to much when it comes to dealing.

Coin dealers have exceptional memories when it comes to coins. I think I qualify pretty highly in this regard but my memory is very selective. As an example, it usually takes me a number of times meeting a collector until I remember his name. But I can generally remember this collector’s coins that he showed me in 1984 and, more distressingly, in great detail. I find the same to be true with many other of the dealers who I respect. They have an absolutely uncanny ability to remember coins they have handled, deals they have done, auctions they have attended, etc. If you have a poor memory when it comes to details, you are not likely to become a good dealer, let alone a great one. (more…)

Editors Note: The following is a list of Gold Trivia that was sent to CoinLink. We have not checked the facts or the source but we thought it was sort of interesting. Let us know if you have any additional items you think should be added to the list.

• Of the 92 natural elements in the earth’s crust, Gold ranks 58th in rarity.
• Every state in the U.S. has some gold deposits.
• If the U.S.’s pile of gold in Ft. Knox (147.3 million troy ounces according to the U.S. Mint) were to back the U.S. M1 money supply on an even basis, the gold would be worth $940 an ounce.
• When gold is legal tender, governments try to regulate or manipulate its value, and that’s always difficult… when Roosevelt raised gold from $20.67 to $35 in 1934, it immediately devalued the dollar by 40%.
• But from 1786 to 1933, the U.S. government only allowed the price of gold to rise from $17.92 to $20.67. A 15% increase in the official price of gold in 141 years. In the same span, U.S. GDP grew about 28,000%. (more…)

For the second time in two years, Zimbabwe’s central bank is slashing zeros off its largely worthless currency. This time 10 zeros will go, making $10 billion equal to $1.

The central bank’s governor Gideon Gono chopped 10 zeros off the Zimbabwe dollar and reintroduded coins which have been obsolete for years.

The highest denomination of Zimbabwe currency is currently 100 billion.

After the currency announcement, President Robert Mugabe warned in a televised event Wednesday that he will declare a state of emergency if prices continue to rise.

Officially inflation is at 2.2 million percent, but private sector economists estimate it is at least five times higher. Prices double every few days.

The purchase of a small packet of cookies can easily cost 400 billion Zimbabwe dollars. Bread, when it is available, is about 200 billion dollars. A few every day items can cost trillions of dollars, and houses for sale are advertised in quadrillions.

Comparing costs with South African groceries, using a combination of official and black market rates, groceries in Zimbabwe are between three and four times the cost for the same goods in South Africa.

Mr. Mugabe’s warnings about price increases came as South African president Thabo Mbeki arrived in Harare to mediate talks between the Movement for Democratic Change and ZANU-PF.

Mr. Mbeki will meet Mr. Mugabe, whom the opposition Movement for Democratic Change, or MDC, has accused of stealing the election earlier this year. (more…)

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

An elderly woman walked into the American Saving Bank in Munster, Indiana recently to make a deposit, a $2000  deposit that consisted of two 1934 $1000 Federal Reserve Notes.

Reports said that the woman, who was not identified for security purposes, arrived at the bank Wednesday morning and stepped to a teller window to make a $2,000 deposit. When bank workers saw the two bills, they weren’t sure what to make of them.

Bank teller who handled the deposit, Mary Ann Vlasich, thought to herself, “She’s going to need more bills because there is not nearly enough here for $2,000″, who believed the bills were hundreds.

When she looked closer, Vlasich was shocked to see they were $1,000 bills — a  denomination that no one at the bank had ever seen before, much less handled.

The deposit was accepted and the woman left the bank.

But soon afterward the transaction was brought to the attention of Michael Mellon, American Savings Bank’s president and chief executive officer.

“I’ve seen $500s before, but thousands, especially in this good of a condition, are just really rare. Everyone wanted to take a look at them,” Mellon said.

Realizing that the crisp 1934 bills were worth far more than their $1,000 face value, the bank called the woman and asked her to come down to the bank and pick up the banknotes. As Mellon recounts ….

“We explained it would be to the best interest of everybody if the customer picked up the bills and sold them to get a higher return,” he said. “We are a community bank that really looks out for our customers.”

When the woman came back to the bank she told Mellon the bills came from a relative a long time ago. Asked  what possessed her to bring them into the bank Wednesday she replied ” I have no idea”!