The E-Sylum v7#36, September 5, 2004
whomren at coinlibrary.com
whomren at coinlibrary.com
Sun Sep 5 19:44:24 PDT 2004
Welcome to The E-Sylum: Volume 7, Number 36, September 5, 2004:
an electronic publication of the Numismatic Bibliomania Society.
Copyright (c) 2004, The Numismatic Bibliomania Society.
SUBSCRIBER UPDATE
Among recent new subscribers are John Frost, courtesy
of Wayne Homren, and Christine Gregg, courtesy of Nick
Graver. Welcome aboard! We now have 686 subscribers.
PITTSBURGH LIBRARY TOUR PHOTOS
Eric Holcomb provided some photos of the tour which Bruce
Perdue has installed on the NBS web site. Thanks, folks!
Check them out at:
http://www.coinbooks.org/pittour/
ANS LIBRARY SALE REPORT
Chiming in with additional information on the recent fundraising
auction for the American Numismatic Society Library chair
fund, John W. Adams writes: "On Thursday evening of the
American Numismatic Association convention, the ANS
conducted its auction of 50 donated lots of numismatic literature,
all of which were valuable and many of which were especially
interesting. The attendance was "dampened" somewhat by the
heavy rains to which Pittsburgh treated us. Nonetheless, 40
hardy bibliophiles gathered for what proved to be a truly
memorable occasion. Ye editor Wayne Homren had provided
us with a simpatico setting at the upstairs of Tambellinis
Restaurant. George Kolbe had performed his usual world-class
cataloguing. And Denis Loring called the auction of his life - we
were in stitches from start to finish.
The auction was buttressed by a plethora of generous mailbids
but nothing could top lot 1, a special edition of Adams on Indian
peace medals: after a furious floor fight, it hammered down at
$1,250 whence an unnamed officer of the ANS closed everyone
out with a bid of $10,000 !! Matters continued uphill from there.
The final tally was $89,500, an obviously meaningful gift to the
Francis D.Campbell Library Chair. Gold stars to Homren, Kolbe
and Loring. Many more gold stars to the bibliophiles who
donated and those who bid."
ALEXANDER ARTICLE ON NUMISMATIC BIBLIOMANIA
On the heels of David Fanning's recent article in the Numismatic
Sun comes the October 2004 issue of COINage magazine and
David T. Alexander's article, "Collecting By the Book:
Numismatic Literature As A Collectible Field." (p40). David
has done a wonderful job, so be sure to look for his article.
SHAFER WINS NLG'S "CLEMMY"
Bill Fivaz writes: "It should be noted that Neil Shafer is the new
winner of the "Clemmy" award from the Numismatic Literary
Guild (NLG). As last year's winner, I made the presentation at
the NLG Bash on the Thursday night of the ANA convention.
He was surprised and honored, of course, and most in the
audience, like me, couldn't believe he hadn't been selected
before."
[I'm glad to hear Neil won - it's a well-deserved award
-Editor]
MEXICAN NUMISMATIC PUBLICATIONS
Adrián González Salinas writes: "As always, I enjoy reading
The E-Sylum every Monday. It has very valuable information
for me. Please, keep up the good work! Such as Cantinflas
(a Mexican comic actor 1911-1993), said, I am being
"agriculturized" (a mexican joke).
Answering the Jane L. Colvard question (The E-Sylum v7#35):
Regrettably, Mexico hasn't any commercial numismatic
publication at time present. Twelve years ago appeared a
humble publication called "El Cospel" (The Coin Blank) but
10 or less issues were printed. Actually, the only numismatic
publications in my country are:
"El Boletín" (a Sociedad Numismática de México's quarterly
issue in Spanish/English)
"Gaceta Numismática" (a Sociedad Numismática de
Monterrey's monthly issue - just in spanish)
"Hoja de Difusión" (an Asociación Numismática de Toluca's
monthly issue - just one sheet in spanish)
"Gaceta LVO" (a Sociedad Numismática de Zacatecas's
quarterly issue - just in spanish). LVO means "Labor Vincit
Omnia".
In the USA, there does exist the "USMexNA Journal" a
US-Mex Numismatic Association's quarterly publication
(just in english).
Please let me know if you need additional information at
agonzalez at vitro.com"
DEAD SEA COIN HOARD
From a September 1st article in an Israeli newspaper:
"How did hundreds of thousands of bronze coins from the
reign of Alexander Jannaeus (Yannai) end up on the bottom
of the Dead Sea?
For some years now rumors have been circulating among
antiquities aficionados in Israel about a huge coin hoard
discovered along the Dead Sea shore. According to Donald
Zvi Ariel, head of the coin division at the Israel Antiquities
Authority, an acquaintance from Haifa University approached
him 15 years ago with an envelope containing 190 ancient
coins. The contact recounted visiting the Dead Sea, at a
spot somewhere south of Ein Feshkha, sticking his hand
down into shallow water and bringing up a handful of coins
from the bottom. Since the area where the coins were found
is in the West Bank, Ariel refrained from examining them
carefully and sent the envelope to the office of archaeological
affairs at military government headquarters."
Military officials in charge of archaeological finds looked into
the matter, and the story also spread among antiquities thieves,
assorted treasure seekers, and the antiquities dealers of East
Jerusalem. Word of the discovery of a remarkably large coin
hoard even appeared in several scholarly papers, but the affair
was not widely publicized. An article by Ariel about the
hoard will appear in coming months in a periodical published
by the Israel Exploration Society."
To read the full story, see:
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/471833.html
THUGEE AND OTHER COINS OF DEATH
At the Numismatics International meeting at the recent
ANA convention, the topic of the heavy Russian 5
Kopeck coins came up, and someone recalled an
incident where an angry woman threw one of the coins
across the room at her husband. She was a good shot -
it hit him in the head and killed him.
So in true E-Sylum tradition, I've got to ask - are there
any other instances of coins used to kill? The only one
I can think of is the old Indian method of thugee. Here's
a description I found on the web: "Thugee - A Historical
Perspective by Rakesh Chaubey.
Thugee used to be a big problem during the British Raj.
It went largely unnoticed for centuries because it was not
only a crime perpetrated on Indians by Indians, but it was
a crime perpetrated by rogues on elderly who were making
their final pilgrimage to Varanasi.
Devout followers of Goddess Kali, the thugs were a highly
superstitious bunch. They spent part of the year living as
farmers and for a few months disappeared from home to
go on their plunderous mission. Thugee was widespread
all throughout Northern India. The Thugs used to travel in
groups of five or six persons and would join into a group
of travelers. "
"The thugs would penetrate a group disguised as travelers.
They gained the confidence of the other travelers. Amongst
themselves, the Thugs communicated in a very elaborately
coded lexicon. Finally, when they had gained the confidence
of their intended target, one of them lured him away some
distance away from where the group was camped. There
the other thugs met up and strangled the man using a scarf
in which a silver rupee coin had been rolled. The victims
were then robbed, and their bodies buried in shallow graves."
http://www.patnadaily.com/readerswrite/2003/rakesh_chaubey.html
BIDDER ETIQUETTE?
Dan Gosling writes: "In the Stack's auction catalogue of
December 1-2, 1993, "United States Coins and Paper
Money Featuring Additional Selections From The Reed
Hawn Collection and Important Consignments From The
T. D. Howe, Jr., Family Trust B, William B. Cowden and
Dr. Bernard Schaaf", which I purchased at the Library spares
sale during the ANA Summer Seminar this year, there is a
list of Bidder Etiquette:
1. List your lots in ascending numerical order whenever possible.
2. Bid only in whole dollar amounts.
3. Please write clearly and be sure to sign your bidsheet.
4. Keep a copy of your bidsheet for your records.
5. If you use a fax machine - please type to avoid misreading
of bids. We thank your for your support...
Are there any other rules of etiquette for bidders? Have other
auction companies ever included such a list in their catalogues?
Are there any additional rules for email bids?"
DECIMAL COINAGE SYSTEMS
Steve D'Ippolito writes: "So far as I know, the Russians were
first with a decimal system. They certainly claim credit for it.
It actually was semi-accidental. The old system (from very
approximately 1200-1500) was: 6 dengas = 1 Altyn (from the
Tatar word for six), 33 Altyns, 2 dengas = 1 Ruble. Don't hold
me to this, but I believe that none of these denominations had
any physical existence; all coinage circulating in Russia was
foreign. Around 1500, wire money dengas, polushkas (from
'pol' for half; they were half dengas) and a new unit, the kopek,
were minted. ("Kopek" comes from the Russian word "kopie"
for "spear" since the kopek wire money depicted a horseman
with a spear.) A kopek was two dengas. By the way, the
Ruble had no physical existence even in this era; it was purely
a unit of account.
If you do the arithmetic it turns out that there are 200 dengas
in a ruble and hence 100 kopeks in a ruble. At that time the
denga (and to some extent the altyin) was the more important
unit, however. Talking about kopeks and rubles before 1700
would have been akin to us talking about nickels and dollars.
Peter the Great's reform starting in 1700 put the focus on
kopeks and started Russia towards a more modern system
with a crown sized ruble, silver fractions (50, 25, 10, and 5
kopeks), and copper minors (5, 1, 1/2 and 1/4 kopeks).
For a time the 3 kopek altyn continued to be issued. Many
of the older names hung around for a while; a half kopek
was still a denga, and a quarter kopek was a polushka.
Interestingly the ruble, before the reform, contained far more
than a crown's worth of silver. The average taler of Europe
was worth only 64 kopeks. So Peter I was able to sneak
quite a bit of inflation into this reform.
Anyhow, my knowledge of pre-Petrine numismatics is
somewhat sketchy so I am sure I got some of the chronology
wrong."
Bob Neale writes: "Regarding the question of who first
developed a decimal coinage system, I believe that the key
word here is "system." As I understand it, the Russian
precursor to Jefferson's proposal did include a couple of
decimally-related coins, but there were nondecimal coins as
well. The Russians therefore did not have a system as we
understand the term.
My reference to the above was from Dick Doty's book,
America's Money, pp 72-73. I probably should also mention
Robert Morris' attempt to introduce a decimal coinage
system in the early 1780s. Morris' plan was impossibly
unwieldy, however, because it attempted to accommodate,
in whole number relationships, almost all foreign coinage
that was then in circulation here. Give Robert and Gouverneur
Morris some credit, though. Their ideas provided the impetus
for Jefferson's far superior proposal that was adopted in
1786. Morris did provide patterns in denominations of 5, 100,
500 and 1000 units, but of course these Nova Constellatios
were never produced for official coinage. Nondenominated
Nova coppers were produced subsequently in some quantity
in England as a private venture for the two (unrelated)
Morris'es."
Gar Travis submitted the following item about modern
decimalizations. It cites France as the first, but does not
mention Russia, where at item in last week's E-Sylum
suggested Peter the Great as the first to use a coinage
system based on 100 units.
"Decimalization refers to any process of converting from
traditional units, usually of money, to a decimal system. This
process has been undergone by all countries except Mauritania
and Saudi Arabia, but the former has in practice dropped their
smaller unit since it is worth so little, and the latter is currently
phasing out their non-decimal unit by not minting any new coins
in it. France decimalised first, abandoning the Livre tournois at
the time of the Revolution, and imposed decimalisation on a n
umber of countries that it invaded at that time. Many countries
in the world decimalised on achieving independence from
Britain, the first to do so being the United States. However
some Commonwealth countries retained traditional money
systems (pounds, shillings and pence) after achieving effective
independence as Dominions, and decimalised more recently.
For example South Africa decimalised in 1961, introducing
the rand as the new unit of currency. When Australia decimalised
in 1966, the currency was renamed the Australian dollar in the
process, as the size of the basic currency unit was changed (to
ten of the old shillings, i.e. half the value of the previous pound).
A similar strategy was followed in New Zealand in 1967, with
the introduction of the New Zealand dollar. The United
Kingdom and the Republic of Ireland decimalised the Pound
Sterling and the Irish pound on February 15, 1971; see Decimal
Day. Many other former British colonies, such as Singapore,
Malaya, Sri Lanka, Mauritius, and the Seychelles used decimal
currencies, even while under British rule. India changed from the
Rupee, Anna, Pie system to decimal currency in 1957. Pakistan
followed in 1961. Sri Lanka already introduced decimal currency
in 1869. In France, decimalisation of the coinage was
accompanied by metrication of other measures. However, in
general the two have not gone hand in hand: the U.S. has never
metricated, Canada has only recently done so despite having
long had a decimal coinage, and the U.K. has only metricated
to a limited extent."
Taken from:
http://pedia.nodeworks.com/D/DE/DEC/Decimalization/
MORE ON 99-CENT PRICING
David Pogue of the New York Times wrote a recent column
on "99 cent" pricing, something we discussed in the E-Sylum
earlier this year. He noted: "My last e-column, on what I call
the 99-centing scam (pricing things at $299.99 instead of $300
in an attempt to fool consumers), generated some of the
funniest and most pithy reader responses in recent memory.
[Here are a few samples. The first may amount to urban
legends, but if anyone has references to corroborate the
tales, please let us know. -Editor]
"I believe that the origin of 99-cent pricing goes back to JC
Penny to keep his employees honest." (Various other readers
cited Mr. Macy, Mr. Woolworth and Mr. Sears.) "At 99 cents,
they would be forced to open the cash register to give change.
When the price was an even dollar, employees would be more
tempted simply to pocket the bill."
"I believe you can trace the origin of these sales to William
Randolph Hearst. In the days when one cent would buy
something concrete in a store, newspapers sold for amounts
like 3 cents. Hearst encouraged advertisements from the major
department stores, and told his staff to push the concept of
prices at odd amounts in order to ensure that there was a
good circulation of small change so that the public would be
able to buy his papers."
"I remember working for a bread company. One of our
deliverymen was having trouble selling brown-and-serve rolls
in one of his stores. This was back when bread retailed for 33
cents for a box of 12. To try to increase his sales, he went to
the store manager and got permission to price the rolls at three
[boxes] for $1.00. When customers saw this price on the rolls,
they brought them as fast as the shelves could be stocked, even
through they were paying a penny more this way then when
they were sold at the old rate!"
"See, that's why the Sacagawea coin never caught on. We
don't need a one dollar coin - we need a 99 cent coin."
1911 CANADIAN PATTERN DOLLAR INFO SOUGHT
Dan Gosling writes: "I am looking for articles in coin magazines
(not newspapers) that relate to the 1911 Canadian pattern
silver dollar. I can be reached at dan at gosling.ca. Thanks!"
PURPLE HEART BAND-AIDS INSULT VETS
Larry Mitchell forwarded the following statement from
Thomas H. Corey, National President, Vietnam Veterans
of America:
"Vietnam Veterans of America has received reports of
delegates at the Republican National Convention disseminating
and wearing "Purple Heart" band-aids in mockery of one of
nation’s most distinctive honors, the Purple Heart medal.
The Purple Heart is one of the oldest military awards, first
introduced in 1782 by Gen. George Washington to honor
the service and sacrifice of the common soldier and recognize
the spirit of volunteerism and selfless dedication. It was
reinstated in 1932. The Purple Heart is awarded to members
of the armed forces who are wounded by the enemy.
The spirit of the award recognizes the personal sacrifice of
our troops without regard to the severity or nature of the
wound. It is the wounding itself that merits the honor. To
demean the decoration and the sacrifice it symbolizes
demeans all veterans and the patriots who honor them."
To read the full release, see:
http://www.vva.org/PressReleases/2004/pr04-042.htm
[Has anyone seen news reports on this? What issue were
the people handing out the band-aids trying to publicize?
This release calls it "a mockery" but that's surely not what
was intended. -Editor]
NEW $50 DEBUTS IN PITTSBURGH
Lost among the blockbuster rare coin exhibits at the recent
American Numismatic Association convention in Pittsburgh
was the first public display of the new U.S. $50 bill at the
Bureau of Engraving and Printing booth.
From a local news story headlined "The new $50 bill has
more hidden features than James Bond's watch.":
"The Treasury plans to begin circulating 140.8 million bills
Sept. 28, said Antoinette Banks, numismatic coordinator for
the Bureau of Engraving and Printing.
This denomination accounts for less than 7 percent of all the
money in circulation, Banks said.
Like the latest version of the $20 bill released last year, the
most striking feature of the new $50 bill is its abandonment
of the venerable monotone color scheme.
The bill is colored at both ends in blue, red and purple. The
center portrait is still Ulysses S. Grant, but the border around
the 18th president is gone and his shoulders extend to the
bill's bottom border."
"With 66 percent of U.S. currency circulating outside the
nation, American money is the most counterfeited in the
world, said Edward Arrich, 56, of Houston, Texas, who
is in town for the gathering.
Most developed nations have switched to colored ink
because it's tougher to copy, and it's about time the United
States caught on, said Arrich, a numismatist since he was
12.
"There are countries where shopkeepers won't take $50 or
$100 bills older than 1991" because they've been
counterfeited so much, he said. On this new $50 bill, there
are 26 anti-counterfeiting measures, he said, adding
conspiratorially, "that are known, anyway."
To read the full article, see:
http://pittsburghlive.com/x/tribune-review/trib/pittsburgh/s_215879.html
THE NEW $200 BILL UNVEILED
The Treasury department still has work to do on public
education surrounding currency designs. This story came
across the Associated Press wire on Wednesday,
September 01, 2004. The incident occurred near
Greensburg, a town in Western Pennsylvania not far from
Pittsburgh:
"State police aren't laughing about the person who passed
some funny money -- a $200 bill with President George W.
Bush's picture on it -- at a women's clothing store."
There is no such denomination, even without Bush's picture
on it.
Police said they didn't know how the clerk was taken in by
the ruse, even though several other things about the bill
should have been a dead giveaway.
Among other things, the bill had a hokey serial number --
DUBYA4U2001 -- and didn't bear the signature of the
secretary of the treasury. Instead, the bill was "signed" by
Ronald Reagan, whose title was "Political Mentor" and by
Bush's father, who was listed as "Campaign Advisor and
Mentor."
The back of the bill was even goofier.
It depicts the White House with several signs erected on
the lawn, including those reading "We Like Broccoli" ..."
To read the the full AP and Reuters accounts, see:
http://www.postgazette.com/pg/04245/371791.stm
http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?storyID=6127704
TAKING COMMEMORATIVES TOO FAR
A September 2 Wall Street Journal article discusses the
custom-made stamps the U.S. Postal Service allows a
private firm to produce and sell. This takes the concept of
commemoratives to its extreme, basically allowing anyone
who wants to put anything on a stamp to do it, for a fee.
The high production costs of coins should ensure it never
comes to this in numismatics, but it's interesting to think
about. You could give your kids and grandkids coins
with their own pictures on them. The debasement of the
medium is a slippery slope that begins with the first
commemorative coin and ends when the public finally
gets sick of the proliferation of designs in circulation.
Someday in the U.S. there may be a backlash that ends
the parade of new coin designs we've been seeing.
Here are some excerpts from the article:
"When Stamps.com launched a service that turns any digital
photo into a custom postage stamp -- a vanity stamp of sorts
-- the company anticipated portraits of Spot, the family dog,
not the spot on Monica Lewinsky's infamous blue dress. But
the Smoking Gun Web site decided to use the latter to
prove a point.
"We thought it was ridiculous -- a way to raise revenue by
letting anyone put their mug on a stamp," says William Bastone,
editor of thesmokinggun.com, a site owned by Court TV that
collects celebrity mug shots, quirky court reports and
government documents.
"For the longest time, stamps [were reserved for] statesmen,
people who helped do incredible things for the country. Now
it's devolved into Daffy Duck and every manner of dopey thing,"
he says."
"So Mr. Bastone and his colleagues decided to push the
envelope. Some of their more egregious submissions for the
stamps, like a mug shot of Lee Harvey Oswald, were swiftly
rejected by Stamps.com. But pictures of a high school-aged
Unabomber Ted Kaczynski, former Serbian leader Slobodan
Milosevic and Lewinsky confidante Linda Tripp -- along with
Ms. Lewinsky's dress -- are now legal postage."
"The Postal Service authorized Stamps.com to conduct a
two-month test of PhotoStamps, starting Aug. 10. The USPS
declined to comment on what would happen to the service
after the trial ends. Instead, a spokesman noted that the
service's next official stamp will feature John Wayne."
[So now's your window of opportunity to get your smiling
face on your own official U.S. postage stamp. If the one-
penny black is rare and valuable, how much will collectors
pay one day for the unique <insert your name here>?
-Editor]
MORE ON THE 1792 CENT
Peter Gaspar (E-Sylum proud subscriber #1) writes:
"Alan V. Weinberg's report on the newly reported specimen
of a plug-less 1792 silver center cent was extremely interesting.
I wonder whether any of the known specimens has been
subjected to a form of nondestructive analysis (e.g. electron
microprobe or x-ray fluorescence) capable of determining how
much silver is present. Eric Newman told me about a
December 18, 1792 letter from Jefferson to Washington
conveying two silver-center cents and stating that Mr.
Rittenhouse was about to make a few pieces from metal in
which the silver plug was fused with the copper. But the
Jefferson letter also stated that cents of the same size as the
silver-center pieces would be made of copper alone. Cents
would also be made four times as large, as ordered by
Congress.
The Jefferson letter raises the possibility that there are, or at
least were, two different small plug-less cents, one containing
as much silver as the plug, and the other without intentionally
added silver. (There may still be a small silver impurity in the
copper of those unalloyed small copper cents.) Is it known
whether the extant plug-less cents contain the plugs-worth
of silver? Or is it assumed that they do?"
In a subsequent note Peter added: " More on my previous
message. Touching one's keyboard before consulting Walter
Breen's writings is always dangerous, and this time was no
exception. In his Encyclopedia of U.S. coins, Breen quotes
the Jefferson 12/18/1792 letter and goes on to list the three
varieties: #1369 Silver center cent, Judd 1, about 12 known,
pedigrees for 11 specimens given, plus two perforated blanks
found by Frank Stewart at a Philadelphia mint site in 1909.
The weight of one silver center cent (Garrett 2347) is given
as 70.5 grains = 4.57 grams. Breen #1370 is a 1792 cent
from the same dies, billon, no silver plug, 2 known(?), 2
supposedly authenticated by chemical test, one ex-Harmer
Rooke 11/69, the other in Bowers Review, pp. 18-20
(1973-4) and Coin World, 12/4/74, p. 24, 1975 Suburban
Washington Convention Sale, lot 59. A weight is given for a
specimen in the ANA collection, 78.2 grains = 4.549 grams,
but this must be a typo since 78.2 grains = 5.067 grams and
4.549 grams = 70.2 grains.
Breen #1371, 1792 cent, same dies, copper, no silver plug,
Crosby plate 10, #22, Judd 2, figure 16 in Smithsonian
Bulletin 229, 1970 (V. Clain Stefanelli, History of the
National Numismatic Collection), Garrett 2448 whose weight
is given as 63.1 grains = 4.09 grams.
So the answer to my question with regard to previously
reported specimens is that the existence of two different
plug-less small 1792 cents was indeed recognized by Breen
and he listed all three varieties mentioned by Jefferson.
Judd 2 (in my sixth edition copy) purposely included both
plug-less varieties, with the notation that one of the known
pieces might be billon. My latest Red Book (2001) lists
only with- and without-silver center varieties.
That leaves the new Pittsburgh piece. Is it billon, made by
fusing silver and copper, or was it struck on a regular copper
planchet? The weight differences noted above are in the
right direction, but the sample weighed is so small that weight
would be as dangerous a sole criterion as color for
distinguishing Breen 1370 and 1371."
NAMES ON THE OLD ANS BUILDING
We never had a satisfactory answer to our recent quiz
question about the names carved in stone on the old
American Numismatic Society building in New York.
Lo and behold, the complete answer comes to us in a
sidebar to an article on the old building by Joseph Ciccone
in the Summer 2004 (vol 3, no. 2) issue of American
Numismatic Society Magazine (p23).
I won't still the beans all at once, but will use the list as
an opportunity for future quizzes. The first name is
someone who lived from 1737 to 1798, and "is
considered by many to be the founder of the science of
classical numismatics." His "major achievement is the
eight-volume Doctrina Nummorum Veterum..."
Who is he?
INVESTING IN COINS AND COLLECTIBLES
The August 29, 2004 issue of The New York Times had an
interesting article about investing in art and collectibles such
as coins. Professor Michael A. Moses, who teaches
management at New York University, spent four years
studying the value of artwork, and has created "an index that
tracks the value of art sold, mainly by the Sotheby's and
Christie's auction houses in New York. [The] index includes
more than 13,000 transactions going back to 1875."
He and his coauthor "published a report on the index in the
American Economic Review [in 2002]. By their calculations,
the value of art has kept pace with the Standard & Poor's
500-stock index over the last 50 years, though art's returns
have zigzagged more. "For people who have a 20- to 30-
year horizon, I have no problem talking about art as an
investment," Professor Moses said.
His view is not an orthodox one. Other people with knowledge
of financial matters and collectibles are far less convinced of
the investment potential of art, antiques, fine wine and rare
coins."
"Stocks and bonds go up in value because they're priced at
the present value of their future cash flows," Professor Guay
said. "An antique isn't going to generate any earnings or throw
off any cash. Stocks and bonds do. The only way you're
going to make money on an antique is selling it to someone
who likes it more than you do."
"There are only so many buyers for a given set of works,
and they're not all sitting ready to spend money on you,"
"When dealers sell such a work, they typically get a bigger
cut than brokers who sell stocks and bonds, said Jeffrey E.
Daniher, a Cincinnati financial planner and coin collector.
Markets for collectibles tend to be small and inefficient, he
said, and dealers have often incurred high costs for storage
and insurance they want to pass along to buyers."
On the other hand: "When my WorldCom stock went sour, I
didn't have anything but a piece of paper," Dr. Brager said.
"If the market for wine takes a downturn, I've still got the
wine to drink."
To read the full article, see:
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/08/29/business/yourmoney/29coll.html
(Registration required)
THIEVES DUMP COLLECTION IN COINSTAR MACHINE
"Most people save their loose change and quite a few use
automated coin counter machines like the one in the local
Winn Dixie to change all those coins into dollars. But, when
store employees noticed two teens changing more than $3000
in coins Sunday night, they got a little suspicious and called
police. That one call resulted in their arrest and a burglary
solved before the homeowner even knew he was a victim.
The two 17-year-old boys first entered the store at about 9:00
p.m. with a bucket of coins and placed then in the Coinstar
machine cashing them in for $1,173.85. They returned about
45 minutes later with a green duffle bag and cashed more
coins in for $1,974.82. "
"When he was searched, officers found $98 in currency,
numerous old silver dollars and a nickel in a laminated holder.
Lying in plain view in the motel room were coins in collector
boxes, a video camera, and two green canvass duffle bags.
"One of the bags contained so many sets of coins, it took
two people to pick it up," said Chief Brannan."
"At this time, the sheriff's office has placed a hold on the coin
machine in an attempt to locate more of the collection."
To read the full story, see:
http://www.bcstandard.com/news/2004/0826/Front_Page/002.html
WORLD'S SLOWEST GETAWAY?
We sometimes highlight failed bank robbery attempts, not
because there's much of a numismatic connection, but
because it can be so much fun to see just how stupid thieves
can be. The latest report come from the "News of the Weird"
column:
"Two men were arrested in Dearborn, Mich., in July and
charged with robbing a Bank One branch, done in by a glitch
in their getaway plan. They had hopped on mountain bikes to
make their exit (which bank robbers have used with success
from time to time), but they were apparently unfamiliar with
the concept of a gearshift, and both men rode away in first
gear (or perhaps second), so slowly that one witness followed
them easily on foot, and a bank guard got close enough to
shoot one of them in the arm. They were quickly arrested.
[MSNBC.com, 7-15-04] "
See http://www.newsoftheweird.com/
FEATURED WEB SITE
This week's featured web site is an online version of the book
"Currency of the Isle of Man" by Charles Clay, M.D. The
book was printed for the Manx Society in MDCCCLXIX
(1869 if I'm reading that date correctly).
http://www.isle-of-man.com/manxnotebook/manxsoc/msvol17/
Wayne Homren
Numismatic Bibliomania Society
The Numismatic Bibliomania Society is a
non-profit organization promoting numismatic
literature. For more information please see
our web site at http://www.coinbooks.org/
There is a membership application available on
the web site. To join, print the application and
return it with your check to the address printed
on the application. Membership is only $15 to
addresses in North America, $20 elsewhere.
For those without web access, write to W. David
Perkins, NBS Secretary-Treasurer,
P.O. Box 3888, Littleton, CO 80161-3888.
For Asylum mailing address changes and other
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