By David Ganz for Numismatic News

The 1838-O half dollar is a genuine rarity, with only 20 pieces struck and the fate, 170 years after striking, of just about a dozen known pieces in existence leaves some unaccounted for. I’ve liked this coin for many years and made it a centerpiece of my new book that Krause is publishing in July, “Profitable Coin Collecting.”

More than 50 public auction sales of this coin are of record, some over a hundred years ago. The Mickley sale in 1867 by Woodward saw the coin offered as Lot 1782 and the selling price of $2.75. The same coin was acquired by J. P. Clemens and when Edward Coogan sold his collection in 1878. Lot 159 contained the same coin and brought $15.

Frossard sold his own collection Oct. 2, 1884 and Lot 400 in that sale featured an 1838 New Orleans half dollar which brought the “enormous” price of $63 only to find an early case of economic recession in the coin field so that by the time Lorin Parmalee sold his collection in 1890, the coin stepped back to $23.50.

Thomas Elder sold the Wilson collection in October 1908, and Lot 346 featured the very same 1838-O half dollar. It resounded to a $570 mark. In the span of 40 years, the coin rose in value from $2.75 to almost $600 – weekly wages in the United States at the time averaged about $6.

In the 1950s, the Anderson-Dupont sale by Stacks yielded a $3,500 price realized for an impaired proof specimen. That coin would be resold nine times in the succeeding half century and form the basis of the mystery that has existed for almost 20 years.

The unknown answer: an August 1989 sale as Lot 202. What was the price realized?

Read the Full Article Here

Designs for 2009 First Spouse gold coins and bronze medals were considered at the Citizen Coin Advisory Committee meeting April 22.

Images of the First Spouse coin designs viewed at the meeting can be seen on Page 23, identified by codes used by the committee.

For the Anna Harrison coin, CCAC preferred designs AH-O-02 for the obverse and AH-R-02 for the reverse. First Lady Harrison was a supporter of education and an avid reader, and the reverse design reflects these attributes.

The committee selected LT-O-04 and LT-R-03 for the Letitia Tyler coin. She suffered ill health and spent most of her time on the family’s plantation caring for their eight children. She died in 1842, about a year and a half into her husband’s Presidency.

President John Tyler wed again while in office, in 1844, marrying a woman named Julia Gardiner. For the Julia Tyler coin, the CCAC singled out designs JT-O-03 and JT-R-01. The reverse design shows President Tyler handing the First Lady the gold pen he used to sign papers annexing Texas to the United States, an action she had helped achieve. Read Full Numismaster Article

TOKYO (AFP) — After minting 4.8 million commemorative coins to mark a centenary of ties with Brazil, Japan has been forced to change the design due to an infringement of copyright, the finance ministry has said.

The original design showed bronze sculptures of parents and a child standing in Santos, Brazil, where the first batch of Japanese immigrants landed in 1908. But the Brazilian sculptor of the work refused to let the design be used for the 500-yen (five dollar) coin, the ministry said.

Japan had been planning to distribute the commemorative coin in March, believing that an immigrants’ association in Brazil owned the bronze memorial. The association later discovered that the artist also held the right to his work. But redesigining the coin is set to cost the ministry up to 10 million yen (100,000 dollars).

“The minted commemorative coins are made of the same materials as the regular 500-yen coin so we will simply recycle them,” a ministry official said. The new design will feature the ship that took the first Japanese immigrants to South America, superimposed over a picture of the Brazilian nation.

The newly-designed coin will be distributed from June 18.

More than 1.2 million Brazilians have Japanese ancestry, a higher number than in any country other than Japan. Read Full AFP Story

By Erin White/McClatchy Newspapers

As gold’s value has shot up, so has the number of people trying to unload a broken chain or a mismatched earring or two.

Though the price of gold has fallen since the record-breaking highs of more than $1,000 an ounce in mid-March, it can still bring a pretty penny when sold for scrap. (Selling for scrap means that the gold is melted down.)

But with gold’s rapidly fluctuating prices - not to mention all the fortune hunters trying to get in on the latest gold rush - an urban forty-niner has to be careful to find a fair price.

“There are going to be a lot of people who are going to say, `Hey! We’re buying gold now,’.” says Stephen Stierstorfer, co-owner of American Coin & Jewelry Exchange, in Fort Worth, Texas. Stierstorfer says he’s wary of so-called traveling gold buyers, who sweep into town, buy up the precious metal and hit the road. He also recommends checking out a buyer with the Better Business Bureau.

If you’re ready to sell some gold jewelry, coins or other items around your house, here are answers to common questions about selling gold. (more…)