Civil War Cut Short 'O' Mint Half Dollar Run
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Large silver coins are always interesting, but that usually means large numbers of collectors and sometimes high prices. The New Orleans Seated Liberty half dollar may be an exception to that rule as there is relatively little collector interest and that translates into good values on what are historic and very interesting issues.
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Organize Morgan Set By the Stories Coins Tell
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Many of us cannot really attempt a complete Morgan dollar set especially in the top grades. It is just an economic fact of life as some Morgans are significant rarities at the upper reaches of the grading scale.
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Rise of the Gold Standard in 14th-century England
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Coins of the first three Edwards & Richard II by Bruce Lorich
English hammered gold coins are so captivating in their designs, which invariably include intricate symbolism and Latin abbreviations of Biblical quotations favored by the respective monarchs, that many collectors focus too much on the coin designs, without understanding the historical motivations behind the coinages. Seen in their historical context, though, the coins become rich with meaning and a real reason for owning them occurs. A superb source of this information is C.H.V. Sutherland’s English Coinage 600-1900 (published 1973), which I condense here.
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The Availability of Rare Coins
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One thing that I’ve always found interesting about the coin market is the ebb and flow of coins that are (or aren’t) available. If you actively buy and sell coins for any period of time, you learn that certain “rare” issues or series always seem available. Other supposedly available coins can, with no good reason, go through fallow periods where they become very hard to find. |
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Are You Really Sure That's Money?
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We're being invaded, sort of. Perhaps someone has an overactive imagination or has stayed up too late at night. Coins have been recently appearing in the name of such places as the British Indian Ocean Territory, Darfur, Easter Island, Eregion, Galapagos Islands, L'ile d'Heliopolis, Massacre Island, Mosquitos, Nichtsburg et Zilchstadt, Sant Jordi, Stoltenhoff Island, and even Tatarstan. About the only place in whose name coins aren't being issued isn't of this earth. This would be the space station orbiting around us somewhere up there.
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If I Collected Coins What Would I Collect?
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I often (OK, not often but at least occasionally) get asked the question "what kind of coins do you collect?" I don't currently collect coins because I think that, as a dealer, being a collector is an inherent conflict; I don't ever want to have an internal debate with myself about whether or not I should sell a coin that I buy. But I do have a pretty good idea about what I would collect if I were actually collecting. |
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How To “Brand” Your Coin Collection
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You're a serious coin collector. You've done all the “right” things. You've learned how to grade. You've become a knowledgeable specialist. You've worked exclusively with one or two exceptional dealers. Your collection is well on the way to being complete but you aren’t ready to sell it. What can you do in the interim to add value to it? |
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Collecting CC Morgans
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I think it's fair to say that the Morgan dollar, minted from 1878-1904 and then again in 1921, is one of the most widely collected of all U.S. coins. Of course, for most young people who began collecting coins when I did (in the 1950s), silver dollars were available at banks but too expensive to collect. After all, you could retrieve 100 scarce Lincoln cents from circulation for what it would cost you to set aside one silver dollar.
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Counterfeiters and Authenticators Do Battle
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Recently, I wrote a brief synopsis covering the evolution of counterfeit coins that I have witnessed since becoming a professional authenticator in 1972. To continue along this track, let's roll back the clock a few years and review some of the characteristics commonly seen on older struck counterfeits. |
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Opportunities for Collectors in a Generic-Oriented Market
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After I left what was, for me, a very productive Baltimore coin show, I was sitting in a restaurant at BWI airport, eating a crab cake. As I was finishing up, a dealer who I don’t know that well but who I respect for his knowledge and his connections came up and asked if he could join me before our respective flights left. As you can no doubt guess, our conversation almost immediately turned to the market.
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