Coin Collecting News

by Michael Zielinski - Article Contributed to CoinLink

The First Spouse Gold Coin Series is proving to be one of the most popular mint offerings in years. So far, three coins have been released, and all have sold out within hours of the initial offering. With coins scheduled to be released until at least 2016, many collectors have been wondering whether the initial popularity of the series will endure.

The First Spouse Gold Coin Program was created by Public Law 109-145 to honor the First Spouses of the United States of America. Because all First Spouses to date have been women, the coins are sometimes referred to as the First Lady coins.

Each coin includes a portrait of the First Spouse on the obverse. The reverse features a unique design representative of the spouse’s life and work. In the event that a President served without a First Spouse, the obverse will include an image of Liberty which was used on circulating coinage during the President’s term. Continued

Stephen L. Goldsmith has formed a new numismatic company called American Paper Money & Coin, LLC. He served as auction director and later executive vice president at Smythe from 1985 through his resignation in August 2007.

“My wide range of responsibilities at Smythe prevented me from working with clients on a close and personal level, and that’s exactly what I do best,” Goldsmith said. “I feel strongly that American Paper Money & Coin, LLC, can focus in on fewer clients, and I will be able to provide them with the highest possible level of service.” Read Full Story

Loveland resident Daniel Carr’s work is exceptionally beautiful. A designer of collectible coins, he’s the man behind the official New York and Rhode Island state quarter designs for the United States.

Sadly, some people are taking Carr’s entire oeuvre a bit too seriously. They should not.

Not long ago, Carr, who also casts funny and gimmicky coins, came up with a bright idea. He fashioned a collectible coin based on an imaginary currency called the “amero” - a mix of “America” and “dinero.” It is something analogous to the European euro. Analogous but fake. Carr’s denominations range from 20 to 1,000.

The fact that this currency doesn’t, you know, actually exist hasn’t stopped a crush of orders from coming in or paranoia from erupting. Read Full Story

A major exhibit on “Numismatics in the Renaissance” will be on view in the main exhibit gallery of the Firestone Library of Princeton University from November 9, 2007, through July 20, 2008. The exhibit will include rare fifteenth and sixteenth century books from the Princeton collection that discuss and illustrate ancient coins and a display of some of the treasures of the University’s numismatic collection, featuring gold, silver and bronze coins of Greece and Rome as well as coins and medals of the Renaissance that were inspired by them. The exhibit will also include manuscripts and prints and drawings from Princeton University collections and a print of Pirro Ligorio’s monumental map of ancient Rome, made in 1561.

While ancient coins were found throughout the Mediterranean region in the millennium following the end of the Roman Empire, it was only in Renaissance Europe that they began to be systematically studied and were reproduced in the earliest printed books to carry engraved illustrations. The Princeton collection is particularly rich in these impressive examples of early printing, ranging from the 1517 edition of Andrea Fulvio’s Images of the Illustrious with its highly decorated settings of each coin image, through Hubert Goltzius’s large-scale chiaroscuro reproductions of imperial portraits of the 1550s, to Antonio Augustín’s systematic classification of ancient coinage and guidelines for detecting counterfeits from the end of the sixteenth century. Continued

Can a dollar be as cool as a quarter?

The upcoming holiday shopping season will determine whether new $1 presidential coins will catch fire with the collecting public the way state quarters have for the past nine years. So far, so good.

“Our customers are already collecting for Christmas,” says Sylvia Penn, head teller at the Comerica Bank on Mack Avenue on Detroit’s east side. “They especially want John Adams real bad. Right now I don’t think I have any. People keep asking, ‘Can you get them? Please, can you get them?’ ”

Next year, the last of the 50 state quarters will roll off the U.S. Mint production line. Since 1999, 140 million Americans have been rummaging through loose change to find and collect quarters that represent every state. Next year’s Oklahoma, New Mexico, Arizona, Alaska and Hawaii quarters will be last in the series. It costs the mint just 5 cents to manufacture a state quarter, so it makes 20 cents off every one.   Read Full Story