More News at a Glance – September 3, 2010

By CoinLink on Friday, September 3, 2010
Filed Under: Coin News Daily

1099 Fight Back in Congress
Numismaster
IRS reporting on rare coin purchases of $600 or more was approved by Congress and signed into law by President Obama as part of health care reform last March. The measure goes into effect Jan. 1, 2012, but not if the Industry Council for Tangible Assets, the Professional Numismatists Guild and the American Numismatic Association have anything to say about it.
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Giorgione 10€ Silver Coin from the Italian State Mint
Coin Update News
The Italian State Mint (Instituto Poligrafico e Zecca Dello Stato) will issue a new collector coin in September to mark the 500th anniversary of the death of Giorgione (Giorgio Barbarelli da Castelfranco 1477–1510) noted artist during the high renaissance era with just an estimated six known paintings accredited to him as his actual work. The coin includes an obverse portrait of Georgione from an engraving by W. Hollar along with detail from “Hand holding orange” and the text “REPUBBLICA ITALIANA”.
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Newly Discovered $20 to be Auctioned
Numismatic News
An 1856-O $20 coin recently discovered in Ohio and graded XF-45+ by Numismatic Guaranty Corporation is the main attraction in Heritage Auctions’ September 2010 U.S. Coin Auction to be held Sept. 22-25 in conjunction with the Long Beach Coin, Stamp & Collectibles Expo. “The 1856-O double eagle is a very rare date,” said Greg Rohan, Heritage president. “No more than two dozen are known, and the real number is probably smaller.”
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Malaysian Muslims Go for Gold, But It’s Hard to Make Change
The Wall Street Journal
Umar Vadillo bounds into a hotel room here in northern Malaysia with several stacks of gold and silver coins in his hands and slaps them down on a coffee table. “This,” Mr. Vadillo says, “is what it means to be free.” A quarter century ago, this Spanish-born Muslim convert set to work with other European Muslims to find a substitute for the U.S. dollar and other paper currencies. Pricing goods in greenbacks, they argued, was unfair.
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2011 Koala Silver Coins
Silver Coins Today
The Perth Mint of Australia will release next year’s bullion 2011 Koala Silver Coins beginning on October 4, 2010. The 99.9% pure silver coins feature a new design depicting the koala, one of Australia’s most popular animals. The Australian Koala Bullion Silver Coin series was first introduced in 2007, and has been a popular offering ever since. The 2011 issues include four different sizes — 1 kg, 10 oz, 1 oz and 1/2 oz.Each size has an unlimited mintage with demand dictating production. But each is limited to a single year of issue and will be discontinued when the 2012s with their new koala design are issued.
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The Art of Money
ARTINFO
“The mystery of the art market is that some people would rather possess an object of marginal utility than the ultra-usable money they exchange for it,” the critic Dave Hickey wrote in his 1993 book of essays, “The Invisible Dragon.” Perhaps the even greater mystery, however, is that some people would rather have un-usable money than usable money. Such is the paradox of numismatic collectors, who spend their hard-earned cash to buy currency, usually woefully out of date, whose value has nothing to do with purchasing power.
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