The future of an Evansville-based company that produces a “private voluntary barter currency” known as the Liberty Dollar is in question after federal agents raided the facility this week, according to an e-mail sent by its founder.

Federal officials reportedly raided the group’s headquarters, located in a strip mall at 225 N. Stockwell Road, early Wednesday morning and seized documents and precious metals.

FBI Agent Wendy Osborne, a spokeswoman for the FBI’s Indianapolis office, directed all questions on the raid to the Western District of North Carolina U.S. Attorney’s Office. A spokeswoman there said she had no information on the investigation.

Bernard von NotHaus, the group’s monetary architect and the author of the e-mail, did not immediately respond to a message seeking comment.

Von NotHaus developed the Liberty Dollar in 1998 as an “inflation-proof” alternative currency to the U.S. Dollar, which he has claimed has devalued since the Federal Reserve was established in 1913. The silver medallions are produced by a private mint in Idaho on behalf of Evansville-based Liberty Services, which also issues paper notes which the group says are backed by silver reserves. (more…)

by Greg Reynolds, a CoinLink exclusive report

The Robert Bass collection of Private & Territorial gold patterns, die trials and related pieces is the all-time finest in this field. Bass started buying territorial gold coins and patterns in the 1960s. He sold his collection of territorial gold in 1999. He was too emotionally attached to his territorial patterns, however, to part with them, until 2006 when he had to deal with personal and health problems.

Don Kagin reports that he purchased this collection from Robert Bass “more than one year ago.” It has taken a long time to inventory, weigh, research and prepare a catalogue of the items. Kagin emphasizes that a featured trio are “three unique Humbert $50 pieces” that were previously in the legendary Bushnell and Garrett family collections.

Items from more than thirty private mints or prospective mints are in the Bass collection. Eleven of these may never have minted gold coins.

This Bass collection contains 179 pieces. For about eighty-three of these, fewer than five pieces are known. Even more startling is that, of these eighty-three or so, more than fifty of them are unique, meaning just one piece is known to exist today. (more…)

By Mark Ferguson for Coin Values

In the wholesale market for coins, which is dealer-to-dealer trading, some dealers buy and sell coins through electronic trading networks.

The dealers who use these networks regularly post “bid” prices or the prices they are willing to pay for certain coins. Many bid prices are sincere attempts to purchase coins wanted by customers, but others are attempts to buy great bargains if willing sellers are found.

Participating dealers also post on the network “sight-unseen” bids, in dealer parlance, indicating a willingness to accept any coins graded by particular grading services in the grades they are seeking to purchase.