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Coin News for March 22, 2010
If the Currency Must Devalue At Least Let It Devalue Attractively
Gaston Gazette
The question is not: Is it time to change the $50 bill? The question is: What’s taking us so long, and why are we considering only one bank note? The current lineup of faces — George Washington ($1), Thomas Jefferson ($2) Abraham Lincoln ($5), Alexander Hamilton ($10), Andrew Jackson ($20), Grant ($50), Benjamin Franklin ($100) — has been around since 1929. The world has changed beyond recognition, but you’re carrying around bills that look pretty much the same as the ones your great-grandfather carried around during the Great Depression.
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Rare Gold Coin’s Photostream
Rare Gold Coins
Example entry for the 1860-S $3.00 PCGS AU58 (with photos): Only five Three Dollar gold pieces were struck at the San Francisco mint and the 1860-S is the rarest collectible issue of these. The mintage figure for the 1860-S is 7,000 but it is believed that 2,592 were melted in December 1869 when it was discovered that they were lightweight. Today, an estimated 125-150 are known with probably no more than four or five properly graded Uncirculated pieces accounted for.
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2010 Boy Scouts Silver Dollar Coins
Mint News Blog
The 2010 Boy Scouts of America Centennial Silver Dollar will go on sale at the United States Mint tomorrow, March 23, 2010 at 12:00 Noon ET. The Boy Scouts Silver Dollar obverse features an image of a Cub Scout, Boy Scout, and female Venturer saluting with an inscription “Continuing the Journey”. The reverse features the universal emblem of the Boy Scouts of America. The design has not been without controversy. Some have questioned the portrayal of a girl on a coin for the Boy Scouts. The female depicted is a member of the Venturing program, which allows both male and female members, aged 14 to 21. The Girl Scouts of America will actually get their own commemorative silver dollar in 2013.
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End of Coins?
Dave Harper’s Buzz
It is time to reopen the topic of the future of coins again as I received an e-mail from a reader. Though he wishes to remain anonymous, he did want to share the information that the El Paso Employees Federal Credit Union will not receive or give out coins as of the end of 2010. Will this prove to be a one-time event, or will other financial institutions also decide that handling coins is a waste of employee time and money? Unless provision of coins is done on an industrial scale with major retail customers, many institutions could theoretically follow this example.
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Grading Changes Ahead
Coin Values
The basic model of rare coin grading for the two largest grading services, Professional Coin Grading Service and Numismatic Guaranty Corp., has remained the same since the firms were started in 1986 and 1987, respectively. But some major changes are brewing that could soon change the way rare coins are graded. PCGS- and NGC-graded coins have the most fluid marketability in both sight-seen (meaning dealers can view the coins before buying) and sight-unseen (dealers choose to accept a coin in a holder at a given grade, regardless of how frumpy the coin is) markets. Thus, any changes to their grading are carefully watched.
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Nanticoke Man Combines Love of Writing and Coins
Citizen’s Voice
Scrounging beneath couch cushions doesn’t suit Ed Reiter. No, his hobby of coin collecting was a humble pursuit, a way to handle metallic pieces of history with their tale of how they were designed and struck by mints. The farthest the 72 year old ever went in hunting for rare pieces of spare change was cashing $25 of his paycheck to mine rolls of change for his quarry. “It was the idea that growing up you could find something of value in spare change,” Reiter said. “I found Lincoln cents that were worth up to $40 or $50 just going through rolls of quarters.”
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About the Author
Tim Shuck is a life-long Midwestern resident, and started collecting coins after finding an Indian Head cent on the ground at his childhood farm home. Additional encouragement came from looking through a collection of well-worn late 19th and early 20th century coins kept by his grandfather in an old leather coin purse. Current collecting interests include U.S. types from the Civil War era through the early 1930's, and Colonial and Early American coins.
