Coin Collecting News

PENANG: While most people would discard one-sen coins, numismatist Danny Tan Swee Boon would pick up the coin if he chances upon one on the ground.  The 55-year-old social worker has been collecting one-sen coins since he was five, after his grandfather gave him a few from the Straits Settlement era of 1845.

Not to be scoffed at: Tan showing his collection of the three different types of one-sen coins which have been used in the country.
“My grandfather taught me to appreciate its value. Besides, it has survived for 162 years, the longest surviving coin in Malaysia,” he said in an interview here yesterday.

Tan said the first one-sen coin in then Malaya bearing the image of the young Queen Victoria of England was minted by the British East India Company in 1845. The round coin – as big as the present 50-sen coin – now had a market value of RM3 per piece, he added.

Tan said square one-sen coins were later introduced in 1910, bearing the image of King George V. These square coins were also issued for King George VI and for Queen Elizabeth II, who began her rule in 1951. The last issue of square coins, he noted, was in 1961. Continued

On November 4th, CoinLink posted a News excerpt entitled “Odyssey Marine Exploration accused of stock market fraud” which was aggregated from CDNN online News [Link to Article]. The story was actually a repost of an original article posted by the Sunday Times of London (UK), under a different headline “Sunken treasure ‘overvalued to lift shares of salvage firm’”.

On Monday November 12th, it was brought to our attention that the original Sunday Times article, and more specifically the derivative copy that CoinLink posted had serious and material misinformation and presented implications that were either unfounded and/or without merit.

As a result CoinLink has removed the article from our site and has apologized to Odyssey Marine Exploration. We also apologise to our readers. This is the first time in 15 years that we have removed any content from CoinLink which has been found to be from a questionable source, and we will redouble our efforts to make sure that it does not happen again.

Scott Purvis - Editor

Below is a copy of correspondence which was sent to the Sunday Times from Odyssey both before and after the article was written. We think that it speaks for itself. Continued

Dallas, TX. A magnificent collection of early American half cents, assembled by long-time collector and dealer Col. Steven Ellsworth, will be offered at public auction by Heritage Auction Galleries at the official auction of the Long Beach Coin Expo, May 28-31. Highlights from the Col. Ellsworth’s collection will be exhibited by Heritage at the FUN 2008 and February 2008 Long Beach conventions.

“One of the most appreciated aspects of our auction status,” noted Heritage President Greg Rohan, “is when a fellow professional numismatist consigns his personal treasures to our auctions. When a dealer with decades of experience selling coins comes to Heritage because he knows that we will achieve the highest prices possible in the marketplace, he is complimenting both our marketing skills and the voracious numismatic appetites of our clients.”

Col. Ellsworth’s interest in coins started at a very young age:

“I can remember as a six-year old gathering soda pop bottles from the fields and roads. I would pull my red Radio Flyer wagon behind me, picking up the bottles like potential nuggets of gold. I would then take them to the corner grocery store to redeem them for change. I would then go through the change searching for any years of old coins that I did not yet have.” Continued

Adapted from an autobiography by Holocaust survivor Adolf Burger, the Austrian Stefan Ruzowitzky’s film The Counterfeiters tells the true story of Operation Bernhard, the largest counterfeiting operation in history. Set up by the Nazis in 1936 in an effort to weaken Allied economies by flooding them with fake banknotes, it was carried out by detainees in the Sachsenhausen concentration camp where a unit of jailed printers, typographers, graphic artists and others were overseen by Nazi camp guards.

The Counterfeiters is a suspense-filled, engaging and entertaining film. It is also very uncomfortable to watch, not just because of the horrors is depicts and insinuates, but also because it pushes us to judge the men in the ‘Golden Cage’. Continued