Innehållsförteckning för May 2021 från Coins

ALTHOUGH THE two-cent piece was coined for less than a decade, from 1864 to 1873, this short tenure does not really illustrate its importance. Many of these coins continued to circulate and it was not until after 1890 that their use became rare in the marketplace. By the 1890s, of course, the coins were well worn but still recognizable. Most collectors view the two-cent piece as an odd denomination because it was coined for such a short time. However, it had been under consideration as a coin on more than one occasion before late May 1864 when minting actually began at the Philadelphia Mint. Because small change was often in short supply in the early United States, in 1806 Congressman Uri Tracy introduced a bill for a two-cent piece. The…

VIRTUALLY EVERY collector wants to find some good buys, real sleepers, when building his or her collection. That desire often leads us down the road to looking for coins that have low price tags, and that we think will jump up in price in the future. And while that frugal collector living in all of us has a good point, sometimes the undervalued coins are lurking where we least expect them. Let’s take at least a brief glance at several United States coins series and see if we can point out some undervalued pieces within them. Then we’ll see if they qualify as sleepers. Importantly, as we get into this, we’re going to focus on an unexpected group, the proofs. Mercury Dimes The United States Mint produced a series of…

I AM A coin dealer and collector, and I have spent a lifetime loving the history and beauty of coins. I have harnessed this same passion and channeled it into every aspect of Gobrecht Numismatics. Coins have given me such joy, allowed me to meet so many interesting people and taken me on some wild escapades. It gives me such pleasure to reminisce and re-tell some of my adventures. This one is about “Falco Dog” and will incorporate my dear German Shepherd, Falco, who has since passed. During one early morning in 2008, I was in my shop reading my teletype messages. I noticed that a couple of dealers were selling the James Adams New Discovery Dollar Error coin of three varieties – one was a Plain Edge variety and…

WHAT DO YOU know about “In God We Trust,” the motto on U.S. coins and currency? Do you know that it first appeared on the 1864 two cent pieces? Or that its addition was a reaction to the carnage of the Civil War? By the way, don’t you think “Civil War” is an oxymoron? Shouldn’t it be “Uncivil War?” If you know the facts I stated above, then you know as much as I did when I picked up William Bierly’s In God We Trust: The American Civil War, Money, Banking, and Religion. Bierly’s book was published in 2019 by Whitman Publishing, LLC. William (Bill) Bierly grew up on a farm in Indiana and started collecting coins from pocket change when he was eight. After high school, he earned a…

IN MY 65+ years of experience with U.S. coins, I’ve always had a fondness for Barber-designed coins, particularly the silver pieces. The reason for this fondness is not difficult to determine: Although scarce, they were still found occasionally in circulation when I started collecting. Thus, to me as a junior collector, Barbers were the oddballs. The dimes looked nothing like the Mercury dimes so prevalent at the time, or the Roosevelts that were still relatively new in the early 1950s. I knew from my 1958 Red Book (A Guide Book of United States Coins) that the Barber silver pieces were designed by Charles E. Barber, Chief Engraver of the Mint. What I didn’t know at the time was how he got the assignment, or why the previous Seated Liberty design…

The rare coin market continues on its almost unabated tear. During February, bullion and bullion-impacted coins went on a tear as well, but for all the wrong reasons. Internet forums including Reddit were used by non-traditional speculators looking for what was perceived as low value equities and commodities that, through sheer demand, outstripped supply and drove prices beyond the true value of the companies or commodities being purchased. Silver was targeted, driving prices from about $24 to about $29 an ounce virtually within hours. One commentator referred to this as the “Reddit silver short squeeze.” Dealers scrambled to fulfill purchase orders, then waited for prices to retreat before restocking. Inevitably, prices on both equity and commodity values settled where they belonged, leaving many of these pseudo investors in the lurch,…