Innehållsförteckning för September 2021 från Coins

I am 62 yrs. old and about 20 years ago I went on a weekend trip to Jefferson, Texas. While I was there I went to all kinds of little shops. One Antique shop had a lady by the door at a desk and glass cases all the way around with different things inside them. I made a pass by all the displays and at the last one by the door I saw 2 wheat cents in 2x2’s upside down. I thought no big deal, wheats are common, but then I decided I better look at them, so I asked the lady if I could see those 2. When I turned them over one was nothing special, but the other was a 1955 DDO in all its glory. It had…

WHEN WE hear someone say that a ‘nickel’ is involved in terms of money we immediately know that a copper-nickel five-cent piece is meant. This was not always true; at the end of the Civil War there was another coin with the same nickname but not the same value. The copper-nickel three-cent piece was at first called a ‘nickel’ but when the five-cent piece was coined in 1866, the next year, the old name was quickly dropped. The copper-nickel three-cent piece was widely used for a few years after 1880, then slowly faded from sight. Although it was abolished as a denomination in 1890, it continued to circulate for several more years, until perhaps about 1900. Born in the crucible of war, in the end peace proved too much for…

Are you or your spouse a fan of microfiber cloths for cleaning? According to one ad I saw online, such cloths are the “ultimate cleaning tool.” In fact, the advertiser writes, “Since I discovered the magical cleaning abilities of microfiber cloths several years ago, they’ve been one of the most indispensable items in my cleaning toolkit. They’re such a staple for me that I assumed everyone knew about microfiber cloths and loved them as much as I do, but I recently learned that’s not actually the case!” I confess that I was one of the ignorant persons the advertiser refers to. My wife, on the other hand, revealed that she’s known about them for years. So, what are microfiber cloths, and might they be good for safely wiping/ cleaning coins?…

WE ALL have our favorite coin designs, be they classic or modern, artistic and flamboyant or staid and formal. Some people like the modern portrait on our nickels or of our Sacagawea dollars. Others favor now classic designs like the Mercury dime, Standing Liberty quarters, and Walking Liberty halves. However we like to collect though, it’s a fair bet that most of us do not collect by designer or Mint engraver. And yet there is one single designer for United States coins who had an amazing output in his day, and whose coins many of us do collect today, in some way. We’re talking about Mr. James Barton Longacre, the fourth Chief Engraver of the Mint. Let’s have a look at just what he produced and consider what a Longacre…

The good news is that if you already own that coin you wanted, you may learn its value may have been appreciating. The bad news if you put off obtaining that same coin is that there is a strong possibility it is going to cost you more than it would have only a short time ago. While this scenario may have been anticipated when pursuing coins in the scarce to rare range, the value of many collectible yet reasonably available, bullion-price-impacted, and in the bullion sectors are also seeing many plus signs. Such normally slower-moving market areas, including proof and mint sets as well as classic and modern commemoratives, are selling briskly. New U.S. Mint products are also performing better than might have been expected. On May 3, the spot…