New circulating commemorative:
100th Anniversary of the Establishment of the Voluntary Tatra Mountains Rescue Service
LINK: National Bank of Poland
LINK: Polish State Mint
SPECIFICATIONS
Composition: Nordic gold, CuAl5Zn5Sn1
Weight: 8.15 g
Diameter: 27.00 mm
New bimetallic circulating commemorative:
“Celebration of the year 1809″
The Finnish Ministry of Finance has decided to issue a commemorative two-euro coin in celebration of the year 1809, in honour of the 200th anniversary of Finnish autonomy and the founding of Central Governmental Institutions in Finland.
The design of the coin reflects the first Diet of Finland assembled in the town of Porvoo in March 1809. On the obverse (national) side of the coin is the profile of the Porvoo Cathedral with stylised numbers 1809 above. The country emblem FI is on the left side and year mark 2009 on the right side of the coin. The coin has been designed by the sculptor Reijo Paavilainen.
The commemorative coins will be issued in October 2009. A total of 1,6 million coins will be struck. They are legal tender in all euro area countries.
LINK: Bank of Finland
LINK: Mint of Finland
SPECIFICATIONS
External ring: CuNi
Center disc: 3 layers, Ni-Brass, Ni, Ni-brass
Diameter: 25.75 mm
Width: 2.20 mm
Weight: 8.50 g
Submitted by World Coin News
New circulating type:
50th Anniversary of National Research Council
(info and images by Santi Ponglertsakul)
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Submitted by World Coin News
New bimetallic commemorative:
“60th Anniversary of the Council of Europe”
(information by Jacek Stacel)
LINK: National Bank of Ukraine
SPECIFICATIONS
Ring composition: CuNi
Center composition: CuAl5Zn5Sn1
Weight: 9.40 g
Diameter: 28.00 mm
Mintage: 45,000
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Submitted by Ancient Coin Cleaning And Restoration
One of our Ancient Peddler members asked a question about bronze and after doing a bit of research I realized how little many of us know about coin metals. I will share some things I discovered about bronze. If you can add to my list, please do and please [...]
Wednesday, August 26, 2009
Whistling past the graveyard
Posted by Dave
Nobody likes bad news. Nobody likes to be tagged as the bearer of bad news. That is what makes it so hard to deal with the current soft market in coins.
The market is down from its peaks in 2007 and 2008. But it is hard to quantify.
Better coins simply stop trading when business conditions weaken. Those that do trade can still generate headlines.
Then the chorus sings, “See, the market is still strong.” But is it?
It is to make this determination that I await more definitive evidence.
I remember the serious recession we had after the peak of the market in 1980. We had an internal debate at Numismatic News as to what we should do with the coin prices listed in Coin Market.
Instead of outright price declines, dealers just refused to purchase coins.
Instead of saying it in some straightforward manner that they could not resell the pieces at current price levels and taking a pass, dealers began to say that the coins didn’t make the grades they claimed to be. Coins that were MS-65 at the peak of the boom were suddenly -64, then -63, etc.
This infuriated the owners of the coins. While they would feel the injury of not being able to sell some coins when they wanted to, they also suddenly felt the sting of being told in an offhand fashion that they somehow had purchased overgraded coins.
Thems fightin’ words in this here business.
Bad feelings multiplied. Dealers began haunting the room where the American Numismatic Association board of governors met. They were the official keepers of grading standards. They were finally forced to declare in 1985 that grading standards had changed.
This gave everybody a black eye.
Wouldn’t it simply be easier to adjust prices downwards in a slow market?
We didn’t in the early 1980s. I won’t hold my breath waiting for it now.
On August 20, 2009 the Superintendent of Police at Varanisi in India announced to the press that three men were “nabbed” by local authorities for trying to sell over 7,500 “ancient silver coins weighing 68.3 Kg.” During interrogation, the men told police that they had found the coins while digging at their ancestral house in Deoria District.
Visions come to mind of the ubiquitous Kushan, Mughal or even Baktrian issues which of course would immediately be labeled by some local archaeologist as “priceless treasures” destined for the illicit U.S. coin market. But wait — there is more! The coins were determined upon investigation to date back to 1861 and 1892 and they bore images of the British monarchs Queen Victoria and King George. Ancient indeed! (note the “back to” phraseology — none of the coins of George V are more than 100 years old yet). Yes, according to the terms of the UNESCO Resolution, these coins are Cultural Property and apparently under the laws of India they belong to the State.
Is there something wrong with this picture? Here’s what the UNESCO convention covers:
(a) Rare collections and specimens of fauna, flora, minerals and anatomy, and objects of palaeontological interest;
(b) property relating to history, including the history of science and technology and military and social history, to the life of national leaders, thinkers, scientists and artist and to events of national importance;
(c) products of archaeological excavations (including regular and clandestine)
or of archaeological discoveries ;
(d) elements of artistic or historical monuments or archaeological sites which have been dismembered;
(e) antiquities more than one hundred years old, such as inscriptions, coins and engraved seals;
(f) objects of ethnological interest;
(g) property of artistic interest, such as:
(i) pictures, paintings and drawings produced entirely by hand on any support and in any material (excluding industrial designs and manu-factured articles decorated by hand);
(ii) original works of statuary art and sculpture in any material;
(iii) original engravings, prints and lithographs ;
(iv) original artistic assemblages and montages in any material;
(h) rare manuscripts and incunabula, old books, documents and publications of special interest (historical, artistic, scientific, literary, etc.) singly or in collections ;
(i) postage, revenue and similar stamps, singly or in collections;
(j) archives, including sound, photographic and cinematographic archives;
(k) articles of furniture more than one hundred years old and old musical instruments.
Yes, I have published this list before and I apologize for the tedious repetition, but it is worth reading again, and again, and again. I’m fairly hard pressed to think of anything made by man or nature that is not covered in one of these catch-all categories. At the recent ACCG meeting held during the ANA convention in Los Angeles, I met a gentleman who collects cactus — or is it cacti? I was a bit shocked when he related to me the story of how UNESCO 1970 has impacted his rather esoteric hobby. George Orwell got it right for the most part, he just had the date wrong.
Many collectors of modern World Coins have complacently ignored the plight of those who collect truly “ancient” coins and who are under constant attack from nationalist ideologues. But this arrest in India ought to be a wake-up call to even the most sedentary collector of anything older than their great-grandparent. It’s called repressive legislation and it is a wide-sweeping draconian response to a very specific problem — one might say an Orwellian fix. Are American collectors immune to this sort of oppression? Hardly. Ideological fervor is a potent and potentially dangerous aspect of society and it can become global in what history would quantify as a heartbeat. We should perhaps ask ourselves, “What would Victoria think about all of this?”
| The top ten largest owners of gold in the world are reported to control a total of 24,258.3 tonnes, or over 855 million ounces. At current spot prices, this gold would be worth approximately $804.35 billion and represents about 15.4% of all the gold ever mined. |
612.5 TonnesThe Netherland central bank, De Nederlandsche Bank, oversees all of the the Dutch national finances, including the country’s 612.5 tonnes of gold . The Dutch gold is currently worth over $20 billion . |
765.2 TonnesJapan is ninth largest gold owner in the world, with 765.2 tonnes of gold that accounts for only2.1% of the nation’s total foreign reserves. On the open market, Japan’s gold reserves are worth approximately $25.4 billion and are managed by the Bank of Japan. |
1040.1 TonnesThe Swiss National Bank oversees the country’s 1,040.1 tonnes of gold. The gold is believed to be stored in huge underground vaults near the federal Parliament building in Berne, however the Swiss National Bank treats the location of the gold reserves as a secret. Switzerland’s stockpile is worth approximately $34.5 billion in today’s gold market. |
1054 TonnesThe world’s most populous country also has the world’s seventh largest gold reserve. With a population of 1,330,440,055 (A rough estimate as of July 2009), the country holds about $26 worth of gold per person, worth a total of almost $35 billion. |
1120.6 TonnesOriginally listed on the New York Stock Exchange in 2004, SPDR Gold Shares is one of the fastest growing ETFs in the world. All of the Trust’s gold is held by the Custodian, HSBC Bank, in their London vault. |
2450.7 TonnesThe Banque De France is responsible for France’s gold holdings, which have been reported at about 2,450.7 tonnes by the International Monetary Fund. With the fifth largest gold reserve in the world, France’s amount to about $81.3 billion. |
2451.8 TonnesThe Italian National Bank, Banca D’Italia, manages the country’s large gold holdings, with approximately 2,451.8 tonnes of gold in reserve, Italy’s holdings are very close to France’s and are also worth approximately $81.3 billion at current prices. |
3217.3 TonnesThe International Monetary Fund oversees the global financial system of its 185 member countries and was formed to stabilize international exchange rates and facilitate development, mainly to poorer countries. |
3412.6 TonnesThe Deutsche Bundesbank, Germany’s central bank, is one of the most influential member of the European System of Central Banks. With a hefty 3,412.6 tonnes of gold reserves, which are valued at about $113.2 billion at current prices. |
8133.5TonnesThe United States holds the largest gold reserve in the world. With 8,133.5 tonnes, the US gold holdings are worth approximately $269.67 billion. This massive gold reserve represents about .9436 an ounce for ever person living in the country. The majority of the American gold is reported to be held in the world famous United States Bullion Depository in Fort Knox, Kentucky, although no audit has been conducted in over 40 years. |
New circulating type:
50th Anniversary of National Research Council
(info and images by Santi Ponglertsakul)
Friday, August 21, 2009
Despite Ch. 11 and fraud allegations, coin dealer back in business Tampa Bay Business Journal – by Jane Meinhardt Staff Writer
PHOTO ILLUSTRATION BY ALEX KERVIN
View Larger TAMPA — Well-known and embattled coin dealer Mark Yaffe has a new company with what may be an appropriate name: The Phoenix Gold Corp.
Just two weeks after National Gold Exchange Inc. — the coin business Yaffe and his brother opened more than 20 years ago — filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy reorganization, Yaffe is operating another firm dealing in coins.
In e-mails to other coin dealers, Phoenix Gold describes itself as a wholesale distributor of precious metal products. Its address on North Dale Mabry Highway is several doors from NGE’s current location.
State corporate records show Phoenix Gold incorporated Aug. 4 with Yaffe as the sole officer.