Welcome to Something About Coins! Here are four interesting coin collecting articles in the news:
Mention the 2009 Lincoln copper cents, and suddenly you've got collectors' attention. In today's blog, Dave Harper brings up the value of these special copper cents and their possible impact, if any, on the new 2009 uncirculated Mint Set. Since the Mint Set is the only way to get the uncirculated pennies in the original copper composition with a nice satin finish, he predicts some collectors will remove the pennies from the set and sell them as individual pennies. Harper describes a clever way to tell if an individual penny is the copper version, and not the zinc. He shares an old recipe for a homemade popsicle stick scale.
Mike Thorne covered the topic of copper in U.S. coins minted in the late 1850's in yesterday's article on NumisMaster.com. It's a helpful piece for collectors wanting to start a short new set of 19th century coinage. He described how the large copper cents became small copper-nickel alloy cents, and how an advertising campaign succeeded at making the 1856 flying eagle cents famous. Mintages, varieties, and today's values in different grades are all discussed.
It's that time of year again for the biggest registry competition ever, the Numismatic Guaranty Corporation (NGC) announced this week. The NGC Registry Awards recognize the top collector sets in several categories. Entries will be accepted until December 10th, and NGC will award the top sets on January 8, 2010. A new change was added to the ceremony. This year, one Grand Prize Winner will be selected from the category winners, and will get to meet one-on-one with a NGC Numismatist to comb over the best set.
It's also that time of year to start planning for the holidays. The Royal Canadian Mint, known for creative collector coins, came out with some great holiday gift ideas. There are several coins and sets from which to choose, and my favorite two are the 18-karat gold Year of the Tiger lunar hologram coin and the Swarovski Crystal Snowflake Silver Coin.
That's it for now! Have a great day!
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