News Archive (2008)

December	November	October
September	August

International News at Coins Market

Gold Crashes 4%, Dow/Gold Ratio Bounces from 14-Year Low, as Credit Crisis Hits China
BullionVault

Gold Bullion prices twice bounced off this week's support at $830 an ounce early Thursday, before crashing down to $795 a 4% drop as New York opened to better-than-expected US economic data.

Inflation in consumer prices last month slipped from 5.4% in Aug. to 4.9% year-on-year. Stripping out "volatile" food and energy costs, however, so-called core CPI held at 2.5% as medical care and other services pushed higher.

Economic uncertainty
Mark Ferguson

The coin market is feeling the effects of the economy more than at any other time in recent history, possibly the most since during the high inflationary days of the late 1970s and early 1980s. "High impact" events have been happening almost daily recently, deepening the current crisis and adding new factors to the mix.

With Wall Street in a funk and the global economy in turmoil, collectors say the market for coins and precious metals is complex and bizarre and pinning down prices has proved to be elusive.

The United States Mint on Wednesday introduced newly designed 2009 Presidential $1 coins and released detailed artist images of the dollars. The American public will see 2009 circulating coins honoring Presidents William Henry Harrison, John Tyler, James K. Polk and Zachary Taylor. Most interestingly, different design elements have been implemented compared to the initial series of 2007 and 2008 coins.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7625570.stm

The number of fake £1 coins in circulation has doubled in the last five years and now stands at more than 30 million, the BBC has learned.

This means one in every 50 pound coins in circulation is counterfeit.

Experts believe the fakes are being produced by organised criminal gangs using specialist machinery.

This month as a tribute to the memory of Charles Hoskins, my former boss and mentor, I'll share with you what I remember about my first authentication lesson at ANACS in 1972.

Hoskins was the first director of the American Numismatic Association Certification Service. In the beginning, ANACS was a two-person operation on an upper floor of an old office building overlooking Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington, D.C. If you have ever seen an old movie from the 1940s or 1950s with a detective's office, you'll understand the setting.

Coin series including the Chinese Lunar Zodiac, Vignettes of Royalty, Playing Card Money and Crystal Snowflakes and new NHL© coin and gift products join the team

The Royal Canadian Mint today issued its latest release of collector coins and gift products for 2008—just in time for the holiday season.

LONDON, Oct 3 (Reuters) - Gold slipped to two-week lows on Friday as the dollar rallied and the market waited for an expected vote by the U.S. Congress on a $700 billion bailout package for financial firms.

LONDON — Sales of gold by European central banks are likely to be lower than expected over the next year as the global banking crisis boosts bullion's appeal as a “safe” reserve asset.

And banks elsewhere in the world, most notably in Asia and the Middle East, may even become buyers of gold in an attempt to diversify their reserves away from the U.S. dollar, analysts say.

From Chris Mullen at GoldSeek.com...

Gold fell nearly 2% in Asia and London on Thursday before tumbling even further in New York as the Dow, Nasdaq, and S&P fell hard on bail-out uncertainty.

Gold Bullion then rebounded $13.60 from its low in the last couple of hours of trade, but it still ended with a loss of 4.5%.